Monster Academy

Facebook Instagram Envelope
Menu

                                            ABOUT US

Special Effects Make-up is a growing creative passion for young people keen to get into the film industry, to create incredible insta worthy looks and FX, to have the best make-up at Halloween or any other Cosplay event, as well as many the many other reasons to love the gore and the glamour of this specialist field of make-up.

Here at Monster Academy we provide a variety of different super fun special effects make up and character creation workshops and parties, using safe professional products. Ranging from a full day of creative SFX make up, face painting and character creation to a couple of hours introduction to some essential basic techniques.

We can offer Workshops, Taster Sessions, Demos or Short Courses for  corporate promotions, organisations, schools & colleges, groups and events.

Whether it’s to give the youngsters something fun to do, to teach new skills, to incorporate full on character design, these sessions can be designed specifically around your needs. Particularly if connected to a particular theme, film, story or even bringing history to life.

Our taster sessions or demos work well at a variety of Corporate Events, Halloween events, Horror & Comic Cons, Film Festivals and Theatrical Festivals. Great for home ed groups and for drama, theatre or film students. It doesn’t have always be gory we are also known to indulge in a bucket load of glitz and glam, so the possibilities are endless.

One students exploration of the Bubonic Plague through Buboes.
On the hoof demos and tutorials at Follies Spooky Waffle Jam, Ken
This student was looking to get sent home from the war, purposefully getting injured by lifting her hand above the trenches.

Meet the Original Monsters!

MONSTER ACADEMY is brought to you by ‘old’ friends, prosthetic make-up artist, Miss Hannah Delightful, who has helped create amazing characters on Game of Thrones, Dr Strange and Maleficent 2 among many other films, and professional face painter Miss Zöe Frightful, who left a 15 year career in television producing and directing to have more fun with paint and magic.

Hannah and Zöe

Hannah and Zöe first met on the set of a short film being shot on the Isle of Wight, in 2001. It was Hannah’s first ever make-up job and she was providing the blood & wounds for a battle scene. Zöe having made the move from Isle of Wight television channel TV12 to ‘big telly’ on Watercolour Challenge, was there filming some behind the scenes footage for Director Dan Tucker. Both at early stages of their careers and both with a love of fancy dress they became firm friends instantly.

Hannah and Zöe worked on various film and television projects from there and in 2003 they they set off an awfully big adventure to India together, working on a film called Road to Ladakh, directed by Ashvin Kumar, shooting in the Himalayas. Hannah was there of course to provide the blood gag and make-up, whilst it was Zoe’s 2ndever job as a 1stAD and it was in a different country with a different culture and working practise!

‘It was an amazing experience with a lot of laughter and just a splash of disaster!’

Including crumbling mountain roads and a convoy of fifteen vehicles and two trucks carting generators, a twenty foot crane, tents and camping gear and a crew from all over the world; an ambitious 16 day schedule of which 6 days were lost to various crisis, working at altitude, limited health and safety, rain where they hadn’t seen it for a decade, flooding tents, sickness, on the one day a certain MUA wasn’t sick she decided to walk into a door and give herself concussion, the line producer disappeared with all the money, an inebriated driver smashing the windscreen of the main characters vehicle; landslides meant no fuel was reaching the mountains, film stock was running out – and somehow the film got made, you know somehow they always do.

Now Zöe wouldn’t say that this experience put her off film but she went back into producing and directing Factual Entertainment and Documentary television, while Hannah now totally battle ready continued to pursue her love of Prosthetic Make-Up after a couple fo short films she landed a dream job on Mel Gibsons Apocolypto, filming in Mexico. Her obvious talent and enthusiasm was not missed and her career blossomed from there. Working on many interesting and incredible films, her favourite one to work on is still Apocolypto.

Coming Full Circle

15 years on Zöe left her television career to follow a more creative passion in face painting and body art. She began to realise that there are a lot of amazingly talented self-taught young people sitting their rooms creating these fantastic character looks with the help of the internet. BUT amongst the brilliant tutorials by extremely talented generous artists, there are also some irresponsible ones e.g. it is NOT OK to use real glass on the face.

Hannah and Zöe spoke passionately about this for years and they really wanted do to something about it. They wanted to create something especially for young people, that would facilitate all this creativity and talent whilst emphasising product safety. Which would let them learn and play with special effects make-up products, let them be themselves and grow, gaining self confidence and self-esteem along the way.

So Monster Academy was born and for Hannah and Zöe it’s amazing to have come full circle and to be able to work together again, doing something they love and to have the privilege to share all of this with the students.