Monster Mash

Last night, I went to my uncle's Fancy Dress 50th Birthday Party. The theme: Anything, which sounds easy, but it was quite hard for some guests to think of something, evident from there lack of costume. They looked like fools!

Unlike us, of course. I knew pretty early on, I wanted to go as the Karloff Frankenstein monster, the make-up was created by Jack Pierce. After a successful test, (which led to the denizens of Rye chasing me down with torchhes and pitchforks) some friends asked me if I could help them with their make-up

...AND HERE THEY ARE: 

 Mine was just a simple face paint and Black hair dye. I had someone trim my hair at the top, to make my forehead look larger. I am pleased with it. I wanted to look as though I had stepped out of a black and white film.

Here we used a latex prosthetic, that covered his eyes. This was perhaps harder, as you had to blend the prosthetic in with the skin.You have to paint over the prosthetic, and outline the wrinkles.  The demonstration video produced a very Miami Beach Vampire, which of course the worst place for a vampire to be. I always prefer a paler vampire, so I gave it a touch of both. You have to make the dead tired,. hence the black round the eyes.

Now for the pièce de résistance. This Happy Chappy had a few prosthetic scars and a knife, all glued down with spirit gum (don't worry, he shaved before!) 

The large head wound was produced by gluing tissue paper down in a ring. 

• When dry, use a palette, or butter knife, to lift the inside ring up. 
• Paint the inside red
• Paint the outside to match your face
• Then just work on the inside to make it more realistic. Real blood is not like Kensington Gore, it has a touch of blue and if you like yellow. Perhaps a touch of green, to make it infected. Then apply some cake blood.
• When you are happy with the colour, comes the fun part!
• Grab yourself some Gel Blood. This is, as the name suggests, very gooey, ergo very fun. Just squeeze it all over the wound. You want it thick and seeping out of the end. 
• I would suggest that you dab the inside with a natural sponge, so that spts of the orignial head comes through. This will give the effect of the skull peering through.

And there you have it. I would like to experiment more with this. I thought it would cool to get some wires inside the wound, like a cyborg costume.

I'll try and get an image of that headwound, but for now use your imagination, for what you don't see is more frightening.