Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Actor Amitabh Bachchan’s look in ‘Paa’, Akshay Kumar in ‘Robot 2.0’ and Ranbir Kapoor in ‘Animal’ were the products of a technique called ‘prosthetic makeup’, said Amod Doshi, a prosthetic makeup artist from Pune.
Doshi told the Free Press that the demand for prosthetic makeup has increased manifold due to movies and web series turning more realistic. There is tremendous scope for the technique’s practitioners in cities like Bhopal, which are emerging hubs for shooting web and TV series and movies, he added. Doshi was in the city to attend a five-day workshop on prosthetic makeup. He has done prosthetic makeup for top actors in films like ‘Fanaa’ (Aamir Khan), ‘Aaja Nachle’ (Konkona Sen) and ‘NTR: Mahanayakudu’ -a biopic on actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao, besides 150-plus other Bollywood, Tollywood and Hollywood films.
Prosthetic makeup can turn those with a thick crop of hair bald, create baby bumps and give exotic and out-of-the-world looks, besides creating authentic-looking severed and burnt limbs, and more. “Prosthetic makeup is not only about technique. It also requires a lot of creativity,” he said. Doshi, who has been a makeup artist for almost 26 years and has trained under film industry greats like Vikram Gaikwad and Pandhari Juker, said that the technique was purely skill-based. “You require no formal training and you can be of any age group to become a prosthetic makeup artist,” he said. Doshi who had created Rajpal Yadav’s look in Netflix movie ‘Kathal’ and also contributed to ‘Taali’, a film on a transgender activist, said that there were barely half-a-dozen good prosthetic makeup artists in the country. He said that the remuneration for prosthetic artists ranges from Rs 7,000 to Rs 5 lakh per shift. “The highest payment is reserved for artists who can create look-alikes,” he said.
Doshi said that they use silicon-based materials for makeup. “Latex or rubber is used to give the skin a burnt look. We can also create artificial blood, which looks real,” he said. Besides the entertainment industry, prosthetic makeup artists are also in demand for fashioning the looks of participants in Halloween parties, he further said. Doshi said that Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles in the USA was the only institution in the world that runs a formal course in prosthetic makeup. “The fee is quite high, around Rs 1 crore in Indian currency,” he added.
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