Costume and Make up Tips for Halloween

[Revision]

Well, we're getting close enough to Halloween that people should be getting the last minute stuff for their costumes. However, sometimes, figuring out just what touches to add and how to do them can be a bit of a pain. I love Halloween costumes. I know a lot of you either make your own costumes or cosplay. If you have some neat, low budget tips for adding those finishing touches or making a costume on short notice, or even make up tips, let's hear them! I'll have a bloody rat mini tutorial posted here later, but for now, bruises.


Sadly, I don't have pictures to offer. Bruises are an oft forgotten touch that makes any horror themed costume a bit more realistic. Even if you are going to cover the area with bloods and wounds, remember that there should be bruising near any major flesh trauma that was caused by anything blunt. This includes bites. I had a dog bite that bled when I was little and damn, that thing bruised.

The order for application should be as follows:

Wound application- This can be a wound kit or just dark or black makeup covered in a very viscous fake blood. This tends to come in jars and not run. Be careful when putting this near joints. It doesn't dry and thus will slowly spread if touched.

Bruise application- Whether or not there is a wound, you want to apply bruises in essentially the same way: dark to light. If it is a fresh bruise, start with a bit of blue and a lot of dark purple and fan out to red mixed with purple and then just red fading to your normal flesh color. If it is an OLD bruise, start with brown and green, add touches of green yellow, and finally just a fading yellow. You can apply bruises on the fake wound kit (test first to make sure it blends realistically) or around the bloody "wound", just keep it off of the bloody sections of either and remember, the lips of a wound where not covered in blood should be paler than the surrounding skin. So leave a tiny tiny rim of white or gray very lightly applied. Then start applying your bruise, blending each color into the next. Try to frame this loosely around the shape of the wound or imagined object of impact. A baseball impact might be round, a brick corner a more geometric shape, but softer as you go out.

Blood application- If the flesh wound and bruise are fresh, use a less viscous blood to paint, spray, or drip the blood on. Don't worry about covering the lower parts of the bruise. The shading, if not the color, will show through when the blood cracks. Also, be sure to do a bit of spatter up from any major wound, but don't go overboard.

Well, that's it for the bruise and wound tips from me. I'll add the bloody rat tips later. So what are your costuming tips? Pretty or bloody, rotting or angelic. Come on, give em up! And don't be afraid to ask for tips, too!

 

[Revision]

Time for the BLOODY RAT TUTORIAL! Complete with pictures!

Please be aware that this is all fake. Fake rats, fake blood. Still, beware if you are easily grossed out.

Spoiler

Start with the proper materials. Don't forget to put down papers or a cookie sheet you don't mind ruining. Then get your blood. I started with a Bottle of Blood. About eight bucks, but I wanted a lot. We won't use much on the rats, but I need it for the rest of the costume and small spray blood bottles tend to clog. So we are going to use this when we do the Eaten by Rats costume later. So feel free to get less blood, but you want it to be this viscosity.

It looks like a bottle of motor oil. Pretty hard to miss. Even when blurry from shaky hands.

Get a plastic cup you can throw away. Fill it with about an inch of blood. You are going to have to probably use about this much, maybe refill it once to do the number of rats I did. How many rats? Six pinkie sized rats and two full sized.

Qtips. Name brand or comparable, because others are going to fall apart way too fast. Even these have disintegrated a bit, but that's a good thing. It draws the blood out better on the big rats.

White glue. You can also see the rat packaging from the small rats here. We got them at dollar tree.

Take the white glue. Dab some on the rat and use the glue bottle to draw out streaks of glue over the rat. Only do one side (top or bottom) at a time so that you don't glue your rat to your cookie sheet.

Do all your rats and let the glue sit for a few minutes to get slightly tacky. Here you see five small rats.

Vary it up. Put the glue further back on some than others, but always cover the heads on the small rats like they've been neck deep in a wound.

The rat on the left obviously burrowed... >.>

Pick up and hold the glass of blood. You don't want to drizzle it everywhere or knock it down. Dip the entirety of the glue covered part of the rat in the blood. Then take your qtip and add a few streaks elsewhere. Why are we using glue? It not only makes the blood stay on better, it makes it bright against a dark rat. Be visible or you may as well not really bother.

See? Really visible blood. (and yes, this rat had some damage from packaging, so check your rats over before you buy.) The dried blood in the back will be about the color yours will show.

Here you see a glue rat, a newly bloodied rat, and a mostly dry rat.

The technique is basically the same for the big rats. (except you are only dipping muzzles and paws and painting on the rest.) Remember that places you glue will be a bit lighter and look frothy or fleshy. These rats are rabid, so this works. The more blood you use, the longer it takes to dry. And this fellow is not quite dry.

See how it looks like he has lovely chunks of flesh mixed in with the blood? BONUS!

Don't forget to bloody the feet.

Now, this shows up differently on the white rats because they are, well, white. You don't have the visibility issues. However, the blood still sticks better this way and mixing blood with white glue turns it a bloody pink that looks like blood soaked white blood.

Rabid bloody rat! I was originally going to make the rat foam, but I honestly think it looks too awesome to mess with.

And there you have it! These will dry and be awesome. Don't forget to do a bit of blood with no glue on each rat. Also, always remember that the parts you drip or paint on should follow the line of the body. This gives a more realistic look.


OKAY! HAVE FUN MAKING BLOODY RATS! And don't drink the blood.




Just to clarify. These rats are going to dry darker. The red will stand out more than it would, but you might still wanna put down a base of white model paint or something if you have it if you want really really bright unreal looking blood on the black rats.