Junior Lizy Hagan stands in the middle of a crowd at Worlds of Fun. She isn’t waiting to get on a rollercoaster or buy a funnel cake, instead she’s applying makeup and creating the werewolves, witches and zombies that lurk in the fog and jump out to scare passersby at Worlds of Fun.

Hagan spends her time outside of school turning fantasy into reality through visual effects makeup.  She spent this fall working at Halloween Haunt, fixing up employees’ makeup to pop out and frighten parkgoers.

“[At Halloween Haunt] basically all we use is liquid latex and cotton balls,” Hagan said. “I rip the cotton balls into different sizes I need and coat the cotton in liquid latex, that will stick to skin and become ‘fake skin’ that I can tear apart or rip open or whatever. It dries for three to five minutes  then I paint it to match skin color and add other paint to make the skin look bruised or irritated and if I’m using blood I’ll add it last.”

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Hagan was first introduced to makeup by her sister  when she was younger and began using it in eighth grade, but it wasn’t until her sophomore year that she really became interested in creating art with makeup.

“In fourth grade my sister did my makeup for Halloween. I was a bumble bee and she put yellow shimmery stuff on my eyes and ever since then I’ve just been fascinated with makeup.”

Hagan has done her friends’ makeup before, but she mainly enjoys practicing on herself. She says she enjoys doing regular makeup more than special effects and would love to continue doing makeup as a career, but she is unsure if it would work out.

“I’m not totally sure what I want to do as a career, I’ve been looking into computer science or programming stuff and engineering but haven’t decided yet,” Hagan said. “I’d love to be a makeup artist as my actual career, but obviously I’d have to go to college and get a real job first.”