Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Andorians

10. Their Makeup Design Was Created By Fred Phillips...On Very Little Notice

Makeup artist Fred Phillips was given very little notice that he'd have to design the Andorians for their first appearance. He ended up working overnight so they'd be ready in time for filming. Phillips based his design on writer D.C. Fontana's broad description of their appearance in the script. She described them as tall, slim humanoids with delicate antennae "curling from the head."

Phillips created the Andorians' blue skin with a combination of Max Factor Aqua Blue cream stick makeup for the base and a darker blue cream liner for shadows and details. He sculpted the antennae from modeling clay and then, according to Star Trek archivist Richard Arnold, topped them off with the ends of thread spools. The antennae's supportive stems were made from a rigid material and attached toward the back of the actor's white wig to hide the connection.

Creating the Andorians was time consuming and expensive. According to actor William O'Connell, who played Thelev in Journey to Babel, it took nearly two hours to apply his makeup. The time and expense limited the number of appearances for the Andorians to only three more episodes of the series after Journey to Babel.