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.

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.