When Kristos Clarke was a teenager she would watch scary movies — not for the adrenalin rush that comes from being spooked, but rather for artistic inspiration.Now the budding make-up artist has been making a name for herself on the Island through her gruesome and realistic Halloween face-painting designs.On Saturday she was busy from the start of the workday until 9pm turning some of the Island’s partygoers into a host of devilish and sweet characters at Lush Makeup Lash & Brow Bar.A trained cosmetologist, Ms Clarke said she became interested in make-up design from an early age and spent years expanding on her classroom knowledge through trial and error.“I was fascinated with scary movies when I was younger and how they did the scars and cuts on people’s faces. I wasn’t into watching the scary parts of the film, but how [the characters] were made up.“I used to like Freddy Krueger, but ‘Vampire in Brooklyn’ has always been my favourite when [the main character played by Eddie Murphy] would turn into the vampire and how they made the skin effects and all the different faces.”Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video was also an inspiration in her early years.She remembered asking her mom to get her a make-up kit, but it was too expensive “so I would put wet tissue paper on my face and try different looks.”Ms Clarke continues to use tissue paper and other easily accessible materials, like packaged ‘blood’ from the pharmacy, to get the three-dimensional effects for her designs.“Make-up artists [typically] use silicone or prosthetics for scars, I try and look at other products and everyday products to create the look,” she explained. “I do it the cheaper way and the way I could think of doing it, using eyelash glue, gauze and toilet paper.“I layer the gauze and the eyelash glue, then I cut it and pull some of it back to make it look like some of the skin is coming off,” she said of one of her latest creations.She then paints over the ‘blood’ with black, brown and red make-up to create more definition in the cut.Ms Clarke said she was always an artistic student growing up in New York. By the time she reached her teenage years she decided to pursue a cosmetology programme at the same time as getting her high school degree.She graduated from The Art Institute for Art and Design at 21-years-old, then worked at the MAC Cosmetics location in Herald Square, New York.Eventually she decided to move back to the Island and briefly settled into an office job, “but I didn’t stick with it,” she said. “My grandmother always says I have different eyes and see things differently.”The 30-year-old has done make-up for fashion events on the Island and uses some of those same tricks in her Halloween designs. She said not everyone wanted to be covered in fake blood and look scary, some want a mixture of “pretty ugly” make-up for the season.She said the hardest part of the process was usually interpreting someone’s idea. Ms Clarke said: “I [tend to] think outside of the box or on another level at times so I might have a completely different vision than someone else.“Ninety five percent of the time the outcome is on point, but I always ask for a picture or idea of what the client is asking for.”The hard work always pays off when she see’s people leaving the salon happy. She is particularly proud considering much of her work with prosthetics and scars was self taught.A trend she has seen this year is people bringing back old characters from the past, like movie villain Chucky, Alice in Wonderland and creatures from Dr Seuss.“I think people are going all out this year. Compared to last year where it was about others dressing like [singer] Nicki Minaj, people are being more creative.”Ms Clarke said she was looking at dressing like a witch and wearing either silver or white contact lenses, crazy, big hair and pretty make up. Her favourite part of Halloween is seeing people have fun and forget the cares of the world.“It’s celebrating the dead, without making fun of it,” she said of the holiday. “I think it gives everyone an opportunity to come together and have fun and celebrate, children more so for me, like the trick-or-treaters. But even adults get to be more childish which we don’t get a chance to do or an excuse to do often enough.“In Bermuda people take things too serious and sometimes they need an excuse to act more childlike and have fun.”