Black Panther is nothing short of groundbreaking, with its main hero role personified by the late actor Chadwick Boseman. Now, four years after the original was released, a new champion arises to protect and defend Wakanda in the latest installment, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
With a cast comprised mainly of people of color, including actors Angela Bassett , Lupita Nyong'o , Letitia Wright , Danai Gurira , Dominique Thorne , Winston Duke , and Michaela Coel , the Black Panther franchise aims to celebrate the multi-faceted nature of Black and Brown beauty through its wide range of hair and makeup styling.
Celebrity hairstylist Camille Friend and makeup artist to the stars Joel Harlow helmed the beauty looks seen in the new film, which were largely based on a combination of Mayan and African cultures. Ahead of its highly anticipated release, Friend and Harlow share an inside scoop on how their creative vision for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever came to life, their short list of on-set holy-grail products, and the most challenging part about executing these otherworldly hair and makeup designs.
Joel Harlow: The makeup looks in Wakanda Forever are similar in overall approach to the looks seen in the first film. However, they do differ from the first film in technical methodology. The looks also differ with character evolvement and change to reflect the current state and age of each character. Additionally, we also got the opportunity to expand our work with the introduction of the new Talokan civilization and the Midnight Angels.
CF: Here are some of my favorite beauty products that were used in the movie:. It was more of a tool. The airbrush. The Talokanil appear blue when out of the water. The airbrush was instrumental in translating natural tones of the blue skin into what was essentially beauty makeup for our lead Talokan females. In addition to the blue skin tones, we also created facial jewelry and respirators for them once they are on dry land. All of these began as sculpted augmentations. They were ultimately transformed into silicone prosthetics finessed with dozens of layers of paint to achieve a realistic jade look.
