Looking Scary

sfoster

Staff Member
Moderator
Apparently the key to looking scary is.... white face?


Pennywise clown from IT
Michael Meyers from halloween
Joker from batman
The Nun from the nun
Drowned Girl from The Ring
Jigsaw Doll from Saw
Jason from Friday the 13th
Masks from The Strangers

Has it become a cliche trope at this point? To have a scary villain and put them in white face
 
It, The Joker and Jigsaw doll are the same things. Basically, a clown or puppet and all the others are just naturally white/caucasian. So no white has nothing to do with being scary.
 
quality never ceases to amaze me

michael meyers and jason masks are not naturally caucasion theyre masks man
white face masks

and nothing about this nun is a natural skin tone either, not a single damn thing I listed makes any sense with what you wrote. what are you thinking calling this natural? please.

The-Nun-2018-MOVIE-Corin-Hardy-2.jpg


I will take this post to add some more to the list though

Almost all undead.
Vampires
Zombies
Ghosts


The whiteface killings continue
 
You are overlooking the contrast. From German expressionism to noir. Light and shadow, and to the extreme = sinisterism. Look around the eyes. Under the nose. The cheeks. And the mouth. And don't just look at the tone that is lit. Is it scary? Yes. So why should it end? Also pale = dead or undead etc. Are these faces not scary to you? How would you change it?
 
Are these faces not scary to you? How would you change it?

Theyre scary.

I'm trying to create my own scary looking character so your question is what i've been asking myself.
How would I change it? IDK maybe this is one of those scenarios that you dont want to reinvent the wheel.

Like the last 3 posts have mentioned, dead and undead, the blood is gone and the skin turns pale.
Few things are scarier than death.
 
Are you writing the story around the new character or shoehorning the new character in?

Scary could be a red face, missing the skin of the face, so you see bugged out eyes, nose holes, blood and veins... perhaps. The red face is the stage where he needs a new one and must kill his next victim for their face and impersonate them until his body rejects the face and the cycle repeats. Haha!
 
Kinda reminds me of Dark Man a little bit.
I'm not going supernatural though. More like the joker than dark man.

I guess you could say i'm shoehorning into the story.. I've been developing the story and my character is so evil now I need an appearance to match. Give em some real style so that theyre recognizable as an icon.
 
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Yes but once again I believe it comes down to contrast and makeup done right. Take the Joker example:

TV (not scary)
cesar_romero_joker.jpg

MOVIES (scary)
heath_ledger_joker.jpg
 
The dark eyes help a lot, they make his face look like a skull.

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I never noticed that heath's joker doesnt have eyebrows until just now.
Damn i can be oblivious sometimes
 
They look like they are faded into the upper black.

You can see Cesar Romero's mustache stubble lol.
 
Drag queens will fade eyebrows away with flesh colored makeup so you can definitely fade eyebrows into black or white... either way he doesn't have them showing. And never grows any stubble when he's arrested at the police station. Part of that uncanny valley.
 
White = the pallor of death, and we all fear death.

It also can be the distortion of the human figure (i.e Frankenstein, "Freaks"), exaggerated features (such as pointed teeth - vampires, werewolves) or lack of them (Voldemorts reptilian nose). Hmmm… I guess that it's the blending of animalistic features into the human form that is the most scary until you get into actual creatures.

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Just for fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHywdqH3F6Y
 
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