Special Effects Makeup: Cuts & Bruises

In today's practical session, we were shown how to create cuts and bruises with different materials and techniques. 

In Great Expectations, Estella had an abusive relationship with her husband Drummle. When designing my Estella character, I have to keep in mind what section of the book I am portraying Estella in. If I choose to create the Estella when she is married to Drummle, I should think about the physical evidence of suffering. 

To get my head around cuts and bruises, I have used some references in order to achieve realistic effects. 

You can see above that this black eye has aged, I can tell because of the yellow green tinge: this often happens when the bruising and swelling is being saturated in the healing process. It is very important to pay attention to the age of the cut or bruise because a wound will grow and develop and heal, meaning that it will look different after certain time periods. 

You can see the stages of having a black eye in the image below: 

To create bruising, you will need the following products: 

Note: grease based pigments are the best to create a very natural effect because they are very easy to blend. You want the bruising to appear like its coming from under the skin rather than just product that has been applied over the top. 

> Supracolour palette by kyolan/ bruise wheel/ cuts and bruises 

> Vaseline

> Soft blending brushes 

1. To begin with, you need to remove all makeup and tone the skin. Do not apply moisturiser if you are going to create cuts along with the bruising because it may cause the wax you use later on to slip off. 

However, someone can be really made-up and then hurt themselves, in this case, you will need to create the bruising first then apply the makeup, which should be a bit messed up. 

2. To create my bruising, I used the Kyolan bruise wheel and cuts and bruises palette. You can use the Kyolan supracolour, or any grease based pigments as they mix and blend well. 

I started off with a yellow greenish tone as a base and blended it away making sure there was no harsh edges. You can also mix the colours with a little amount of vaselin to create a more transparent natural effect. Of course, if you are doing very badly bruised areas, you may want to keep the pigment more opaque. 

3. Line the waterline with a red lipliner or eyeliner. This will create a tired looking sore eye. 

4. Apply purple red tones, bad bruising will contain very dark blue purple tones. 

5. Blend, but do not over blend. 

6. Do not go below the eye socket with dark colours as this may look unrealistic. 

7. Take note of where people normally hurt themselves, people generally hurt themselves on points, such as points on the face, elbows and knees. 

Above is my finished black eye, I intended it to be a aged bruise, meaning a week after the injury, meaning that there will be more yellow and reddish tones rather than dark purple blue tones. 

DO NOT POWDER BRUISES, you want to create a illusion of swelling instead, to achieve this, add I thin layer of vaseline over the top. 

CUTS

To create cuts and grazes, you will need the following: 

> Moulding wax

> Sealer 

> Fake blood 

> Bruise wheel 

> Vaseline 

> Stipple sponge

> Thin eyeliner brush 

> Palette knife

1. Make sure the skin is clean and there is no moisturiser applied because this can cause the wax to slip off. 

2. Take a small amount of wax and massage it on the back of your hand with a palette knife, this will warm up the wax and make it easier to work with. 

3. Apply the wax to the area, apply in small amounts, you can build it up slowly. Keep wiping the palette knife after every application because it can take of the wax on the applied area if you go back in with a knife with wax residue. 

4. Smooth out the wax with moisturiser. 

5. Create the cut. 

6. Seal the entire cut with sealer and wait till it is completely dry. 

7. Powder over the cut and apply a skin tone base to it to blend into the skin.

8. Add bruising if necessary.

9. Add blood, thick blood for an older cut and runny blood for a fresh cut. 

Note: If you are using liquid blood, if will run in the direction of how the model is posed, liquid blood is normally added in the position the person is hurt, so it runs the right way. 

10. Stipple sponges create good graze like effects. 

Above is my attempt at a series of cuts in a claw like formation. I feel like I could have added darker blood on the inside of the cut to create more dimension and depth. 

Here is someone else's attempt, you can see that fake puss is added to the cut to create more impact. You can by fake puss and dirt to add to cuts from Charles Fox to create more realistic effects. 

Adding coffee granules to fake blood will make it darker and once applied will create a scab like effect.