To create the "White Chicks," Cannom cast each actor's head in plaster, then used the cast to make a clay sculpture of their features. With a mold from the sculpture, he created overlapping foam prosthetic appliances. "You have to get their three-dimensional likeness," he says. "If it's not sculpted right, it shows. Then you still have to sculpt the new design on their faces. It has to fit them perfectly." The process is standard, yet making masculine faces look feminine is no easy task, Cannom says.

"I'm trying to add on a smaller, female face to a larger male face. You want it to all blend. Altering the top lip and the nose were the most important things to change. Male and female top lips are very different. For the face, I used silicone appliances with glue -- we have our own formula. I used foam latex, which has been around since 'The Wizard of Oz.' I started with the top lip, then the forehead went on, then a wrap piece under the lip and then the nose went on in the end."

Once the faces were in place, Cannom needed a convincing skin tone. "If you put a light pink makeup on dark skin it goes gray, so we used an orange-ish pax paint, which is an acrylic paint with acrylic adhesive mixed into it. It will completely cover the dark skin. The trouble is, if you paint it too thick, it starts to wrinkle like latex." The paint was followed by a thick coat of light makeup.

Of the two Wayanses, Marlon makes a better woman than Sean, Cannom says. "Marlon has the perfect face for it. He has a smaller jaw line. Sean has a huge, masculine jaw line."

A tight production schedule kept Cannom from creating multiple facial designs. "I did nine or 10 designs for Marlon. I wish I would have had six more weeks for Sean." But Cannom was pleased with the final product and noted the work of Glen Hanz, the main sculptor, who did the finish work on the faces. "Every pore is put on individually by hand with sculpting tools," Cannom explains. "Every little wrinkle is tedious, time-consuming work."

The actors spent five hours a day in the makeup trailer for 60 days -- three hours of makeup, 90 minutes of body painting and 30 minutes to perfect the eyes and wigs, Cannom says. "We did the makeup on them 50 or 60 times. They were great. It was tough."

The blue scleral contact lenses irritated the Wayanses, he says. "They had to wear them all day long. The contact lenses didn't exist 10 years ago, and now they have beautiful blue soft contact lenses that cover the whole eye. But even though it's comfortable, it's this big thing going in their eyes."

Jarvis, M. Made Pale by Comparison. Los Angeles Time.  2014. [online] Available from:  http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/11/entertainment/ca-jarvis11 [Accessed: May 10th 2015]