Makeup, most people know is to enhance the beauty of everyone wearing it but there is a kind of make-up that screams horror, illusion, and non-traditional and that is a Special FX or special effect.
The ability to use prosthetics, face paint, cosmetics, and other skin-friendly materials to transform a person into a different character or a creature takes a lot of creative art and Nathaniel Amewugah is one of Ghana‘s talented special effect make-up artists.
Growing up like every other kid Nathaniel had dreams and being a curious child, he was always breaking things and fixing them, he thought he would be a pilot. But that aspiration was short-lived after he failed one of his final exams in WASSCE (West African Senior School Certificate Exams) for focusing more on entertainment in school.
Regardless he never gave up on himself. He decided to be an actor and started to pursue his acting career by enrolling in a media school. During one of his lessons, his lecturer introduced them to Halloween makeup and that sparked his interest in special effects makeup.
Immediately he started researching and learning more about this type of make-ups. In his quest of being a special effect make-up artist, he realized the lack of SFX in Ghana’s movie industry, hence the need to take the risk of meeting that demand and developing it further.
Amongst many other challenges, he had to face the worst, not having his family’s support or belief in his dream and that drove him to work harder and smarter. He was ready to use his story to change the status quo, and change the notion that make-up is a thing for women.
Today Nathaniel, whose social media name is kruz_kmakeup has bagged not only one but seven different awards such as: “Discovery of the year(Ghana Arts and Culture Awards 2020), Makeup brand of the year (Golden Age Awards 2021), and Best SFX makeup artist (Ghana beauty awards 2021) just to mention a few.
For six years, he’s created amazing works in Ghanaian movies such as Baabani, My Name is Ramadan, 95, Evil Dead, and the action thriller, Terminus.
One thing that makes Nathaniel’s art unique is his ability to improvise with local materials and make his imagination so real in movie scenes.
He’s had to use materials like tissue paper, food colour, honey, cotton, Vaseline, foundation, paper glue, and bonding glue to make wounds, scars, and other crazy ideas come to life.
Nathaniel is a young prop creator and creative director as well. He wants to be remembered as the guy who brought change to the Ghana movie industry and he’s working hard at making that impact one movie at a time.
He’s trained quite a few people in the industry and he’s open to working with anyone who needs his services.
