Actor Jacque Drew plays a photojournalist in the upcoming Fortune Theatre production Time Stands Still.
The Auckland actor would bear fake scars from an injury sustained when a bomb exploded near an Afghanistan road.
The first time the audience sees Ms Drew is six weeks after the explosion.
Yesterday, she and Fortune Theatre make-up designer George Wallace began ''figuring out'' how to create scars with temporary tattoos, liquid skin and make-up.
The actor's face was transformed in more than an hour.
The same process would be required every night of the production's three-week run, starting on Saturday.
''Putting it on is the easy part. Taking it off is the hard part, because you are pulling off tattoos that have been made to adhere to your face,'' Ms Drew said.
After the tattoos and liquid skin were scrubbed off her face, red marks remained, she said.
''By the end of the run I'm going to have a red, angry face.''
She was thankful she had ''the luxury'' of removing the scars each night.
''A lot of people don't.''
Mr Wallace said using tattoos was less time-consuming than traditional make-up methods, such as latex.
''That would take hours every night and would mean I would have to be here every night, and I wanted to find a way Jacque could do it herself.''
He designed the temporary scar tattoos on computer and had them printed. Liquid skin was used to cover the edges of the tattoos.
The make-up needed to be overdone to work on stage.
''But under lights it will look like it's barely a scratch,'' he said.
