Customer Reviews

Stage Makeup: The Actor's Complete Guide to Today's Techniques and Materials (Watson Guptill Famous Artists)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At last--a makeup book that doesn't aspire to be the encyclopedic end-all; instead, it teaches techniques that all theatre students should master for the roles they play most often. The full-color photos are second to none, and Thudium's recommendations for makeup products that are kind to young actors' faces -- such as Mehron's wonderful Celebre line -- make this an ideal text for advanced high school students as well as for those attending colleges and universities. I've always been a Corson devotee, but this excellent source has convinced me that, while Corson's book should be available for reference, Thudium's book should be number one on the high school, college, or university instructor's list.

I'm an absolute beginner in makeup, even though I'm in my 30's. My recent interest in Theatrical makeup led me to buy this book. I was EXTREMELY delighted to find clear pictures presented on a variety of faces and skin types. The book is layed out very like a college text with examples and exercises. I found it VERY useful in developing a solid foundation (hee hee!) in doing my own and others makeup.

I am so happy I stumbled upon this book. I've been teaching stage makeup at various universities for over five years and using the Corson book. This book offers clear, color, step-by-step, examples of the basic makeup techniques I cover in my course. The only other book this easy to follow is Makeup for Theatre, Film, and Television by Baygen and it's out of print. This is definately my new course book.

The design techniques for basic contouring and period make-up are solid and the full color photos are helpful. Also, the author includes solid instructions for tranfering drawn schematics onto the face. The "fantasy" make-up section though is a joke-she showcases design projects from her jr. high/high school classes and many more closely resemble advanced face-painting instead of useful stage techniques. Unfortunately this book is still superior to many beginning stage make-up books on the market.

I'm active in community theater and needed some guidance on makeup. I'm at a disadvantage because I never had the classroom training in makeup that theater students receive, and misinformation about makeup techniques is rampant in the community theater world. For somebody like me, Laura Thudium's Stage Makeup is a gold mine. Unlike most other books on makeup (which have lots of confusing verbiage and small black-and-white pictures), Thudium's book has many large, detailed color photographs of the most common makeup applications, accompanied by very clear, brief explanations of the underlying principles.

I am currently in a production where I play an 80-year-old man (I'm actually 51) and I used Thudium's book as my guide. I'm getting lots of compliments on how realistic my old-age makeup is.

This is an excellent book for novice to veteran actors. Also good for makeup/costume crew.

I have used this as the textbook for three beginning makeup classes and really like it. It is ideal for college students who are just starting to do makeup. The pictures are large, and in color, and the instructions are clear. I like the period styles section very much. It is nice to use a textbook for a beginning course that doesn't cost too much too. Many of the students in my classes are only going to take the one class and they need to know how to put makeup on for the shows they will be acting in. Since they also have to buy a makeup kit for the class, buying an expensive, encyclopedic text would be a hardship and wouldn't be useful. This book is the best I have found for beginners.

This is a good book to introduce you in the world of Stage Makeup. The book has many photos with makeups step-by-step, and good texts. I'm brasilian and it was a suggestion of my makeup teacher, that studied stage and movie makeup in Hollywood. It's a good choice to study this tecniques.

This was one of serveral make up effect books recommended at a recent Worldcon by a number of professional makeup artists. It is geared towards makeup specifically for the STAGE. The information contained within is excellent for that purpose, in fact, it's beyond excellent.

The stuff covered in this book was covered in a beginning Theater Stage Makeup class within the first week or so, beyond that I never really touched it. It's good for teaching you how to do basic character shading, old age, etc. but not for much else. I feel like a lot of things are either very outdated or just dumbed down a lot. However, it is much cheaper than most makeup text books out there so I was glad my professor chose to use this one. However, I think that since I had that personal instruction I could have gotten by without the book just as easily.