He has to be creative to doll up brides and fashion models.

But to stick corals on a girl?

That's what Mr Alex Ho did for the finals of the Cosmoprof Makeup Awards at the Cosmoprof Academy in PoMo mall at Selegie Road on Saturday.

His Coralmaid creation - a mermaid infused with colourful corals - for which he spent about $600, bagged Mr Ho the runner-up position.

The full-time make-up artist, who does bridal and fashion makeup, had little time to prepare for the contest.

"Due to work, I did not even have the chance to practise body art make-up and even the model was engaged two days before the mock-up session," said Mr Ho, who would only say he's in his 30s.

His efforts won him $700 and cosmetics. The last instalment of the awards, held way back in 1998, made a comeback to celebrate make-up school Cosmoprof Academy's 27th anniversary.

The competition is about experimenting with the body art and special effects genre.

The six contestants were given only three hours to work, starting from scratch.

Contestants transformed their models into creatures that looked straight out of a movie set and the looks ranged from elegant to horror.

Contest winner Ms Salovino Anna Marie's Sea Creature involved detailed painting of patterns, complete with artificial sea moss, which she painstakingly stuck onto her model.

The Filipina spent about $600 on materials and won $1,000 and cosmetics for her effort.

She said she had not planned how her creation would look until the qualification round.

Ms Anna Marie, 32, said: "I only knew I should be going with the gold and black theme for the Sea Creature and everything else was done on the spot during the mock-up session."

Director of Cosmoprof Academy, Mr Peter Sng, 68, said make-up artists don't only make people beautiful.

"With special effects make-up, it is about bringing the ideas of movie directors into reality," he said.

Get The New Paper for more stories.