Three films garnered 2011 Academy Award nominations for Best Makeup.  The nominees for Best Makeup Oscars are Adrien Morot for Barney's Version, Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng for The Way Back and Rick Baker and Dave Elsey for The Wolfman.http://oscar.go.com/#category_makeup 

According to the official rules of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Best Makeup Academy Award nominees must use makeup to alter the appearance of a character's "face, hair or body."  Makeup artists may use prosthetics, wigs and hairpieces, as well as traditional cosmetics.http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule15.html 

Films that garnered Best Makeup Academy Awards in recent years include 2009's Star Trek, 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 2007's La Vie En Rose.http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/82/nominees.html http://www.oscars.org/awards/81academyawards/nominees.html http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/oscarlegacy/2000-present/2008/winners.html  

All total, the Best Makeup field is comprised of several multiple-Oscar nominees, some past winners and a few first-timers.  Among them: Adrien Morot.   His work on Barney's Version, which included transforming Paul Giamatti's Barney Panofsky over a period of several decades of his life, earned Morot his first-ever Oscar nomination.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/makeup/history/barneys-version/686161 

The Way Back's Edouard F. Henriques has received two previous Academy Award nominations for his past work on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (in 2003) and The Cell in 2000.  The Way Back's Gregory Funk is a first-time Oscar nominee, and Yolanda Toussieng has received three previous Oscar nominations: for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, as well as 1994's Ed Wood and 1993's Mrs. Doubtfire. Toussieng won Academy Awards for Ed Wood and Mrs. Doubtfire.   The trio of makeup artists used their talents on Peter Weir's The Way Back to help convey the brutal struggle of a group of Soviet gulag escapees' journey to safety.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/makeup/history/the-way-back/686168 

Rick Baker, nominated for The Wolfman in 2011, has received a total of 11 previous Oscar nominations for makeup.  Baker has won the award six times for his work on such films as The Nutty Professor and Men in Black.  Baker's colleague on The Wolfman, Dave Elsey, has previously been nominated for a Best Makeup Oscar for 2005's Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.   Baker and Elsey used their makeup artistry to transform Benicio Del Toro's Lawrence Talbot into a "savage killer" werewolf in The Wolfman.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/makeup/history/the-wolfman/686169 

The Best Makeup category is a relative newcomer to the Academy Awards, having been established in the early 1980s.  Prior to this, honorary awards were given for outstanding makeup achievement in 1964, to William Tuttle for 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and in 1968, to John Chambers for Planet of the Apes.  The first person to win an official Academy Award for Best Makeup is Rick Baker.  Baker took home the Oscar in 1981 for An American Werewolf in London.  Baker was a nominee again in 2011 for another werewolf film - The Wolfman.http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayPrintableResults.jsp