How to Apply a Prosthetic (with Blood!)
Welcome to more how to make up tips. Today we will be featuring how to apply a latex prosthetic and blend it in with blood.
First off we need our shopping list. For this we are going to need:
- Latex prosthetic. I’m going to be using Metal Attack from Woochie. (I have the Glass Attach pictured)
- Blood Gel (Also can use Stage Blood. I only suggest the cheep Halloween stuff if there is no other option)
- Spirit Gum
- Make up Sponge
- Stipple Sponge
- Q-Tips
- Bruise Wheel (or Stack)
First off figure out where on your body you want to put this. Most images will put these on the face. Mainly because it’s a great place to put things for an example, but you can an easily put them mostly anywhere on your body that isn’t a moving joint. Alot of people will come in and ask to have stuff put on their neck. This rarely works out. Your neck moves around alot and there is nothing stable there to glue to. Most anything will fall of by the end of the night. There some newer items that have velcro that goes around the neck to hold stuff on that work well.
First off for attaching our item here is to apply Spirit Gum Adhesive to the back of it. Bottles tend to have a little brush on the inside.
You can apply the skin instead if you choose. If it’s going to be a looong night you can apply spirit gum to both skin and the prosthetic. If you like you can get Spirit Gum Remover. It is great for cleaning up with. You do not need it though. your natural oils and sweat will break down the adhesive as the night goes on making it relatively easy to take off at the end of the night.
Now there is a step when using spirit gum that isn’t communicated very well. You need to work air into the adhesive to make it sticky. You can do this my simply tapping it with your finger. You will see little stands start to come off it and it becomes very tacky when it is ready to be used.
Many people will simply brush it on and push the prosthetic on to the skin. It will often fall off quickly with out working air into it.
Now we will apply it to the skin. Once the Spirit Gum is in place you can just press it on where you need to be and make sure you get all the edges down.
Sometimes you will get some issues with edges not staying down. You can lift it up and reapply the Spirit gum as needed following the steps above. and press the trouble some edges down till they cooperate.
Next we are going to start blending it in with some make up. When people are on a budget this is the step that gets cut the most. You can blend it in with only blood, but I think it looks better with a little make up. Using a Bruise Wheel, or Bruise Stack mentioned in the How to Make A Bruise you can make some irritation around the wound. I like to use the reddish colors since it is pretty fresh.
Be careful as you are apply make up on the prosthetic. The make up will appear differently on the prosthetic as it does on your skin, so it is best to go light with it.Also be sure to paint the skin around the prosthetic as well. It’s best to pretend there is no edge and apply accordingly.
Next is the blood. You can go as crazy or as light as you like. I tend to go a bit lighter on the blood because I want people to be able to see the rest of the work. Otherwise everything gets lost in a sea of blood. Since this is a puncture wound I am going to use a stipple sponge. It is very textured and will leave a splatter look to the blood. Then with a Q-Tip I put blood around the metal it self in larger globs so it will drip down and the night goes on.
Also note how the blood completely hides that curved edge around the metal that was visible in the previous steps. Another cool thing about Blood Gel is that it is a bit heat sensitive. It will dry, but as you body temperature goes up, it will start to run which makes things look really cool over the course of a night.
Here is our completed model also the sporting the Bruise from before.
How to Make a Bruise
So Halloween is coming and you are searching the internet how to do cool make up. Well hallopino.com is here to help. I am bringing back last years how-to section on how to do various make up effects. I’m trying to keep things pretty simple and easy. But you can build on top of these ideas to make more complex ideas of your own.
Today we are going to learn how to make a bruise.
A quick note: the joke of, “I can make a real bruise really easy for you.” gets old fast.
The items required is very easy for this. We simply need a Bruise Wheel (pictured) from Ben Nye, or a Bruise Stack from Cinema Secrets and a make up sponge.
