Facing the Fantasy: Minooka Woman Specializes in Stage Makeup

Jessica Zulkoski, of , has an arsenal that can make you look like you’re bleeding or that you have a wound or conversely, make you look beautiful. Stage makeup is her craft, and she has the tools that can make your skin and face look monstrously frightening or fetchingly beautiful.

A 2011 graduate of Illinois State University, Zulkoski fell in love with the art of applying makeup when she took a class in stage makeup in her junior year. When she posted pictures of the people that she had made up, and the faces and wounds that she’d created from makeup and prosthetics, people told her “Oh, those are really good.” It was then that the theatre education major experienced a change of heart, and changed her major to creative drama.

“This is more of a specialty thing. It’s a rising field. All the kids want their makeup done for homecoming, proms and weddings.” She includes Halloween or costume effects in the events for which she can be hired.

Part of her interest stemmed from her longtime interest in the arts — “drawing and painting and that kind of thing.”

“Animals, fantasy, blood and gore — these require a different skill level” for makeup application, she said. She recognizes that actors can do some simple makeup themselves. But she believes her skill levels go beyond ordinary everyday makeup to a more complicated world working with makeup application, and such tools as applying fake wounds or facial characteristics with prosthetics.

Once her interest was piqued in the craft, she spent her last semester of college as a student assistant under Mark Spain, who teaches the theatre makeup class. She learned the techniques not only of applying makeup, but also of airbrushing, prosthetics, wig preparation and customized special effects. She also was the sole makeup artist for the 2011 Illinois State University Spring Dance Concert.

With having had a chance to both direct and do makeup, Jessica understands how the person doing the makeup supports the larger effort of the filmmaker or director.

“Everybody that works behind the scenes has to work together. Makeup is a part of that.”

She said she has been asked to do the makeup for a Chicago-based independent film, which is not yet under way.

For more information or to contact Jessica about special makeup effects, email imagine.makeupdesign@gmail.com.