Chukwudi Iwuji’s The High Revolutionary in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was quite the insane and maniacal character. He also had a very strange look with the stretched skin holding his face in place. Under that face was a gnarly injury from a time in his background story when Rocket Racoon went berserker in a fit of anger and rage and pretty much shredded his actual face off!
Near the end of the film, The High Revolutionary’s real face is revealed and what we saw was horrific, gory, and grotesque. He is the kind of villain that is ugly both inside and out. It turns out that disgusting face was mostly done with practical makeup effects, which is pretty impressive.
Marvel Studios tends to mostly go with CGI effects these days, and while some of that was used, the fact that they went mostly practical, I thought was noteworthy. This bit of information was revealed by Makeup Department Head Alexei Dmitriew during an interview at Awards Radar, and he said:
“We did a full makeup on him with this really cool denture piece that would carry his upper lip. All of that was practical. We had a practical face that we would dress with blood and everything of the sort. The only visual effects were where his eyes sunk in, and his nose got pushed in. We blocked that out for visual effects, and they did their work. But when they peeled his face off, all of that was practical. With every take, we were set to get the face back on and dress it with some slimy blood underneath it.”
Everything about that effect ended up looking awesomely gross! The effects team did an impressive job pulling it off. I’m a big fan of the practical effects, especially when it comes to blood and gore and it’s nice to see these big-budget films still utilize it.