BEHIND-THE-SCENES: CREATING THE KAZON LOOK
 

The make-up was designed by Michael Westmore, the show's make-up supervisor. From the start, the producers wanted the character of the Kazon race to be such that it would fill the role of the Klingons on previous Star Trek shows, but they must clearly not be Klingons. The new villains would appear in the very first episode, the two-part story [Caretaker]. The Kazon were written as cruel and barbaric, without the sense of honour that Klingons are known for.

To illustrate these traits, make-up took a forehead based on an almost devilish structure, and the "comb" that runs down the forehead was modelled on the look of the vulture's neck. In later episodes, the make-up department took the "vulture neck" from the "comb" and built an appliance for the Kazon neck. In addition, they created a new nose tip which lengthened the actors' noses and added spikes coming out from below the nostrils. To distinguish the Kazon even further from the Klingons, the skin colour was made a burnt orange instead of dark brown.

Michael Westmore: "The first alien race we ran into we spent any length of time with were the Kazons. Their design, as I started to get into it, and I go through my picture books to find things to inspire me, and I came across a vulture. And that's why the crest that comes up on them, and I eventually designed one that came down here - the 'turkey gobbler'. Colour-wise it was: what are we going to do? We can't paint them yellow because of the Vulcans, and green's a lousy colour, the Klingons are brown, we don't want them too much like that. So I came up with this very Earthy colour, and I didn't go into a full orange, a pumpkin orange, because then we're dealing with Ferengi. So they became this very hot Earthy colour with a red crest from the vulture. And even the eyelids are sculpted. An upper eyelid is sculpted on each piece, and just the angularity of it, they worked out very well."

left: Culluh, played by Anthony de Longis - [#11 State Of Flux]; right: Kazon-Ogla youths with, at the front, Kar (later Jal Karden), played by Aron Eisenberg - publicity shot for [#21 Initiations]

Kar, [Initiations]

Jabin, [Caretaker]

Michael Westmore: "The early ones, with their hairstyles, the wigs were made with pigs' ears, and pigs' ears are heavy. So after we got them made up and they had these massive wigs on, in those early episodes, you can see these guys, by the end of the day their necks were sore. And eventually the pigs' ears were changed to sponges, so it made it much lighter because they have these full hairdos that go up the top of the head. As opposed to taking hair and pulling it down we're trying to have everything going up."

Kazon-Ogla warriors, [Caretaker]; this might be a picture from rehearsal or while filming the episode

this picture, taken during a break in filming [Caretaker], shows an actor who plays a Kazon-Ogla warrior - note the pigs' ears in the wig

the back of the head of a Kazon-Ogla warrior as he scrambles for water, [#1 and #2 Caretaker]

Tuvok: "Where do you get your hair done?" [#11 State of Flux]

Joseé Normand, the show's hair designer, created the Kazon hair using some unusual ingredients including sponges and dried pig's ears (the kind sold in pet shops for animals to chew on). She says: "I wanted the hair to look like something that came from another planet, something really big and menacing, and that's what I came up with. I used pigs' ears and sponges. Some people liked it, some people hated it, but it's different!"

Alan Sims, the show's properties master: Kazon weapons were crude, yet futuristic, weapons that had to convey the barbarism of the Kazon. These rifles and pistols looked antiquated even though they're 24th century. I used copper tubing and bent copper joints that ran to a barrel-head that was a different shape than the phaser rifle. The copper tubing became the body of the unit itself and was attached to a leather strap over a wood-looking grip that had a completely different presentation. It actually looked like a plumbing nightmare, but the prop worked because it helped define the Kazon."

[#157 Shattered]

Source: ST A&A

See also Behind-the-scenes: On Location With the Kazon.