If you’ve never met Wuppies, you’re missing out. Lisette Huinck is the queen of Wuppies, and ever since I saw her cute designs, I’ve loved playing around with some ideas of my own. This is one of the designs from my own sketching and brainstorming time, and I hope you enjoy it.

Materials

• Paradise yellow face paint
• Paradise orange face paint
• Paradise royal blue face paint
• Paradise light blue face paint
• Paradise red face paint
• Paradise lime face paint
• Paradise purple face paint
• TAG pearl light blue
• TAG pearl lilac
• Diamond FX white face paint
• Diamond FX black face paint
• Sponge
• #1 round brush
• #5 round brush
• Googly eyes (optional)

Tutorial

1. Begin by loading your sponge with some TAG pearl blue. I mix mine with a little Paradise light blue as well so that it isn’t overly shiny, and I love the combination of the two colors. Sponge this around the temple and forehead area for the sky background.

2. Next, take a round sponge and load it with a lighter and darker color. For my two Wuppies, I used a round sponge that was about one inch in diameter. For one Wuppie, I chose Paradise yellow and orange. For the other, I chose Paradise light blue and medium blue.

While I’m putting down the Wuppies with my round sponge, I twist the sponge slightly so it creates a lowlight on the lower edge of the Wuppie, giving it a three-dimensional, spherical feel. Since I’ve got a metropolitan theme going here, I also used my #1 round brush to outline my city skyscrapers above the yellow and orange Wuppie.

3. Used some of your bright Paradise colors to fill in the city buildings with your #5 round brush.

Rinse the #5 round and use the tip or a damp Q-tip to remove the spot for the eye on each Woopie. I find if I don’t do this, I end up with an eye which isn’t entirely white. (At this point if you wanted to use the googly eyes instead, you’d put a drop of adhesive in the spot, let it dry for a minute so that it’s tacky, and then press the googly eye in place.)

4. Load your #1 round brush with Diamond FX black to add your Wuppie details and outlines. Often you’ll see the Wuppie with fur because the artist has added a bunch of little lines around it, but I left mine plain.

5. Finally, we’re adding some little lights in the skyscrapers to represent windows and highlights on the Wuppies themselves. (You can also add some clouds with your TAG pearl lilac to give the sky some interest.) Seriously, who could resist these cuties?

Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in the NW Chicago suburbs. She also writes for Examiner.com as the Chicago Face Painting Examiner.