BettcanardDesign: Zombie Mania

Happy Halloween

For your Halloween entertainment I thought a zombie tutorial, or five was in order. I will start with the trio in Brisbane.

The makeup I have chose for myself is going to be an open throat, which is a style I have done a couple of other times already. Only different this time was that I added a special effect to pump blood.

It worked for a good while but it was very messy. It's a perfect detail for a zombiewalk, but for just going around in the city, shopping malls and random bars, it was too messy.

It was fun to try something new and special so I will definitely try this again on a zombiewalk.

But to show you what I did, and starting up with the extra special effects, then I will go true basic making of the open skin look.

#1 The leaking throat;

So this is an "I hart Australia" drinking bag, attached to a soap dispenser pump, that are attached to four straws, and everything is hold together with duct-tape.

Tape it on to your skin with appropriate tape (not gaffa), and cover it up with liquid latex and tissues. Cover that again with cheap concealer and try to get a grey tone to your skin all over. How to get the open skin look and color is shown better on pictures further down.

#2 Open flesh shown teeth look

A tutorial I copied from Chrix Design

First off cot and line up the fake nails to use as teethes. Than you have to cover your nose, chin, cheeks and lips with liquid latex and tissues, use several layers on this step, because you have to take it off in one piece to be reused. (So you don't have to make everything in one go the day of your zombie mayhem). I used "child proof" crafting glue for adding the teeth. It will take a little while to dry, be patient.

Before you take it off, and you are waiting for the glue to dry, it is perfect to paint some color and details. I used acrylic paint, first red, than a brown color around the teeth.

On the day you will be using this mouthpiece add another lair of tissues and liquid latex, mostly on your nose and cheeks to make the torn skin. Use concealer and a grey body paint to get a grey skin tone when its dry. Then open the latex around your mouth and nose, just enough to fit the mouthpiece you have already made, use another lire of latex on your lips and nose and use spirit gum inside the mouthpiece, and then place it in the right spot. It takes some patience to get it in the right spot, but once it's there and the spirit gum have dried than you can start painting and put makeup on. Note that you can reverse the steps and make all in one go, then you start with this step and add more latex, tissues, teeth and paint inside the "open flesh hole", this requires a bit more finesse, but you can do it.

Wherever you use latex and tissues, you can paint over it with acrylic paint, I use black on the inside of the open latex, than fake blood on top of the black. That makes it look glossy and nasty but also fresh.

The fresh looking zombies are the funniest to make, that means your skin doesn't have to look too dead, and that's easier to work with, and you can have more fun with blood (because too old zombies don't have any blood left in them).

#3 the dangling eye effect

This is the first time I'm making a popping eye effect, and the Styrofoam ball I found was a few millimeters too big but it worked, I only regret that I didn't paint the eyeball in a more yellowish tone, it was too white in my opinions.

Other than that it looked awesome and it was fun to make another new effect, and I will definitely make something like this again.

Over to how I did it, like you can see I used a Styrofoam ball and painted it as an eye, and the last picture there I mixed liquid latex with some red acrylic paint, which means when it has dried I can take it off the plastic bag it's lying on.

Use a thick layer of tissues for the eye and enough to rip open for the falling out effect. Than again with the concealer and gray body paint to cover up the tissue. I used acrylic paint wherever the latex was covering and I used makeup (eye shadow and eyeliner) for the bruising around the wound. Top it all with fake blood.

Blood recipe

1cup water

1cup corn flour

1cup cacao powder

1flask of red food color

1 cup of dark thick syrup

The basic zombie makeup

Liquid latex and tissues where ever you want an open wound
Use concealer on the latex piece on your skin before ripping it open. It's easier that way.
When you have the base color you want for your zombie skin than you can rip the latex open. Use tweezers and your fingers to open, not scissors, only for safety reasons.
On this picture I used eyeliner on the inside of the wound and dark eye shadow on the outside.
Use red lip-gloss and lipstick for a red- and redglossyness.
Use blue, yellow eye shadow for broses look
Use blue, red and yellow eyeliner for a blood vane look, and infected look.
I found out that Australian vegemite is good for zombie effect. It has a brown paste look and makes a final touch for some of my zombie makeup.
And always the completely final look is to add the fake blood.