Odds are the crappy halloween stores that crop up around the holiday will have the Bruise Stack. It’s a bit different colors, but the theory on how to use it still applies. Most year round stores should hopefully carry one or the other. As for the sponge, it’s not really needed, but tends to be better then sticking your finger in someone’s eyes in an attempt to give them a black eye. You can find one at pretty much any make up section at a drug store or grocery store.
So lets start off with our subject. Today we are going to give her a black eye.
What we want to do to begin is take a bruise wheel and start with the darkest color which is that deep purple. On the Bruise Stack there is a black. I would advise to skip that and move to their dark purple. this will be the base of our bruise or black eye. This will most likely be where the person was hit, or most blood vessels were broken. You can begin by being fairly sloppy and applying it to the face where you want your bruise.
You don’t want to go too big with this color because the other colors are going to go on top of this and will have a larger footprint.
Now, some people might look at that and feel that is the type bruise they are looking for, it looks bad, fresh, it looks like that time I get hit with that baseball. The good part to this is that it is all subjective. I’m going to give a lot of steps here. If you are making your bruise and you like what you are seeing and want to stop, then stop and call it finished right there.
Our next step here is going to be adding the next color, which on both the wheel and the stack will be the next darkest color. With the bruise you want to be fairly messy and apply this over previous color spreading things out wider then before.
And from there you want to continue around the wheel to the next darkest color, and apply it in the same manor. If your next color is a green or a yellow then stop. I believe the wheel has one more red/purple color then the stack does.
I went a bit crazy on that color. You don’t have to go that big. You want to make what looks right for the character or effect you are making. But I am going a bit more extreme for demo purposes.
Next we have the green-ish color. This is more of a heeling color. If you are making a fresh bruise, you want to skip this step. If you want an older looking bruise you most likely want to use this, but sparingly. You’ll want to apply this in areas that might not be as dark, as those would heal first. I personally find that people are kinda grossed out by the green, so it’s fun to add.
And now our bruise is complete.
A few things about preserving the make up. Most times if you using creme make up and want to head out you want to powder the make up to protect it. With the bruise I like to avoid that. I feel the powder dulls it out too much. Also as the night goes on it will fade and the more it fades the cooler it is going to look.
BONUS: Sometimes I like to add a little bit of blood to a black eye. More of a rough fight, almost breaking the skin kind of look. With a stipple sponge and blood gel, I’ll lightly go over the cheek bone for the look, like below.
I tend to go with Cinema Secrets Blood Gel over anything else you might find at the halloween store because in this case since we went light it will dry and look a bit like scabs.
114 – Claw Phone
An other test shot today trying out a new claw look on the fingers. Thought it would be fun to shoot with the phone.
107 – Before-After
Did a crazy make up shoot today and thought I would feature a before and after of the make up.
079 – Wounded
I realize I tend to keep my comments short and don’t have to much to say in addition to the image. Sometimes an image has nothing to do with the day beyond a shoot I did. Sometimes I can try to show some feeling.
078 – Eyeliner
Back at the Wizard of Oz play where the scarecrow is getting his make up done back stage.
020 – Painting Nails
Kaylee was nice enough to paint the nails for the werewolf shoot as I was work on an other part of her make up.
019 – Make Up Prep
I have a shoot tomorrow and I’m checking to make sure I have everything and I’m all set.
Horror Pin Ups – Jason : In 3-D
I’ve been doing this ongoing series of horror pin up with girls taking the place of horror icons. They tend to be a little few and far between, but it’s fun stuff. Today we have Jason. I really couldn’t think of a girly variation of the name Jason that still identified the character. This shot seemed inline with the 3-D horror tends that are currently plaguing movies. And it looked nifty. Enjoy.
