A hippo is the kind of design I fear when I'm at a birthday party or event because it's difficult for me to figure out how to do it in a fast and cool way. That's why I decided to give it a try stepping out of my comfort zone. Thanks to the one stroke, it's quite quick and easily doable on the job.

Step 1

Draw a sketch of the design to keep in mind where lines should go and adapt them to the face.

Step 2

Take a flat brush and paint two small ears coming out of the centre of the eyebrows, the upper part of the hippo's head and cover the upper part of the model's eyes. Then, invert the position of the brush to change the colour order and fill in the area in between the eyes.

Step 3

Now paint the muzzle of the hippo covering the nose and half of the cheeks. It has a rectangular shape with rounded corners and add two small half-circles just under the eyes to make the hippo's nostrils.

Add with a small twist the inner part of the ears.

Step 4

With the flat brush, add two tiny flicks under the eyes to connect the eye area with the muzzle and paint under the model's nose the lower part of the hippo's mouth.

Step 5

Now with a round brush paint two squarish big teeth and give some subtle white highlights aroud the different parts of the design to make it pop.

Step 6

Outline the design in black with a thin round brush, paint a teardrop in the inner part of ears and nostrils to give them more depth and add short hairs on ears and muzzle with quick flick movements.

I want to give special thanks to my son for letting me paint him and for his patience.

Supplies:

Full design (even black and white) is painted with one single cake:

FPA Combo Emu by Prima Barton

Paradise AQ Prisma Flat Brush

Jest Paint Bolt Liner #2

Silly farm Paint Pal Swirl # 4

Belén Canosa is the owner of Belén te Pinta and has been working as a professional face painter since 2011 when she discovered a passion for painting on a live canvas.

She loves belly painting and teaching and her works have been featured in several face and body painting magazines like Skin Markz Magazine, Illusion Magazine, Pintamos? and Qmagazine

You can follow her on Instagram and Facebook:

Instagram Belén_te_Pinta

Facebook Belén Te Pinta, Maquillaje Infantil

Belen Te Pinta