Horror Movie Special Effects Makeup:
This Genius Hour is the sad, sad story of how I failed at time management. My plan for this Genius Hour was to complete my slashed eye look for my "How to Read Lit Like a Professor" video and film that scene. My model was meant to be Hannah, but I did not realize that haunted house and quarter thesis papers would take up so much of my group's time. The delay extended until when Hannah left for National FFA, so my plan for this Genius Hour and my entire action plan as a whole pretty much fell apart.
This was completely my fault for not realizing time frames would conflict. To combat this and end my Genius Hour on a strong note, I decided to restructure the rest of my action plan for the entire project. For Genius Hour 1.5, I took another week to watch tutorials and get ideas and gather motivation for the rest of my project. Genius Hour 1.6, I'll record all of the makeup I'm completing for the haunted house. Genius Hour 1.7, I'll finally complete my slashed eye look, Finally for Genius Hour 1.8, I'll do a full face horror movie character which will be decided by a poll later on.
I spent the rest of my time watching tutorials to prepare for my final, full face look. My character options that I'm still debating between are Pennywise, Freddy Kreuger, or Valak the Nun. These are the tutorials that I'm referencing for the possible looks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjtGJL8BDR0 (Pennywise)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXBY2wEFb_g (Freddy Kreuger)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fj91MoaSGA (Valak the Nun)
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Genius Hour 1.4
Horror Movie Special Effects Makeup:
Rather than practicing new makeup, this week I decided to spend some time researching before I make my next complex look. The next thing I'm planning on attempting is a "slashed eye" look. This will be used in my group's "How to Read Lit Like a Professor" chapter video, as we're talking about blindness.
The biggest challenge that I'll have to face is that my model is allergic to latex. I really don't want to kill Hannah, so I've been researching alternatives to liquid latex for sculpting special effects. So far, the most promising substitute that I've seen is liquid Elmer's Glue over cotton balls or tissues. I've watched way too many tutorials to list them all, so it's pretty safe to say that if that amount of reviews confirms that it works then it probably works.
Another issue is that all of the makeup tutorials based on losing an eye usually use a gouged eye special effect like so.
This is not at all what I want, so I'll have to do some experimentation. We'll see how it goes next week!
Rather than practicing new makeup, this week I decided to spend some time researching before I make my next complex look. The next thing I'm planning on attempting is a "slashed eye" look. This will be used in my group's "How to Read Lit Like a Professor" chapter video, as we're talking about blindness.
The biggest challenge that I'll have to face is that my model is allergic to latex. I really don't want to kill Hannah, so I've been researching alternatives to liquid latex for sculpting special effects. So far, the most promising substitute that I've seen is liquid Elmer's Glue over cotton balls or tissues. I've watched way too many tutorials to list them all, so it's pretty safe to say that if that amount of reviews confirms that it works then it probably works.
Another issue is that all of the makeup tutorials based on losing an eye usually use a gouged eye special effect like so.
This is not at all what I want, so I'll have to do some experimentation. We'll see how it goes next week!
Monday, October 7, 2019
Genius Hour 1.3
Horror Movie Special Effects Makeup:
If you refer back to my very first blog post where I made a burn wound, you'll find that I was rather dissatisfied with the fake blood that I had bought. This week I decided to deviate from my original plan of making a fake surgical incision and instead test different recipes of homemade fake blood. There's a ridiculous amount of fake blood recipes on the internet, so I selected five that looked the most promising.
The original recipes:
1. 1 Tbsp flour, 1 cup water, red food dye, 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2. 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 cup water, red food dye
3. 1 cup corn syrup, 2 Tbsp chocolate syrup, red food dye
4. 2/3 cup chocolate syrup, 1/3 cup laundry detergent, red food coloring
5. 1 package plain gelatin, 2 bottles red food coloring, 1 Tbsp green food coloring, 1-5 gallons of water
After I made each recipe, I put it on a white cloth to see how it would look on clothing. Considering how sticky and annoying to clean up all of the mixes are except for mix 1, I didn't test any of them on my skin except for 1.
The results:
1 was definitely my favorite recipe. The flour and cocoa powder thickened the water to just the right consistency, it splattered well, and it wasn't too sticky to use for cosmetics. However, I probably won't be using it on the face.
2 was my runner up, it also had a good consistency and color. Making this was a bit difficult at first, as the recipe did not specify ingredient amounts. However, I was able to use my knowledge of baking and making powdered sugar glazes to estimate a good starting point and I worked from there.
3 was all around not fun. The corn syrup and chocolate syrup refused to fully incorporate and kept separating. It was also horribly thick and didn't splatter well. It tasted good though, so that was a bonus.
