Meet Sean Sharp

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sean Sharp and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sean, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I was born and raised in Chicago, and my dad used to be a carpenter, so growing up I always had access to these tools in our basement workshop. He’s always been as supportive as a parent can be of my creative endeavors, and always encouraged me to learn to pick up a tool and use it, and so this could be anything from teaching me how to cut wood on a table saw to getting me a set of sculpting tools.

He was also one of those dads who was showing me action and sci fi movies I was probably a little too young for, but man did they all make an impression on me. Me and him bonded over watching movies, so the movies I enjoyed became a big part of who I was, and just learning about the movies themselves and how they’re made became an obsession of mine.

This ultimately carried over into school, and I would show all my friends these movies and kinda convert them, I was a weird kid and looking back it’s embarrassing, but I think having my little network of equally weird kids around me really led to me being comfortable with who I am and being unapologetically myself.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m known in the Chicago cosplay community for my transformations, I love to employ my knowledge of SFX and incorporate it into my costumes, because I just love seeing people’s reactions.

I’ll be walking around this crowded floor, and people could come up to me and have no idea it’s me until I start talking.

I’ve hacked off limbs, made myself 7 feet tall, been fat, skinny, muscular, a man, a woman, a goblin, bald, blonde, undead, you get the picture. I’ve pulled up to events completely covered head to toe and people will look at me and say “that HAS to be Sean” BECAUSE of how unrecognizable I am.

Ultimately the transformation aspect is secondary to me, because at the end of the day what I’m most interested in is learning new techniques. I’ve had great success with just buying outfits from the thrift store and painting my face, but I think any great artist needs that drive to try more, which leads me to doing things like sculpting my own masks, sewing my own garments, even building an entire life size Yoda puppet.

It’s a LOT of trial and error, some projects take longer than others, sometimes I’ll take years to finish. But I do it at my own pace, I wouldn’t be taking this long if I didn’t care about the project at hand, and often times that’s what yields my best work.

Some people note that I don’t have a specific aesthetic, simply because I just do whatever it is I like, if I enjoy the character I’ll work on that costume, but above all else I want to focus on how do I make it my own.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Honestly one of my favorite places to take people in Chicago is the Field Museum, I’m a lover of all things natural history (ESPECIALLY dinosaurs) and it makes me so happy when I get to share that experience with someone for the first time.

Museum of Science and Industry is also a top spot, especially if you’re interested in STEM fields.

But ultimately one of my favorite places in the city is just the forest preserve by my house. I’ve shown my photos to so many people from outside my neighborhood and some are just baffled as to where there’s all this woodland within the city limits. I spent so much of my time during lockdown there, walking around enjoying the scenery, taking photos in costume, I think in 2020 I did something like 50 different self shoots over there.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There’s so many people I would like to name, I’m lucky enough to be part of such a lovely little community in Chicago of fellow creatives, I wouldn’t be who I am without them all by my side. Cosmeetup Chicago has fostered a lovely group of some of the most incredibly talented creatives in Illinois, all of whom are such kind people.

Of course both of my parents have been a huge help over the years, they’ve always been supportive of me and my craft, never tried to steer me towards a traditional path when I told them I wanted to go to school for makeup and special effects, and I’m really just blessed for them to have been so encouraging.

I have to give huge thanks to everyone on the Kryolan Chicago team before the store closed, especially our manager Becky. We were such a small, tight knit family and we all loved working together, and we were crushed when the store closed permanently because of covid.

Finally EVERYONE I met at Cinema Makeup School, those were some of the most creative and talented people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, from the staff with all of their expertise and how effectively they relayed all this information, to every single person in my graduating class, by the end of the program there was such beautiful chemistry between everyone who just 8 months prior had been complete strangers from all across the country, and it was saddening to say goodbye, but we were all so very excited for what the future was gonna hold for each one of us. And of course I’ve got to acknowledge Jackie at the front desk, the first face many of us saw coming in and being the ultimate hype beast when taking photos of our work.

Website: https://sharpshotefx.weebly.com

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/sharp.shot.efx

Image Credits
Afrodyte Charlotte, Raptordrone Photo, Komorebi Flash, BHE Photos