Wounds! Get your premade wounds here! Wounds!

EDIT: Looking back on this post makes me think how far I've come with prosthetics since this time. For an example of my latest work creating encapsulated silicone prosthetics click here.

After some initial success at working with latex on the face I decided to try and work with it to create pre-made wounds that could be applied at a later time. The plan was to use them as part of a zombie effect, which Alana will blog about shortly. I am somewhat less happy with the result than working with latex directly on the face to create a wound effect. I'll explain why shortly.

First we went to the supermarket and purchased a large non-stick oven dish. My plan was to use this to make up a batch of wounds on the non-stick surface that I could then apply when needed. I then cut out nine oval shaped pieces of one ply toilet paper and created either a gash, a hole or a flap effect on each. Using my fingers and a small plastic spatula I made nine flat oval shapes on the non-stick tray. I then put them in front of a fan to dry for 15 minutes. They looked like this:



Then I applied a small amount of liquid latex around the edge of the oval and adhered my oval shaped pieces of toilet paper which were to act as a base for the latex to cover and look somewhat like skin. After this had dried I then mixed some water based flesh coloured paint with some liquid latex. I used a colour in Games Workshop's miniatures paint line called Elf Flesh, which might be fine for elves but does not really match our skin tones! At this stage because the prosthetic was not hanging from the face the toilet paper also stuck to the middle section of the wound. So basically instead of a layer of skin hanging off the face they ended up too stuck to the rest of the prosthetic. I also took a terrible photo of this stage, but you can still tell that the two layers are stuck together:



I then had to lift up the flap of skin using scissors (a scalpel would have also worked here, but I did not think of it) and pull - cut it away from the base of the prosthetic which was to be stuck to the face. After doing this I got out our trusty bruise wheel and coloured the inside of the wounds red using a size 0 sable paintbrush. Then I lifted them off the non-stick tray and cut the edges which were very tattered and messy looking. Finally I applied some setting powder to make sure the latex was cured and the makeup would stay where it was. The final product before application looked like this:



Overall they did not look terrible. But they were not as good as the gashed cheeks effect that I built from scratch on the face. And not as good as I hoped. So what did I learn? They had stuck together too much so the flap of skin that was made from single ply toilet paper, did not hang off the base of the prosthetic enough. The colour did not match our skin tones, nor did the pink flesh colour work for zombie makeup which was predominately yellow, white and grey makeup. I did manage to cover the prosthetic with the makeup though, which blended it. And because I cut off the untidy edges with scissors the prosthetics had a slightly raised edge, although I used a little latex to smooth this out, it was still a bit too lumpy. However, they were speedy to apply compared to building a prosthetic on the face, as the dry time was removed. Alana and I used them for zombie makeup effects that Alana will blog about next.