Halloween Make up 2009 – Round 3
On to the last weekend of Halloween make up at Josie O’Kain Costume Shop in Joliet, IL. I’m going to be splitting this up into 2 posts as we did a lot of stuff. I won’t be posting a lot of the make up that we did. Partially cause we had some repeat make up jobs from previous weekends. I love when people keep coming back, but I don’t want to show you all the same images over again. We did a lot of make up on kids on Halloween morning, that I’m not going to share either. They looked great, but I don’t feel right posting images of the kids. There were also about 4 or 5 make up jobs that I simply forgot to take a photo of.
I’ll start off with the stuff we did on Friday. First we had a Frankenstein monster using one of the kits from Rubies. It took some work trying to get all the elements to come together for this, and still have a edge from the thick forehead appliance, but otherwise I think it came along pretty well.
Next we had a cyclops. It’s a nice latex application from Don Post. Don Post makes some nice and very creative items, but sometimes there tend to be some slight issues with the design that I’ll mention more of next time. The cyclops was a bit think so it was a little harder to hide the edges with a normal skin tone, but did the best we could on it.He did change into a costume before leaving, but I will say I’m always partial to modern day clothes with demons and monsters. Who says a cyclops can’t be a Cubs fan.
Next we have a repeat customer from last year which give Ellwyn a chance to show off her great skill with the air brush. This year our fairy wanted more of an autumn look and colors to go with her costume. I started of her base, and Ellwyn went to town on the details. The stencils for the leaves were made by the clients significant other. One of the thinks we do miss out on sometimes is that we often don’t get to see people in their complete costume as she is pictured in a dress she wore just to have the make up done in.
I’ll go ahead and jump to Saturday where I got to work on a customer that generally has come in every year for a long time. Every time I get to do something different. This time we just kept it simple with some horns that were blended in with blood as they burst through his skull.
That’s all for today. I’ll have some more images from Halloween next time.
Bearded Lady
Last week we had a step by step on how to apply crepe hair. I’ve kinda of wanted to shoot some of the standard circus freaks for a while, and the bearded Lady is just such a fun idea even if I was shooting at midnight. Here are some of the bearded lady images we shot after it was complete.
Zombie Playboy Bunny
On Halloween you got to see one of these images. I held a poll on my DeviantArt page to help decide what I should shoot for the Halloween image. Zombie won the poll hands down, but playboy bunny got a fair amount of votes as well. I thought it would be fun to combine the two.
So we have a before and after images. Enjoy.
Happy Halloween
The time has come for everyone to dress up and head out to terrorize their communities in search for the all important free candies. This year I took some time out and did a Halloween themed shoot. Which really doesn’t vary greatly from from my normal shoots. After running a poll on my DeviantArt acount it was decided that this year’s image would be a Zombie Playboy Bunny. Jacky was awesome enough to come out and get messed up and model.
Halloween Make Up 2009 – Round 2
The second weekend of doing halloween make up has come and gone and I have more images to share.
First up is a repeat of one I’ve done a few times now. There is a very cool prosthetic that looks like you have no eyes. Basically there is a black mesh that covers the eyes and the latex looks like they have been ripped out. Glue it to the head and add some blood and it’s a pretty cool effect. There is a photo of a past one in the sample book at the costume shop. People often stop on that page wondering how it is done.
Next is a slight variation of the similar make up work I did for my Freddy Kreuger pin up using the 3-D burn from Woochie. I didn’t have to cut it down to fit the face as much this time so the whole thing is visible. Also we added some glass to balance out the other side of the face. I think the glass attack is always fun with the fact that it is transparent and you can see the blood splattered on the other side. In addition I added a piece of glass into the chin to mimic the beard he shaved off so I could apply the make up.
Next we have a cool vampire couple that came based upon a recommendation given from a couple me and Ellwyn worked on the previous weekend. It’s always cool to have that word of mouth. El and I did split duty on the couple doing a little bit on each person. It worked out well.
I don’t book all of the appointments that I work on, and sometimes I don’t find out what I’m doing until they walk in the door. I was rather amused with the two girl’s idea to be a Bears Fan and a Packers Fan that got into a fight. And from the looks of the wounds it was a pretty epic brawl.
