Special effects make-up

My practical source of inspiration I have decided to explore is special effects make-up. As in my research I looked at the slasher horror genre, so thought this would be a good oppurtunity to experiment what different make-up effects I could create which we could then use when filming our coursework. The sort of effects I wanted to make were stab wounds, to make it seem as if someone had been slashed with a knife as this is a common injury in horror movies. I found some examples of what I wanted to make first:

Firstly I watched some YouTube videos that showed methods to make effective slasher wounds, some of the ones I found were very detailed and too complex to be able to create without special equipment, but I did manage to find one which was exactly what I was looking for and gave  clear detailed instructions of what to do and also told me what equipment I'd need to do it:

 

Once I knew what I needed to create that specific effect, I went to hobbycraft and as it is near Halloween I was able to purchase red and black face paint, fake blood and special scar wax that was needed to shape the actual wound and make it look realistic. After buying these items I then asked Ellie to be the model I did the make-up on and I was ready to start.

Along with the materials I bought I also got a leaflet which gave a few examples of what you could make with the equipment, I looked through the pages and found one similar to what I wanted to do on Ellie so I then used this as well as the YouTube clip as a guideline.

Step 1: I began by taking a suitable amount of scar wax and mixing it with water to soften it, which I then applied to Ellie's face as accurately as possible. 

Step 2: I then used the white scraper that came in the pack I bought to cut two lines in the scar wax and dig out the middle to create the shape of the wound.

Step 3: I then began to paint the middle of the wound, beginning with black paint and then using red over the top to create a more realistic looking cut colour than just an unnatural bright red, also mixing the two colours together meant that it was more than one colour which is what we wanted. 

Step 4: I fully coloured the cut and then applied foundation over the top of the scar wax so that the cut blended in with her skin and looked more natural.

Step 5: I finally added the fake blood to the cut which created a drip down her face and also mixed well with the face paint to making the whole wound look more realistic. 

After having this opportunity to experiment with special effects make-up and see what I could produce, I now know exactly what I  will have to do to make the same sort of effect when filming our coursework to create realistic looking wounds on our actors. I would make some changes when doing this again, firstly when I started I was unsure on how to use the wax which made it go lumpy, next time I will know what to do immediately, also I didn't have a foundation which matched Ellie's exact skin tone, so next time I do this I will make sure to check in advance that the foundation we use is the same colour as the actors skin. Apart from these minor flaws, I think this was very productive and helpful towards our filming in the future and has helped me to expand my knowledge in the slasher horror genre.