While I was making recipe 4, I realized that I only had blue laundry detergent instead of clear. At that point I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy clear detergent, so I decided to try the blue and see what would happen. The chocolate syrup and red food coloring removed the blue color, instead leaving the mixture more brown. This would be a pretty good mix for imitating old blood.
5 was a catastrophe. I had to massively scale down the original recipe, as I didn't really want 5 gallons of fake blood. In the scaling down, my math must have been off somewhere as I ended up with some weakly dyed, pink water. Heating up and cooling the gelatin was a pain, so I probably won't ever try that recipe again.
If you refer back to my very first blog post where I made a burn wound, you'll find that I was rather dissatisfied with the fake blood that I had bought. This week I decided to deviate from my original plan of making a fake surgical incision and instead test different recipes of homemade fake blood. There's a ridiculous amount of fake blood recipes on the internet, so I selected five that looked the most promising.
The original recipes:
1. 1 Tbsp flour, 1 cup water, red food dye, 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2. 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 cup water, red food dye
3. 1 cup corn syrup, 2 Tbsp chocolate syrup, red food dye
4. 2/3 cup chocolate syrup, 1/3 cup laundry detergent, red food coloring
5. 1 package plain gelatin, 2 bottles red food coloring, 1 Tbsp green food coloring, 1-5 gallons of water
After I made each recipe, I put it on a white cloth to see how it would look on clothing. Considering how sticky and annoying to clean up all of the mixes are except for mix 1, I didn't test any of them on my skin except for 1.
The results:
1 was definitely my favorite recipe. The flour and cocoa powder thickened the water to just the right consistency, it splattered well, and it wasn't too sticky to use for cosmetics. However, I probably won't be using it on the face.
2 was my runner up, it also had a good consistency and color. Making this was a bit difficult at first, as the recipe did not specify ingredient amounts. However, I was able to use my knowledge of baking and making powdered sugar glazes to estimate a good starting point and I worked from there.
3 was all around not fun. The corn syrup and chocolate syrup refused to fully incorporate and kept separating. It was also horribly thick and didn't splatter well. It tasted good though, so that was a bonus.
While I was making recipe 4, I realized that I only had blue laundry detergent instead of clear. At that point I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy clear detergent, so I decided to try the blue and see what would happen. The chocolate syrup and red food coloring removed the blue color, instead leaving the mixture more brown. This would be a pretty good mix for imitating old blood.
5 was a catastrophe. I had to massively scale down the original recipe, as I didn't really want 5 gallons of fake blood. In the scaling down, my math must have been off somewhere as I ended up with some weakly dyed, pink water. Heating up and cooling the gelatin was a pain, so I probably won't ever try that recipe again.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Genius Hour 1.2
Horror Movie Special Effects Makeup:
This week I decided to try my hand at creating realistic bruises. I was pretty worried about this not working out well, as I have absolutely no talent whatsoever when it comes to painting and the more artistic side of special effects makeup. This effect is more like traditional art, given that all I use is cream makeup. The cream makeup I used was the Mehron 5 Color Bruise Wheel. This wheel had shades of red, brown, green, yellow, and black as its five colors.
1. Most tutorials and pictures of bruise special effects used purple and red as a base tone. As I had no purple shade for the base, I had to make due with red and maroon. For my applicator, I used paint brushes. I was worried about the bruise looking more like a rash because of the lack of purple, but I powered on to see the end result.
2. Next color I layered on was yellow to add age to the appearance.
This week I decided to try my hand at creating realistic bruises. I was pretty worried about this not working out well, as I have absolutely no talent whatsoever when it comes to painting and the more artistic side of special effects makeup. This effect is more like traditional art, given that all I use is cream makeup. The cream makeup I used was the Mehron 5 Color Bruise Wheel. This wheel had shades of red, brown, green, yellow, and black as its five colors.
1. Most tutorials and pictures of bruise special effects used purple and red as a base tone. As I had no purple shade for the base, I had to make due with red and maroon. For my applicator, I used paint brushes. I was worried about the bruise looking more like a rash because of the lack of purple, but I powered on to see the end result.
2. Next color I layered on was yellow to add age to the appearance.
3. I then blended green with the yellow, and smudged the edge of the bruise to look more natural with my model's skin tone. This was at the direction of my model, Charlie. I don't have a lot of experience with shading, so she gave me some pointers.
At this point I asked the class for input, and most people said the bruise blending looked good. However, one of the most common comments was that the bruise looked too red. I had a feeling that this would happen, so I decided to go back and layer more brown over the red to tone it down.
4. The final product!
Conclusion:
I definitely didn't enjoy making this special effect as much as making last week's burn wound. I found working solely with paints to be not as enjoyable as working with multilayered makeup. Even though I didn't like working with bruises as much, it's definitely a useful skill to have. I will definitely be using this special effect at the haunted house, so the practice was really nice.
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