HOW can a 20-year-old manage to pass for a senior citizen fare on the bus?

By spending a few hours in the chair at Clydebank College's renowned make-up artistry studios.

The final-year HND students are preparing to showcase their incredible designs at Hampden Park.

The students were tasked with demonstrating three decades of ageing, the last assessment of 15 for this academic year.

Students transformed a fellow course member into looking aged 30, 50 and then 70-plus in three hours.

Nicole Farlow, 20, from Knightswood, was transformed by Hayley McJimpsey, 24, from Clydebank.

Nicole said: "It feels weird – it's so heavy. I feel like when I'm talking, I'm talking very slowly. I feel so fatigued."

The students use a palette of greasepaint colours to exaggerate frown and laughter lines to add a few decades.

They then use sculpting gel to add realistic eye-bags. Liquid latex is also applied to areas of skin that crease most, like the mouth and at the sides of eyes, which create prominent wrinkles when dry.

Student Rachel Newton was transformed into a senior citizen last week by Fakhra Qammar Nobel – and the roles were then reversed during our visit.

All students take photos of their finished creations – some in context, like at a bus stop – to upload on to their 'e-portfolio', which saves on the expense of printing hard copies.

Rachel, 22, who lives in Netherlee, is drawing on her experience of the ageing process, and a month spent as a make-up artist in Lapland, to create her showcase piece – a bad Santa.

She said: "Two people from the course got selected to go to Lapland for a month and do Santa's make-up."

Similarly, Janet McBride, also 22, from Erskine, spent last summer working as an intern for a freelance make-up artist in New York.

The time Elizabeth Wayt, of Maryhill, has invested in creating her gruesome Jeepers Creepers character is evident from seeing the flesh bulging through its cover.

It takes the 23-year-old four hours to re-produce the full-face make-up she hopes will stun onlookers tomorrow.

She hopes to study with London-based prosthetics artist Neill Gorton after completing her HND.

Zoe Carrigan, 20, from Motherwell, has also turned to special effects for her final-year project – she has recreated the leading man in alien film District 9.

In addition to doing the make-up, the students have to set the scene that will contribute towards their grade.

This involves designing the costume, the accessories and creating a six-foot-square 'station' that will form their backdrop.

Ashleigh Willet, 22, has also turned to the horror genre for her demonic creation, which she photographed at a tomb in a graveyard near her home in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire.

She said: "I'm going to make my set like a tomb, with brick effect wallpaper, and I'll have chains coming off attached to the model."

Class lecturer Gillian Turnbull, 30, from Mount Florida, said: "Every year the standard gets higher and higher."

l Make-up Mayhem is at the Nevis Suite, Hampden Park, tomorrow, 6–9pm, admission free. Suitable for ages 12 and over.

It feels weird, so heavy. I feel when I'm talking, I'm talking very slowly