A lot of effort went into the creation of the Sexy Beasts masks, and we're here to talk about how those masks were made. The dating show features a cast of heavily disguised singles looking for significant others without being influenced by physical appearance. Like another Netflix series, Love is Blind, members of Sexy Beasts are unable to see one another at initial meetings. However, unlike Love is Blind, which separates potential love interests in multiple rooms, Sexy Beasts hides faces with wacky prosthetics.
Since the first trailer premiered in June, Sexy Beasts has turned heads with its unusual concept. From the trailer alone, viewers were taken aback by the participants' casually donning anything from dolphin heads and troll masks to bird beaks and devil horns. Viewers themselves have reported feeling disturbed by the show, with a Reddit user calling it, "nightmare fuel." The show's attempts to preach that what matters is on the inside seem to have fallen flat, given the general response. While the show has the genuine element that looks don't matter, and it's all about personality instead of appearance, the Sexy Beasts premise still managed to astonish viewers. However, regardless of how people feel about what happens on the show, there is no denying the creativity of the makeup and prosthetic design. The inventive disguises are all thanks to makeup artist Kristyan Mallet.
Kristyan Mallet is a professional makeup artist
According to his IMDb page, Kristyan comes from Cromer, Norfolk in England. He has spent his career working in movie makeup departments and has over 200 film credits. Some of his work includes Pirates of the Caribbean, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Harry Potter franchise. Before the 2021 revival, he also worked on the original Sexy Beasts, which aired in the UK. His KM Effects website states that he is one of the world's leading professionals in special effects makeup. He and his KM Effects Ltd. staff use prosthetic sculpting, molding, and casting to create exotic character masks for film and television.
Kristyan created masks with his team
He began with concept art of multiple characters to hide the faces of the Sexy Beasts competitors. As he told Variety, he and his team created masks using foam latex and other prosthetics. The Sexy Beasts masks, which included a demon, a panda, and a beaver, were described as being "fun, safe, friendly and silly." One of his favorites was the Tin Man, as seen in episode 3, which included the headpiece, an additional facepiece, and a chin. The makeup process for each participant took a total of three hours, depending on what they were wearing. The face makeup application was time-consuming, and if a contestant was wearing short sleeves, their body makeup would add to the preparation time.
Kristyan made masks without knowing who'd wear them
With shows like The Masked Singer, headpieces are made specifically for the wearer and are created with their features in mind. Kristyan did not have such luck and had to make 44 masks for day one without knowing if they'd fit. One issue his team ran into occurred with the mask of James the Beaver.
“We had to work out how to not make it massive and scary,” he said. He couldn't shape it to the wearer's teeth, so he built acrylic teeth into the mask. “When you watch the episode, you can never really see his lips moving because his teeth were in the way of his lips. He goes to take a drink in one clip, and you see him trying to manipulate the straw.” To suit varying head sizes, Kristyan and his team made masks with latex that could easily stretch over their wearers, even if they had large heads and/or lots of hair.
In light of the number of creations from Kristyan, Sexy Beasts was the right show to flaunt his makeup skills. His skills have rendered contestants unrecognizable. It's no surprise how shocked everyone is to see the faces behind the masks. Sexy Beasts will return for season 2, and viewers can surely expect more fun prosthetics from Kristyan.
Source: Variety, KM Effects/Instagram, IMDb, KM Effects. Reddit