Crow (comics) - Make-up

Make-up

In the comic book, the origin of Eric's make-up is explained briefly as "painting his face in the colors of joy". This indicates that he copied the Greek comedy masquerade mask in his and Shelly's house. Joshua and Mark Leung do not wear any distinctive make-up, and Ashe's is provided by Sarah, as in the movie. Iris Shaw paints the semblance of a Crow on her face with the tail covering her nose, and the wings covering her eyes. She removes it to face her final killer. Michael Korby's covers his neck and shoulders. The makeup is referred as "the mask of death" and "the trails of Gorgon's blood" in The Crow: Wild Justice comic book.

In all feature films, except The Crow: Salvation, the protagonist wears make-up that cover their face. In the first movie Eric Draven copies the pattern from one of the masquerade that decorated his and Shelly's apartment, which consists of white paint placed over the face with black paint around eyes, black vertical lines over and under eyes, black paint on the lips and a black horizontal line over the mouth, resembling a Glasgow smile. In The Crow: City of Angels Ashe's make-up was provided by Sarah and looks similar. Jimmy's make-up in The Crow: Wicked Prayer is similar as well, though there's no horizontal line over the mouth, and vertical lines are shorter and thinner.

In the third movie, The Crow: Salvation, Alex Corvis is executed in the electric chair, and his face is burned by the metal helmet which was worn on his head during the execution. After he removes the burned skin, scars were left on his face, as well as black skin around eyes and on his lips, thus forming a pattern similar to the classical make-up. However, there are two vertical lines over each of his eyes and they cross with the horizontal lines on his mouth.

In the The Crow: Stairway to Heaven TV series, Eric's "make-up" appears automatically whenever he "changes" into the Crow. His fingernails become black, while his face becomes white, with vertical lines over the eyes and short horizontal/diagonal lines extending from his lips, like a smile. And they disappear when he becomes 'normal'.

Even though not all the reborn wear the make-up, they are still usually drawn in a certain style: their lips are usually distinctively black, skin around eyes is black, while the eyes are sometimes burning white. Generally the style of drawing reminds the pattern of the classical makeup.