While Starfleet crew members bravely go where no man has gone before—or, in the case of Deep Space Nine, bravely sit still in a space station next to a wormhole—Star Trek crew members are perhaps the unsung heroes of the franchise. And one of those heroes is Michael Westmore, the makeup designer who has been creating alien looks for the franchise for nearly 20 years.

Westmore won two Emmy Awards and five additional nominations for his work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The syndicated series, created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, followed Starfleet Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his crew as they manned the titular space station and grappled with exploration, trade, politics, and conflict between two quadrants of the galaxy.

And with a cast of characters filled with Bajorans, Cardassians, Changelings, Ferengi, Trill and other alien species, Westmore and the other makeup artists certainly had their hands full. "The challenges on Deep Space Nine were the same as Next Generation, the same as Voyager, the same as Enterprise," Westmore said in a 2004 interview with the Television Academy. "It's like you get a concept, you think it out, you build it, you paint it, and you have it done the day they ask for it."

DS9 ran for seven seasons before ending 25 years ago, when "What You Leave Behind" aired on June 2, 1999. A quarter century later, check out the photo gallery below to see cast members in and out of their otherworldly characters — and hear what they had to say about the makeup magic.