EBA Artists
NIX HERRERA
Nix began his Halloween career at the age of 17 in Orlando Florida. He was hired as a Scare-Actor at Skull Kingdom, a 4.5 million dollar year round haunted attraction. There he was transformed in makeup and prosthetics to be the last of the big scares. Working full-time at haunt, he learned character building, scare zone impacts, special FX make up, airbrushing, scenic design, prop building, costuming and fabrication. Five years later, in 2002, Nix was offered a spot helping with pre-production at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. There, he would work with leading artist on large budget productions creating effects makeups. After 5 seasons of Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando, he was asked to join a team of artist at AEO Studios to help bring Halloween to Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Later Nix would was promoted to makeup department head and helped with conceptual design. At that time was also leading more than 60 makeup artist and overlooking more than 450 performers. In 2015 Nix will take his 8th trip back to Hong Kong. Having a total of 18 years of experience in the haunted house industry he has been perfecting Halloween airbrush make up and has become skilled at managing an efficient make up center.
IAN VON CROMER
Ian Von Cromer season 2 finalist on Face Off, now living in Los Angeles works on makeup effects for film and television shows like American Horror Story and GRIMM, also working with some of the best artists like Mike Hill and Kazuhiro Tsuji. He recently returned from heading the makeup department for a feature in Romania. He plans to continue his career until he can one day be a Union Make-Up Effects Artist bringing the characters he loves to life on set.
KELLY BELMONTE
Kelly Belmonte fell in love with makeup when she was a kid and turned that love into a career in 1997. As a child she would do theater and haunted houses, both performing and doing makeup. When she was 17 she left the mid-west, started her life in Las Vegas and her career was born. Since then, she has worked on countless productions, movies, television shows, commercials, ad campaigns, corporate events, award shows, even landing a television show on Syfy showcasing her company, Naked Vegas and the incredible art she and her crew create. Kelly also has been blessed to earn two Emmy nominations along with the teams that worked on Ms. Congeniality 2 and Angel for their work in the makeup dept. The love of her work shines through in everything she does.
BREA JOSEPH
Art has been a part of my life since a young age. Following in the footsteps of my grandmother and mother, I attended the School of Creative and Performing Arts. This opportunity at the SCPA laid the groundwork for my path as an artist. In addition to my art education, I am a self taught sculptor, painter, and fabricator.
Working as a commercial actor, in the early 2000’s, for a production company, I was a civilian actor for military medical training scenarios. These scenarios involved special effects make-up application of injury simulations. In addition to being an actor, I would also assist with the make-up applications. Shortly after assisting, I was offered and became a field make up artist and the in house sculptor for all make-up prosthetics used for this type of training. One of the highlights of this position was that I trained several members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six on image modification through body painting and prosthetics.
In 2011, Kasey Erokhin (personal make up artist to actor Richard Dreyfuss) and I started our own special effects company. KBZ FX supplies Film, television, print, military, law enforcement, and medical agencies with special effects make-up for character and injury simulations for training enhancement. KBZ FX has worked on projects like the Film Cas & Dylan featuring Richard Dreyfuss , directed by Jason Priestly,Top Chef Estrellas ,a Russian television show titled “Aster” and many many more. We’ve been featured on CNN, The military channel, a featured article in Make Up artist magazines 100th edition and more. KBZ FX has worked with Skull Candy headphone company, Brookstone store, and Iphone. We employ over a dozen artists and currently service 10 major on-going contracts with the U.S. government for special effects make up.
In addition to Make-up support, KBZ FX creates and sells several lines of hand-sculpted prosthetics to stores and military agencies.
In 2012, I auditioned for season 2 of SYFY ’s special effects hit reality show Face Off and was awarded one of fourteen spots to compete. Soon after being on the show my career took off, staring with being contacted by ‘The” Jacks gallery to create a collection of art pieces similar to what I produced on Face Off. I then went full force with my special effects make-up and art career. I’ve traveled the country selling and demoing art and make-up as a celebrity guest for trade shows and conventions such as IMATS, Transworld, Comic Con, Monterpalooza and more. I am currently sponsored by EBA (the official paint used on Face Off), and Paasche airbrush company.