A Face for Art: Vegas Creative Deral Lands on Top MUA “I wanted my younger self to be proud of what I could do with that one blue eyeshadow.” For years, Deral has been one of those familiar faces at Gipsy Nightclub — except his face is almost never the same twice. On any given night, he might arrive with cascading waterfall eyes, giant anime features, or a surreal design that turns his face into a full-on art piece. For regulars in Las Vegas’ LGBTQ nightlife scene, spotting Deral on the dance floor has become part of the experience: one more flash of creativity, joy, and queer expression in a space that celebrates all three. Now, that same artistry has taken him from the Fruit Loop to television. The Las Vegas creative was recently cast on Top MUA, a makeup competition series that puts artists through high-pressure challenges, quick turnarounds, and dramatic twists. But for Deral, the story goes much deeper than landing a spot on a show. His journey into makeup began not in a studio or backstage dressing room, but in the aftermath of trauma. “My makeup journey came from trauma, actually,” he said. “I was getting out of an abusive relationship, and part of my therapy to myself was trying to find a new medium to express my creativity.” That was during the pandemic, when isolation made reinvention feel both harder and more necessary. Stuck at home and looking for a way forward, Deral started experimenting with makeup as a creative outlet. What began as private healing slowly became a public form of self-expression. He jokes now that part of the original motivation was simple: maybe if he showed up to a watch party with a cool makeup look, people would think he seemed interesting enough to befriend. It worked. Over time, the shy artist who once kept parts of himself hidden became a staple of the Gipsy scene, known not only for his inventive face designs but also for the joy he brings into the room. His looks are playful, bizarre, detailed, and often funny — but they are never random. Each one is imagined in advance, sometimes weeks before it ever appears under club lights. “One of the things I like about my creative process is coming up with the ideas,” he said. “I kind of think of it like a river. When I’m in a happy mood, it flows. Ideas just pop up like fish jumping out of the water, and I can catch them.” That river of creativity has produced some unforgettable club-night creations over the years, including a face inspired by Gipsy itself, complete with palm trees, and another featuring giant animated eyes designed to look even funnier once he started laughing or screaming for photos. Deral sketches his concepts, plans them out, and then figures out how to turn imagination into something wearable. At Gipsy, those efforts found the perfect audience. He describes the venue as a true safe space, a place where experimentation is welcomed and celebrated. For him, that freedom has been life-changing. Not only did the club become a stage for his artistry, it became part of the emotional foundation that helped him grow into it. “One of the things I like about makeup is I see makeup as magic,” he said. “It brings me joy, it brings other people joy.” That sense of joy came full circle when he found out he had been cast on Top MUA — while at Gipsy. After completing the application process, which included submitting a look, an audition tape, and surviving a public vote against contestants with much larger followings, Deral received the email in the parking lot at the club. “When I got it, I cried,” he said. “It was kind of a full-circle moment, especially getting to know that I got on the show while I was at Gipsy.” In that moment, he was already wearing one of his signature creative looks: a silly Gorillaz-inspired face. It felt fitting that the place where he had spent years showing off his art, making friends, and finding community would also be where he learned he was taking that art to a national audience. On Top MUA, contestants are judged not on the makeup they wear themselves, but on the looks they create for models. That meant Deral had to translate his extreme, whimsical personal style into challenge-based work under pressure. It was one of the biggest tests of the experience: how to stay true to himself while adapting to whatever the competition demanded. Still, he found ways to make the work personal. All of the looks he wore on the show included blue, and that choice was deeply intentional. When he was younger, Deral had a single blue eyeshadow that he kept hidden because he was afraid of anyone discovering he had makeup. Blue, he figured at the time, felt “masculine” enough to be explainable if he got caught. Years later, on national television, he turned that memory into a quiet tribute to his younger self. “I purposely made an effort to make sure that every look that I did for the show had some kind of blue incorporated into it,” he said, “so that my younger version of myself would be proud of what I could have done with just that single blue eyeshadow.” That emotional thread also shaped the first episode, which included a tribute to Las Vegas drag. In his own on-camera look, Deral incorporated elements inspired by local queens, including Hanna Barbeara, Martina Brookshire, Mirage, Drunktext, and Rita Bitch — a thank-you to the performers and nightlife culture that helped spark his makeup journey in the first place. The Vegas connection matters to him, and so does Hawaii. Originally from Kahuku, Hawaii, Deral describes his hometown as the kind of place with one stoplight, a shrimp farm, and a corn farm. He moved to Las Vegas about 13 years ago, joking that he wanted to live somewhere with Applebee’s, Target, and Olive Garden — though he later discovered he wasn’t much of an Applebee’s fan after all. Behind the humor is a real sense of pride in carrying both places with him. On Top MUA, he wanted to represent Las Vegas and Hawaii while sharing the message that has become central to his work: makeup is magic. “The biggest thing that I wanted to get into this show for was to be able to use this platform to share a message,” he said. “That message was that makeup is magic.” That magic, for him, is not about perfection or conventional beauty. It is about experimentation, self-expression, and the freedom to be playful. It is also about giving others permission to do the same. His advice to anyone just beginning to explore makeup is simple: have fun with it. “Do it at your house so that you don’t have to worry about what you look like,” he said. “Just paint and do some silly stuff, experiment, do things that are wrong. Everything that you do on your face for makeup is art.” That outlook helps explain why Deral resonates so strongly in queer nightlife spaces. He isn’t just showing up in a look. He is offering a reminder that self-expression can be healing, that visibility can be playful, and that art can begin with whatever tools you have access to — even one hidden blue eyeshadow. Off camera, Deral works as a director of social media for multiple casinos, overseeing content strategy and production. That background helps explain another reason he has become such a beloved part of the local scene: he often films drag performers at Gipsy and creates polished recap videos simply as a way of giving back to the community that embraced him. It is one more extension of the same impulse behind his makeup — using creativity to make people feel seen. And whether he is painting his own face, creating work for a competition show, or documenting the performers around him, that mission remains the same. Fun. Joy. Magic. For everyone who has watched him evolve at Gipsy over the years, seeing Deral step onto a bigger stage feels less like a surprise and more like the next chapter in a story Vegas has been witnessing all along. Top MUA (@topmuaglobal) is a new global makeup competition series on AzloTV featuring six artists competing for a $20,000 prize, a makeup campaign, and a year's supply of makeup. Season 1 premiered on March 15, 2026, Hosted by @makeupbygilly