A Catrina makeup painted by AI on your own portrait for Día de Muertos: the full face under a crown of roses, or half the face in front of an ofrenda. Workflow visible here.
Real workflow: a woman with no makeup, long dark brown hair, freckles, a white t-shirt against a beige background, then the same woman as a full Catrina under a crown of red roses and marigolds in a black lace top, and as a half Catrina in front of a candlelit ofrenda. The heart asked for on the nose became a black skull nose, and the half makeup is on the opposite side from the prompt.
At a glance
La Catrina is the elegant skeleton lady of Día de Muertos. In Mexico her makeup gets painted every year for 1 and 2 November: a white base, eyes ringed in black, flowers, a mouth stitched with small lines. The AI version, made from an ordinary photo, has been around since October 2025, when TV Azteca and Milenio published guides on how to make one. It's back for 2026: oakgen.ai counts it among its Halloween AI photo trends, miraflow.ai publishes Día de Muertos 2026 prompts, YouCam and Media.io have their own filters. This workflow starts from your front-facing portrait and makes two images: the full Catrina under a crown of roses, then half the face painted in front of an ofrenda.
Doing it for real takes face paint, fine brushes and a fair bit of patience for the petals around the eyes. Here there's nothing to paint, and your face stays yours under the white. The template also helps you pick a design before painting it for real, right after Halloween, which falls on Saturday 31 October 2026. In the demo, the eyes, features and hair carry over well. Two misses: the small heart on the nose became a black skull nose, and the half makeup is on the wrong side.
To try a lipstick or everyday makeup, see the makeup try-on. Wounds and film prosthetics are the special effects makeup, and for a whole outfit, the Halloween costume. Both renders cost 38 credits.
These are the files of the workflow above, exactly as the models produced them, unretouched. The starting point is shown when there is one.
Starting point
Render
People who want a Catrina portrait for Día de Muertos without painting their face, people planning a real makeup for 1 November who want to see the design on their own face first, content creators posting a seasonal portrait.
A sharp, front-facing portrait in daylight, of you or of someone who agreed, and your eyes and hair described in the prompts. The photo is optional.
Use a front-facing portrait
Face straight on, eyes open, nothing over the eyes, in daylight. The model paints on what it sees: a turned or half-shadowed face gives it fewer landmarks for placing the circles and petals.
Put your own features in the prompt
Both prompts describe the demo woman: light brown eyes, long straight dark brown hair. Swap in your own eyes and hair, or the model may pull your portrait toward that description.
Pick the roses or the ofrenda
The roses cover the whole face, on a black background. The ofrenda paints only half of it and puts you in front of an altar. Run both, or just one node for 19 credits.
Check the nose and the painted side
Zoom in on the tip of the nose and look at which half is painted: both drifted in the demo. If it matters to you, rewrite that line more simply in the prompt and rerun that node.
The same canvas, tuned for different needs: each variation is two or three lines of prompt away.
The roses cover the whole face, like a classic Catrina makeup, on a black background that makes the white stand out. The half face keeps one side bare: people recognise you straight away, freckles included, and it's the easiest version to post on your own account.
Planning to paint your face for a party on 1 November? Run the template first with the colours you have in mind. You'll see whether orange petals suit your skin tone, whether the black around the eyes looks too harsh, and how the crown sits with your hair.
The red roses and orange petals come from the prompt. Write "purple and yellow petals" or "white roses" instead and leave the rest. Change one colour at a time to see what it does. This version wasn't tested in the demo.
The Catrín is the male counterpart of La Catrina. Replace "the woman from the photo" with "the man from the photo", describe his eyes, hair and beard, and swap the crown of roses for a black hat trimmed with flowers and a dark suit. Not tested here.
Two Catrinas side by side, or a Catrina and a Catrín: put each photo in its own node so each face keeps its features. To bring the portraits together afterwards, use the group photo. Not tested here, and everyone has to agree.
The makeup follows the eyes, nose and mouth. On a turned, cropped or badly lit face, the model misplaces the circles and the mouth lines, and the portrait looks less like you.
The prompts describe light brown eyes and long dark brown hair. If you have blue eyes and short hair, change those lines, or the model gets caught between your photo and the description.
The makeup looks genuinely painted, and that's what can mislead people. Say in the caption that it's AI-generated. Before using a photo of someone close to you, ask them, especially for a day about remembering the dead. Never a famous person.
No, it's optional. Without one, the model invents a woman as a Catrina from the prompt. With your portrait, it keeps your face, your eyes and your hair under the paint, which is the whole point.
On the roses version, yes: skin texture shows under the white, and the petals have brushstroke edges. The prompt rules out a mask or a skull drawing laid on top. On the ofrenda, the line between the painted half and the bare half is cleaner than a hand would paint it.
No. On 1 and 2 November, families in Mexico remember their dead: altars at home, flowers, candles, the dishes the departed loved. miraflow.ai, which publishes prompts for the day, gives the same advice. Both prompts keep to a respectful portrait, with no blood and no horror.
38 credits, 19 per render on Nano Banana Pro in 2K. Rerunning a single image costs 19 more credits.
Because the face stays visible under the paint, and on the bare half of the ofrenda it has to be exact. Pro holds a face from a single photo: in the demo, the eyes, eyebrows and freckles are the ones from the photo.
The image is 1792 x 2400 pixels, vertical 3:4: enough for a print of about 15 x 20 cm, a story or a profile picture. The node also offers 4K, for almost twice the price.
The model painted the pointed black nose you see on a lot of sugar skulls instead of the small heart in the prompt. To get the heart back, write "a small black heart on the tip of the nose, the rest of the nose white" and rerun the roses node.
The prompt said "her left, the right side of the image", and the model painted the other half. If the side matters, rerun the node for 19 credits, or flip the image in a photo editor, knowing the face will look slightly different mirrored.
AI Catrina makeup on your own photo
Use this workflowFree account, no card required. The workflow opens pre-filled in your canvas.
Nano Banana Pro
Flux Kontext
Seedream 5 Pro