How to Do Zombie Makeup

Christopher Patrick: Hi, I am Christopher Patrick and I am a special effect make-up artist. We are here at the Tom Savini Special Effects Make-Up Program at Douglas Education Center and I am going to show you, how to make a scary flesh-eating zombie.

We are going to start by making some zombie teeth that are going to go on the outside of the mouth and it's going to be a little denture put that looks like this. We are going to create the teeth out of Sculpey 3 which is a pliable plastic clay that bakes into a hard plastic. I have chosen a bone color. We are going to sculpt them and just use toothpicks as our tools to use them. To create the gums, we are going to soak a cotton in a liquid latex, that we are going to tint it with some acrylic paint.

We are also going to paint the teeth tabs to have to nice as zombie wrath with some acrylic paint as well. For of the make-up application today, we are going to use a Ben Nye Ghoul kit. I am not real wild about the foundation color in this for zombies, because I like my zombies to have a blue tint. So, we are going to use a blue spirit. I have two different versions, I have a cream version and a powdered version. We are going to use the powder on his hands, so there is less residue, but the cream on his face for blendability. We are also going to be using Mehron Pro Bruise Wheel, that'll got five colors in it. We are going to use also today some, Ben Nye gel blood as well as some liquid bloods. Also, in this process you'll need a red lip liner pencil and we are going to use a mask grease cover pallets. Since we are going to be using a lot of liquid latex during this process, you need to treat it so it can take make-up the way skin takes make-up and this is a make-up that is castor oil based that we will seal the product and make it like a real skin.

We are going to use some vaseline and we have some adhesive. We are going to use a prosthetic adhesive. In the industry we called this Pros-Aide and it is going to be used to attach the prosthetic gums to his face. I also have a variety of brushes, some color set powder and some more little tools. I like to use it up dental spatulas but toothpicks and popsicle sticks work just fine.

During our make-up process today, we are going to use two different types of sponges. We are going to use this orange hydra sponges. They are going to be used with any make-up that is water activated and we are going to use some latex cosmetic sponges; these are better for clean make-ups. And additional tools today we are going to use as a standard one inch chip brush. These are just available at any hardware store, they are really cheap. We've cut this one off to give it a little more bristles. We are going to use some Q-tips to apply glues with. I have some hair white to finish off our zombie's look to give him a more great and dusty look.

And then I have a variety of make-up removers, which is always a good thing to have. I have just got some regular make-up remover, some quick cleanse and then we have a product called the Detachol. Detachol is to take the medical adhesive deposit off the skin and you really, if you are going to use a prosthetic adhesive, you want something that's going to remove it and Detachol is definitely the best and, for part of this process, we are going to make some really creepy skin and we are going to use toilet paper for it. I like to use the cheapest toilet paper possible, because usually they have no quilting. There is nothing worse in getting done with your zombie and seeing butterflies and flowers in there face from the quilting.

We also, we use a hair drier today to make to speed up the process a little of drying the latex. The only major safety concerns with these make-ups is that, you might have a latex allergy. Not many people do, but you should always test your liquid latex on the inside of your arm first and if it itches or gets red, you might have an allergy and you might think of a different way to go about this.

There may be some other safety concerns, but we will go over those as we come to them in the video. Before we get started, I just want to tell you a little bit about myself. I am part-owner of Scotchworthy Productions, a horror film company. I own the special-effects firm called- Something In The Basement Effects and I am an instructor at the Tom Savini's Special Effect Make-Up School. So let's get started with our flesh eating zombie.