Halloween Make-Up

After seeing Oliver's make-up, my nephew, Spencer asked if I would be willing to do his make-up for his orchestra concert. Since I like Spencer, I said that I would.

I told him that it would take about an hour so he sat and watched Paranorman with Oliver while I messed up his face.

I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to do so I thought I would share what I know in case anyone needs/wants to look like a zombie or so that I can refer back to for next Halloween.

 

Face rot/holes/bites:

First step was to throw some oatmeal and toilet paper mixed with liquid latex on his face to make it look like his skin was coming apart. For the toilet paper, used torn edges. Apply a thin layer of LL (liquid Latex) and then the toilet paper followed by more LL. After that I put a full application of liquid latex all over his face even on areas that do not have rot. When this dries and as the person moves their face, it will create a wrinkled look and look awesome.

 

Foundation:

Next I used the hair dryer on his face so that It would be completely dry before adding any color. When it was all dry. I used a brush and put a generous amount of powder on his face. A brush works better in the lumpy areas so that it covers all the cracks a holes. I mixed some BB cream (that I wasn't going to use anymore) and some grey and white Halloween cream to create a dead looking color and applied that all over his face. It worked best to load up your sponge with color and dab it in the holes and cracks.

 

Shadowing:

Once I got the foundation, I was ready for some color. It worked best to use black eye make up rather than black Halloween paint for the eyes. I later learned (after Spencer's make-up) to get the inside corner of the eyes as dark as you can. Drawing black lines under where eye bags would be gave you more of a tired zombie look instead of just black cirlces around the eyes. I also did a layer of black on the temples, cheek bones (if they were exposed)  and around the mouth. I used black Halloween paint for that part.

 

Blood and color:

This was the fun part. I found that the best product to use for color was Wilton food coloring (in the wet paste form) mixed with corn syrup. I used real red, brown, light brown and black.  In the holes, I made sure to use black to really show the depth of the wound and lighten up around the edges with brown and light brown. There really is no wrong way of doing this part. After filling in all the holes, I ran around the edges with some red to really gore it up. Out of the large holes, I liked to get a combo of deep red and dark brown and make drips out of the wound. The nose was fun to black out to make it look like there wasn't much of a nose. This worked better on Spencer than Luke because I used some brown in his. 

 

Final touches:

I liked to use some of the red food coloring to dab on the lips to make it look like the zombie has been feeding. I also mixed some red and brown food coloring with some corn syrup and a little bit of water. I dipped the bristles in and vigorously shook the liquid around the face to make it look like blood splats. We also bought some tooth rot at walmart for about $2.00. Instead of using colored hair spray, we just used a lot of hair conditioner to give it a really oil-y look.  If you are brave enough you can shave chunks out of your hair. This worked well for Luke since he was just going to shave his head anyway. And don't forget the neck and ears. Those will be exposed too so make sure you rot them up.

 

Spencer

Oliver

Luke