Finally, we have a family that came in and looking to be Shrek, Fiona and Puss in Boots. Ellwyn did great work on Puss, which she always does great work with cat faces. (Sorry she is a bit blurry in the image. I was refusing to use flash and therefore had a very narrow field of focus). And then Me and El did more split duty on Shrek and Fiona which really seems to work out well for us.
Hopefully I’ll have some more images to share after Halloween.
How to Apply Crepe Hair
Today we will be learning how to apply crepe hair. I may have to explain a bit more that crepe hair is a fake hair used in make up applications to make facial hair, werewolves and any number of other characters. For our example, we will be making a beard.
So to start off, here are the materials we are going to need:
- Crepe Hair
- Spirit Gum (or Prosthetic Adhesive)
- Hair Spray (not pictured)
- Scissors
- Latex Brush (optional)
Here’s a quick note about crepe hair before we get going. Crepe hair is typically is made of wool, and comes in a tight braid. So when you first unwind it the hair is very curly. I prefer to work with it straightened out. How to do this is very simple, but does take some time. Simply unbraid all the hair, and run water over it in the sink or shower. Then once all the hair is wet, hang it over the shower curtain to dry over night. The weight of the water will pull the hair straight. You can speed up the process with a hair dryer, but it’s not quite the same effect.
Also I should point out that there is some crepe hair from cinema secrets witch is more of a plastic material. It is already straightened in the package. I’ve worked with it before and it is nowhere as nice a the wool hair.
So here is our model before we do anything to her. You need to be sure that any kind of make up you plan on applying such as simple base, beauty, werewolf or demon make up is applied before you begin working on the hair. Once the hair is on, it’s incredibly difficult to apply make up under it.
We’ll begin by applying Spirit Gum adhesive to the chin which will be our starting point in the process. In other “how-to” series I will make mention of being sure to tap the Spirit Gum with your finger or brush to work air into it before applying an item to it. That is NOT recommended when using crepe hair. Mainly because the crepe hair is light enough that it doesn’t need to full strength of the adhesive to stick. Also the less your fingers and brushes have adhesive on them, the less hair is going to stick to things you don’t want to have hair on them.
Prosthetic adhesive is an other good alternative to use for crepe hair, and tends to create less of a mess because it will most likely require less dips back into the bottle. Just be sure to wait till the adhesive is mostly clear before you begin to attach hair. I know a lot of people who like to use Liquid Latex as an adhesive. I really do NOT recommend that at all. It will have a discolored area under the hair, and will have a larger chance of failure as the application goes on.
In our image I’m using a Latex Brush instead of the brush that is inside of the Spirit Gum bottle for a couple reasons. As the bottle runs closer to the bottom it is harder to reach the adhesive with the built in bottle. Also as you add more Spirit Gum to other areas of the face stray strands of crepe hair will stick to the brush and end up in your bottle of Spirit Gum. The Latex Brush can easily be cleaned off with a wet wipe in order to prevent that. The brush attached to the bottle cap will only get worse and worse. You can use a normal make up brush to apply the Spirit Gum with, but it will most likely be ruined in the process. The Latex Brush is designed to apply adhesives, bloods and gels and be cleaned off easily afterword.
Now for the hair. Since our model is blonde I picked out some blonde crepe hair. Actually picked out two different shades that can be seen in the first image. Most likely your hair isn’t one solid color. There are subtle color variations, and that can be mimicked by getting different shades of the same color and mixing them together.
Choose the length of the hair you want and cut off a piece from the long strand. You will want to pull the hair a part so it doesn’t clump together and try to get a bunch that is spread pretty even. And if you choose do the same with the other color and mix them together.
For the first bunch of hair you are attaching you don’t need to add a ton of hair, will be adding more later to make it look full. You will want to start at the bottom of the chin/jaw and work your way up. That way there is room to add more Spirit Gum and more hair.
