updated: 04/03/2007
For her final prosthetic makeup project at the Nordic Institute of Stage and Studio (NISS), Steinuum Bachmann Josteinsdottir transformed fellow-student Nina, a blue-eyed blonde, into a Musi tribeswoman. The transformation is astounding and based on careful research.
I first saw this makeup when it was entered in the character makeup contest run by Makeup Artist Magazine on its Message Board; I emailed Steinunn and asked if I could include it in themakeupgallery – I’m pleased she’s agreed and let me use images both of the completed makeup and of the makeup application.
Steinuum told me:
My character is made in nine pieces: the ears are split in two pieces each, then the forehead is one, the nose, cheek and chin is one piece, and the lip is one. I made the lip plate in poly foam, and air brushed it with skin illustrator. The mask itself is made in foam latex. I painted it with PAX, RGP, and skin illustrator. I had many references to make her look as real as possible the model is wearing contacts! Her name is Nina, and she was a student as well . . . this was my final project at NISS in Norway . . . I had this great teacher. His name is Jim Undenberg.
The Mursi are a Sub-Saharan African nomadic cattle-herding tribe from an isolated region of southwestern Ethiopia close to the Sudanese border. The Mursi women are famous of wearing plates in their lower lips – though photographs indicate that, in fact, either lip may be pierced. The practice is supposed to have originated as a means of detering slave-traders; as the lips are not pierced until girls are aged fifteen or sixteen this seems unlikely. The lip discs are made of clay and, yes, they are removed for eating.