Richard Dailey is a third semester student in the theatrical makeup class at City College. Not long after Daily started the program he discovered a love for mask-making. As of now, he is the only person in the theatre department making them. His passion for the craft is taking up a lot of his free time and what sparked his interest in the art was somewhat of a coincidence.

“I discovered I wanted to become a makeup artist because I was doing computer engineering and I was passing by the theater department, while checking out guitar classes, and I saw some of my friends in make-up class, or I didn’t know it was makeup class at that time. I saw them in the class and there was like four, five of my friends in the class. I asked them what it was and they said ‘theatrical make-up’ so I kinda looked around the room and there was a bunch of pictures. Bunch of cool things, like zombie clowns and stuff like that. I thought ‘hey, that’d be kinda fun to take’ so I joined the class. And that’s how I got into make-up,” said Daily.

The first weeks of his first semester Daily struggled to find his own path but after helping out on the City College play “Ten Red Kings,” where he built his first mask, he started becoming more motivated and engaged in the class. That was of course noticed by his teacher, Pamela Shaw, who made him her assistant after his first semester.

“I think he is very talented, he is also very motivated. So besides, I mean, any class that you’re doing requires self-monitoring and the amount of work you put into it is the amount of work you get out of it,” said Shaw.

The time it takes for Daily to make a mask is about 2 to 3 days.

First he makes a head cast out of ultra call, which is a hard stone a little softer than concrete.

After that he covers the sculpture evenly with clay and smooths out edges and bumps with a sponge and water. For the horns to stay on he needs to build an infrastructure on the inside. When all the clay is applied he starts making the details and then he lets it dry for a little bit.

The next step is to brush on thin layers of ultra call and after that he puts on thicker and thicker layers, until it is a solid stone figure.

After that he cracks it open; this is a critical stage where 1 out of 4 masks break, which this one did, so Daily had to start over and make a different mask.

He puts it back together and paints it with latex. He leaves it to dry overnight and puts on the base coat and then he begins airbrushing.

Daily’s roommate is used to him working on projects at home.

“I think it’s awesome, I’ve helped him out during the process, so I know it’s really long and you need a real creative mind to get things done,” said Mike’ele Brennan Koiaweokalani Ryan.

But Daily still hopes to find a place where he can continue to develop his skills and he hopes to be able to continue in the field and one day make it into the film-industry in Hollywood.

“Now here I am, switching and doing make-up and finding something I actually really enjoy doing, rather than something I just make a lot of money in,” said Daily.