Creating art is the ultimate show of Faith. Faith in God and Faith in yourself.

My name is Ray Santoleri and I am a freelance statue and action figure sculptor. I always had a lifelong interest in art, especially drawing and make-up. I grew up on the classic Universal Monster films of the 1930s & ‘40s. I collected Famous Monsters magazine and built the Aurora Monster models, all of which I still have!

Always fascinated by faces, I drew incessantly, especially during my teen years.

After graduating with an Associate’s Degree in Marketing Art & Design (Middlesex County College 1988), I began my professional art career as a freelance graphic artist. I worked at advertising and design studios where I did basic ad and print design, layout and production. My skills included comprehensive layouts, marker renderings, illustration, technical illustration, computer graphics, airbrushing & photo retouching.

In 1995, I attended the Joe Blasco Make-up School in Orlando, Fl. I learned and became proficient in clean & corrective straight make-up, character, aging, injuries and prosthetic make-up application. My first job, that summer, was at Universal Studios Beetlejuice Graveyard Review where I applied make-up and prosthetics for the Universal Monsters and sculpted on life masks, molded and then made slip-rubber masks for the show.

In the fall of 1995, I started freelancing with NBC Studios in NYC where I did straight make-up for WNBC News. At the same time, I worked on Saturday Night Live where I did straight, character, and prosthetic make-up for each show, mostly for regular cast member Will Ferrell. I worked there for 2 seasons.

Afterwards, in the spring and summer of 1997, I worked for make-up artists Carl Fullerton and Neal Martz on the movie “Beloved” with Oprah Winfrey. My work on this film involved mold making and casting of the various effects created for the film, including various injuries, a newborn child and a dead child.

As a make-up effects artist I was introduced to sculpting and I began sculpting a 2/3 scale bust of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster. I showed photographs of the finished bust to legendary make-up artist Dick Smith, and he gave me an A-!

In the fall of 1997, I worked at Universal Studios Horror Nights where I made up the walk about horror characters for the Universal Studios Tour in Hollywood, CA during the Halloween season. My paint and powder werewolf make-up made it into Make-up Artists magazine!

While in LA, I designed and drew the eye charts and aging make-up techniques charts for Make-up Designory, the Los Angeles School of Make-up. These illustrations are used in the curriculum as well as current textbooks.

In 1998 I started to realize I enjoyed sculpting more than applying make-up. In the fall, I started working with McFarlane Toys where I began learning to sculpt scale figures. After 3 years there I was able to sculpt, mold and cast, and paint the figure -- a finished prototype. From there I freelanced for different companies such as NECA, Mezco Toys, Inu Art, Famous Monsters magazine, Talking Presidents, etc.

Recently, along with my toy and custom work, I have returned to my make-up roots in making full-sized busts. The bust is sculpted at 1:1, molded, then cast in foam filled latex, painted, glass eyes and hand laid hair. Pictured is Boris Karloff as Prof. Lampini from HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944), which I made for Cortlandt Hull's Witch's Dungeon. The head was attached to a full size figure and displayed at the Monsterpalooza 2011 in Burbank, CA.