If the eyes are the windows into the soul, then Kevin Carter has the power to draw the blinds. As a special effects contact lens painter, he can create everything from cataract-ridden eyes to the supernatural peepers of the living dead.
Raised in Medford, Ore., and Sonoma, Calif., Carter got hooked on horror films early on. "I loved the 'Friday the 13th' movies and Freddy Krueger in 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and stuff like that," he recalls. "What stood out in my head when it came to special-effects lenses were the contact lenses that vampires wore in the movies that made their eyes so bright and vivid."
Shortly after graduating from high school, Carter went to work for his dad, who makes therapeutic contact lenses. "Basically, [clients] would send us a photograph of their good eye, and I would duplicate the iris pattern and the color onto a contact lens for their damaged eye," says Carter. "Instead of having an eye that was all white or a dilated pupil, they would look normal."
Carter decided that abnormal eyes were much more to his liking, and he started his own special-effects contact lens business with his wife, Ginni. They created a website offering their services, and makeup artist Robert Hall from Almost Human gave Carter his first job on a Coors Light commercial.
Since then, he has worked on numerous feature films, including "The Fountain," "Night at the Museum," "10,000 BC," "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," and this month's "Punisher: War Zone."
The drawing board: Each contact lens order begins with a standard appointment with an optometrist. "The actors have to go in to get an eye exam and a contact lens fitting done," says Carter. "We start off with a clear lens, and it can be in the actor's prescription. We only use soft lenses. The lenses we did for 'Punisher' were full-eye lenses."
To dye for: Carter hand-paints all of his lenses, and this painstaking process takes between one and five hours per pair. "A lot of times the special-effects makeup artist will send us a photograph or a drawing of what they're looking for to go along with the makeup, so then we'll duplicate it off of that by hand," he says. "We just basically put the color on, and I use a really small paintbrush to dye the lens to whatever specifications the studio may ask for. We say hand-painted, but it's actually dyes that we use."
