Halloween – 3D Spider Face Painting

Today’s tutorial is a good option for a last minute Halloween makeup idea! If you still haven’t decide what to do for Halloween, you can try to do this quick 3D Spider Face Painting look! Let me tell you that I have no background whatsoever in Art, and I managed to complete this look in about 20-minute. It’s fast, easy, and you don’t need many tools to create this 3D spider. You can also do it anywhere on your face/body. Actually my sister wanted me to do this on her face for Halloween when I showed it to her. So, there you go! A last minute Halloween idea without the need to wear any costumes!

So, I googled “Black Widow Spider” and also “realistic spider tattoo” to be used as reference for this look. You’ll see a tons of images on the web, so just pick one you like, and put it in front of you when you’re doing this. It’s a lot easier to create this look when you have a visual right in front of you.

All you need for this tutorial is:

  1. Image of spider (or tattoo)
  2. Brown eyeliner or eyebrow pencil (optional)
  3. Black liquid pen eyeliner – the easiest to work with. Try to find a pen-type liquid eyeliner so you can use it like you would use a marker.
  4. Red face paint or lip liner or lipstick
  5. White face paint or eyeliner
  6. Black pencil eyeliner

For brands I used, please check out the list of products at the end of the tutorial.

How-to:

1. I began by sketching out the outline of the spider on my arm using a brown eyebrow pencil.

2. Using the same brown pencil, I also sketched out where the shadows of the legs and body going to be. Make sure the “shadows” are thinner (use less pressure on the pencil). This way, you won’t mistook the legs from the shadow.

3. Using a black eyeliner pen, I thickened the body and legs of the spider.

  • The spider legs have 3 parts – upper thigh, middle thigh, and the long thin thigh. These thighs are separated by 2 joints. The easiest way to imagine the way their legs work is to look at your finger, or just use your reference photo as a sample.
  • To draw the thigh, just create a long almond-ish shape (look at photo below to see what I mean).

4. I created the red marking of the “Black Widow” spider using a red face paint, then I filled out the rest of the body using a black liquid eyeliner.

5. I filled in the gap on the thighs using the same black liquid pen eyeliner.

6. I cleaned up any excess of the sketch from step 1 using Maybelline Clean Express Mineral Water and cotton bud (i.e. q-tip).

  • For example, you can see that I made the top front leg slightly shorter with the black eyeliner than my initial sketch using brown eyeliner.

7. You can skip this step if you want to, but I darken the shadow of the legs and body slightly using a black pencil eyeliner.

  • Make sure all the shadows of the legs touched the tip of the spider’s “real” leg where it touches your body. This will create that 3D effect, where it looks like the spider is on your body.

8. Lastly, using the tip of an eyeliner brush and a white face paint, I applied some highlight on the legs of the spider and 4 dots on the head, and VOILA! DONE!

Don’t forget to check the rest of my Halloween tutorials!

realistic spider face paint

Products used:

  1. Brown eyebrow pencil – Chanel eyebrow pencil
  2. Black liquid pen eyeliner – Shu Uemura Calligraphy:ink eyeliner pen
  3. Red face paint – Snazaroo classic red face paint
  4. Black eyeliner pencil – Revlon photoready eyeliner pencil in Carbon Cleopatra
  5. White face paint – Snazaroo classic white face paint

Don’t forget to check the rest of my Halloween tutorials!