Harley Quinn and the Joker’s stylized looks recently took the world by storm in Suicide Squad. With the help of Teri Groves, we’re teaching you how to recreate the makeup for the characters, and then heading out for a fun photo shoot. We’ve got fog and gels and a huge fan on set, so let’s get started and see what we can do.
It was pretty hot on the day of the shoot, so Teri and the talent met together indoors to do makeup before heading out to the location where the crew and I were getting the set ready to go. We made a lot of the props ourselves, and ordered others on Amazon. For a list of products we used available for purchase, see our affiliate links below.
Teri did a great job with the makeup for Joker and Harley Quinn, and then they headed out onto location to join us on set. We wanted a really stylized look for these photos, to fit in with the theme of the movie. We pulled out a giant fan and had that going in the background to get some movement in the smoke from our two Rosco vapor machines. We had three Baja B4 and B6‘s from Dynalite as rims- one with a red gel, and two with a blue gel to get that comic book feel- and then had a fourth Baja up front lighting Harley Quinn and the Joker with a grid for our main light. We did have an additional small fill on another Baja with a Photoflex medium softbox, to soften up those harsh shadows from the grid just a bit. And the LED we put up to give us some light to work with actually ended up giving off just a tiny bit of fill as well as I slowed my shutter down as it got darker.
That smoke coming through the fan and around Harley Quinn and the Joker is lit up by the gels and really gives us a nice look. Remember, if you’re trying to get some atmosphere in your photos, smoke is a great way to go. You can do some neat things by throwing light and color on it like we did here. It really changes up the feel of your photos if that’s what you’re going for.
So let’s look at some of the results. I used the Tamron 85mm lens on the Canon 5D Mark III to shoot these with. I also had my Spider Holster in order to be able to work a little better on set. I could put that right in the holder and have my hands free to move my key light around, back and forth from Joker to Harley Quinn. It worked out great.
This shoot was a lot of fun. Valerie Heckel and Robert MacEwen were great to work with, and of course Teri always does a great job on makeup. Here’s a list of the makeup she used on our Harley Quinn and Joker. Get out there and create your own! Keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’.
-Jay P.
Makeup-
C1 True Match Foundation http://amzn.to/2dvXHWq
MAC Carbon eye shadow: http://amzn.to/2dw4PiS
Rust eye shadow by La Femme
Smashbox Black Liquid eyeliner http://amzn.to/2dyjY2g
Tweezers http://amzn.to/2dw875V
Skin illustrators alcohol mardi Gras colors http://amzn.to/2dyrJ8v
Jouer red lipstick http://amzn.to/2dw1vXF
Maybelline mascara http://amzn.to/2dw1RO7
Tattoo pen http://amzn.to/2dw8zkC
Cinema Secrets brush cleaner http://amzn.to/2cVqVMM
Eyelash adhesive: http://amzn.to/2dBWyZb
Eyelashes: http://amzn.to/2d6JzzQ
MAC red lip liner: http://amzn.to/2dVQfQc
Ring light: http://amzn.to/2dymTrt
The Paw Palette
Wooden Bat: http://amzn.to/2dPQtw5
My Tog Tees: bit.ly/togteestsl