Now you can pick a direction to go an continue applying spirit gum and crepe hair along the bottom of the jaw line. Then work your way back by adding hair higher up to add more layers and depth.
Also once we have a couple layers of hair layers down we can use some hair spray to help to hair stay together a bit better. We don’t want to have clumps, but we don’t want to have flyaways, or hairs that were not stuck on very well falling out. This will help everything stay clean and looking nice.
Now after a while some of the hair that was applied might not be sticking at the top of the hair like we would hope. The randomness of the height of the hair is great for the cheeks because it adds a lot of natural look. But you’ll notice I have some hair that doesn’t look like it is attached, and some other that is attached, but the top of the hair is over her lips. We can get in with a pair of scissors and clean that up.
And then we continue applying Spirit Gum and Crepe Hair across both sides of the face, and do some clean up in the process we end up something looking like this.
So now it’s time to work on the mustache. The hair we cut for this will be much shorter then the hair we cut for the rest of the beard. Since this is a pretty full beard it can still have some length. If it was just a mustache alone, then it would need to be be all fairly short hair, and slightly more controlled application. With the full beard we can apply the Spirit Gum to the upper lip, and attache the Crepe hair and blend it in with the rest of the beard.
Now we need to take a tep back and look at the beard as a whole. Look for hairs that might not be attached well and fix those with a little strategically applied Spirit Gum, or hair spray. Also look at the length of the beard to see if it is even all the way across. You can trim and clean up the beard with a pair of scissors.
Once any needed clean up is completed you will have a completely finished beard that might look something like this.
After that go ahead and do any final touches you want to apply to your costume, and you are ready to go out and rock the town.
Horror Pin Ups – Ms. Krueger
A year ago I started shooting a series of photos of horror icons as female pin ups. It didn’t get too far as I was only able to get one done so far. It’s been constantly in the back of my mind, and often discussed. Although it took this long to do an other one. This time I put my focus on Freddy Krueger.
This is the final product from Wednesday’s make up demonstration.
For those who are curious,The glove is from Josie O’Kain costume shop who has the plastic one that is pictured, as well as a very high quality metal glove. If you are interested you can contact them via their website.
Next up on my chopping block for the horror pin up is Jason. But I wouldn’t expect to see anything materialize on the site till December/January.
How to Apply a Prosthetic
Every year I help out with a costume shop and I answer a lot of questions about how to apply the make up. And there are some things that might seem intimidating or that people don’t know that I try to answer and I thought I would share of some of what I know here.
Sadly I can’t say this is the most complete how-to, but hopefully it will give some basics on how to attach a latex prosthetic. In the future I’ll be giving more information on how to blend in the items.
Click any of the images below to see them full size.
Above are some of the materials that are required to apply a prosthetic piece. They include the prosthetic (in this case a 3-D Burn from Woochie), Spirit Gum, Liquid Latex, and various make up to blend it in with.
The first step isn’t all that exciting but it’s an important one that people constantly step. Take the application you are looking to put on and place it on the face (with out adhesive) to see where it touches the face.
What you’ll learn from doing this is a prview of how it will look later on, and if there are going to be any problem areas. For example the burn at the top of the prosthetic actually lands in her hair and wouldn’t be able to be properly attached. So I have to cut that out with a pair of scissors in order to make that fit. Also it felt too close to her eye, so I cut a larger opening there as well to make it more comfortable.
Next we need to apply the adhesive. In this case we are using Spirit Gum. There are other options out there, but most of the time all you will need is Spirit Gum. There is often a brush inside the cap, and just simply spread it across the back of the entire area. You can also apply the adhesive directly to the skin instead. If I’m applying something I know will need to stay on for a long period of time I’ll typically apply it to both the skin and prosthetic.
Then we have an other important step that is not well known, but will help your prosthetics last much longer. Simpley take your finger (or the other end of a brush) and tap the Spirit Gum, until it is thick and tacky. This works Oxygen into the adhesive and allows it to stick better. You’ll see the adhesive start to stick and strands come off when it is ready.
