Skin & Hair

 

Yum, yum, yum, well I guess if you want to make a zombie or a person with gross second and third degree burns you have to have an idea on how to make different textures of skin. I'll leave the stuff like making a fake nose for a normal living person to people like FX man for more fun stuff like zombies, gore, and undead sorts this is the page for you!

Skin

TP Method

He he he. TP!? Yup, It's dirt-cheap and makes some of the best second-degree burns, blisters and zombie outfits that I have seen. The only problem is that it slides around a little bit but how long is your shot going to be? It beats the hell out of wasting a whole pile of money and time making a latex piece that you only need for a 15-second shoot. This really comes in handy if you only need it for one shot.

Materials Needed:

-) TP (Toilet Paper)

-) Vaseline

Blisters & Burns

 

For the TP method fallow the directions below. Note that the TP method is the best for 2nd degree burns and is very fast to do.

  1. Put a blob of Vaseline where you want the blister
  2. Cut TP into shape blister should be
  3. Place TP on blob
  4. Put a little Vaseline on your finger and rub the blister 'tll it's clear.
  5. Wash excess off (Doesn't Vaseline feel gross?)

Of course there is other ways to do burns but I like this best.

Skin Flaps

Using the knowledge TP method you should be able to play with it (just don't leave a blob under the TP). You can get some awesome cut throat FX like this. J

Or there is always the classical Elmer's glue effect for skin flaps and old age stipple. What you do is put a thin layer of white glue (non-toxic) on your body (hopefully NOT your face) and let it dry. When it does you will gel an old looking dry skin. There you have old age stipple. Now if you want skin flaps what you do is pull on pieces of it and make flaps of "skin". Add make-up and blood as required and you are done.

Making thin sheets of gelatin always works too. Squish it between two flat pieces of something. For info on making gelatin check out FX man's Page under tips and tricks. I will have more of this on my gelatin page when I get my stuff together.

 

Mummified Skin

To get a mummified effect like that of the Zombie to your left you will not believe what they used (At least I believe this is what they used and I've done it and it looks good). In the movie "Zombie" they used oatmeal for the built up pieces of this creature then added make-up and it was done. I found that to do this you must make the oat meal as if to eat it, let it cool, then apply thin layers of it. When you get it built up to your liking let it dry, apply make-up and your finished.

(The pic was borrowed from the House of Horrors)

 

I am told of a technique that used clay. From what I gather what you do is get some gray clay from your local art store or whatever and apply thin layers of it, go outside let the sun bake it then put some more on. This will give you a cracked mummified look. Note: that one of the actors complained that it was a little itchy during drying. Ah yes, but pain comes with beauty right?

 

Hair

I will eventually get diagrams and hopefully photos on how to do this.

Any way here is one way of doing it; you need to get a fine crochet hook and some hair, crepe wool, or fake hair, or what ever it is that you are using. Take the hair and thread it into the crochet hook halfway then fold it. Next put it through the appliance and then back up right beside the original hole, grab the hair still sticking up with the hook and pull the hair through to make a knot. It sounds more complicated than it is because I have crappie directions and no diagrams.

A friend from Likeastory wrote:

Seen you around the board and stuff (thanks for ideas) and thought I'd check out your homepage, and saw you had something about making fakehair appliances.

Well.... I've just finished a season on a stage show, and had to do a fullfaced one of these for a wolf person. It's called postiche, and mainly used in film/tv for facial hair or anything else you can think ofreally, but anyway, I was going to say that a crochet hook doesn't always workwhen trying to do really fine stuff, so you can buy a postiche hook for that exact purpose, they're not expensive, (about $13NZ, so about half thatfor $US) but they really do make a difference when you're doing it, well, I found that they did.

Liz

 

 

!!!More To Come!!!

Questions? E-mail ME

Please note that some of these pictures are borrowed from other pages. If you are the owner of one of these pages and are offended by the use of your pics. E-mail me and I will remove them. Thank you.