Next place the prosthetic on to the skin like you did before and press it against the skin. With smaller pieces you can just press them on. With larger ones will require starting in the middle (typically around the eyes/forehead) and working your way out adding adhesive as you go.
Some of the edges will naturally look smooth, some won’t. On the rougher adges you can add liquid latex to smooth it out. Liquid Latex is like a liquid skin. You can put some onto a make up sponge and spread it in the rougher edges. It will take a little while to dry depending on how much is applied.
At that point the prosthetic should be secured on the skin and ready to have make up applied to it so it can blend in to the skin and look like it is a part of you. (Note: the discoloered area on the other side of the face is unrelated to this demo and will be featured in an other how-to)
When using make up to blend in the prosthetic you have a lot of options. When it is something like a puncture wound, or a fesh wound you can assume there would be a lot of blood and spreading blood over the area will easily blend in the prosthetic. Using cream make up for noses and ears and non-blood prosthetics is more difficult, but can result in some great effects like the image below. I will feature those techniques in the future.
I hope this was informative, and there will be more coming down the pipe. If you have any questions or there is anything you would like to see, leave me a comment below.
Halloween Make Up 2009 – Round 1
The Halloween season is already upon us and he have hit our first weekend of make up appointments at the costume shop. Thought I’d take a moment and share some of the work with you.
First off we have a couple going for a dead bride & groom who are hosting a party.
I worked on his make up based upon a photo of a make up job I had done in the past and removed a chunk of his face. For the bride me and Ellwyn split the make up duties to save time.
I went went to work on the slit throat, and then Ellwyn worked on the pale color, details, and eye make up with her steadier hand. Her neck slash and his face wound were created using nose and scar wax to build up the edges, and liquid latex over the wax to secure it.
Next I had a father son pair who have been regular customers. They like a latex application from Rubies called Real FX. It’s a large, pre-colored piece that covers the entire face, but it needs some work to look as cool as it does on the package.
In order to make the 3-dimensional areas like the ridges above the eyes and the chin work, I glue cotton balls in those areas on the inside of the appliance with spirit gum. Also I cut larger areas around the eyes and cut away a couple of the edges to allow it to fit better.
The Scarecrow Real FX piece is probably the one I’ve done the most of the years. It has also had a fair amount of modifications to make it work. Over one of the eyes was a button that he cut out before hand, and one that I’ve cut out several times in the past as well. And at his request I cut the bottom chin part away from the rest, which really allowed the entire thing to have a greater fit.
Finally Ellwyn did a great job on a making a Raiders fan who was dressing up for a contest at a local game.
Costume Sale
I’ve worked fro a long time with Josie O’Kain’s Costume Shop in Joliet, IL. Sadly, this year will be ending their 50 year history and the store will be closing for the last time.
As a result they are currently selling off everything in the store before the doors shut for the very last time on October 31st, Halloween. So if you are in the area, please go and help them out and buy your halloween costume there this year. They are selling off all their rental costumes and all the retail items are for sale. As we get closer to the end fixtures, and etc are available. Everything must be sold.
Thanks.
Lycanthropy
I shot this over the winter and I haven’t gotten around to sharing it yet. I wanted to show the change of a werewolf. Also I was trying out a new prosthetic. I’m not as thrilled with it as I had hoped, but I can get a different make up piece and try again sometime. I did the make up on this series adding crepe hair and more prosthesis as the changes continued.
Clowning Around
Not the most original title, but it works. A couple unplanned shots from our clown day.
We went to the store to buy some pie for the previous image and couldn’t help, but take a picture in the store.
Then were we unable to resist the lure of the clown comedy standard of bananas.
Clown Showdown
We shot a of images with clowns one weekend. Here we have a western inspired pie fight show down.
I did do the make up on the clown that is very far away. We’ll see more of her later this week.
Enjoy.
