WARNING: Test wax and spirit gum on your skin for any allergies!
I
am by no means an expert on SFX. I would suggest doing some research on actual
bites from humans, dogs, and such to get an idea on what your bite would most
realistically look like, if you care about such things. It is also important to
think about how long you have been a zombie, which will change how your bite
will look, and also decide on how you think zombie venom would like after time.
In general, make a character, be creative, and always have fun!
My
character was just recently bit so the wound is still quite fresh, and you can
see my attempts to have the venom pulse through the veins. My vein attempt didn’t
go that well, but practice will make perfect.
Whenever
I do a bite, I start out by biting wherever on my body where I would have
gotten bit. (This is probably not how the professionals do it, but as someone
who isn’t the best artist, it helps to have an outline. I also need to find a
way to easily do a bite eventually because I think it would be so cool to do a
huge bite out of my neck at some point.) I then quickly outline the bite in an
eyeliner (usually white since it won’t show up after I’m done with the makeup,
but this time I choose brown because I needed to see it clearly when I applied
wax). I then placed spirit gum on all the parts I wanted wax (around the teeth
marks) which will allow me to easily make it seem like the bite has gone into
my flesh. I wait for the spirit gum to get tacky (patience is very important
here!) and then dabbed a very thin layer of cotton (using cotton balls) on the
spirit gum. This allows the wax to better stick to your skin by giving it
grooves and texture to stick to. Warning to all: wax can be very annoying to
work with and you must have patience. It is helpful to have towels, Vaseline,
and sometime of flat thing to help with spreading the wax. While you can use
your hands, it can be frustrating. They also sell tools, spatulas, to help
spread the wax, but I use a metal cuticle pusher. The colder your instrument
and hands are, will make it easier to spread the wax because it won’t turn into
putty. Work the wax until you have “bite marks” and then taper the edges of the
wax until it blends in with your skin. When you are happy with the shape of
your wax, bring out a stipple brush and layer on colors to get the effect you
want. I had a freshly bit zombie so I went with a bruise effect, using yellows,
greens, and purples. I put purple at the very bottom of each “tooth” mark with
a brush and used my finger to dab red around the edges. I also had this
wonderful idea to create agitated veins (because in my zombie story, the poison
flowed through the veins) but this did not turn out how I wanted. You can
faintly see purple lines on my wrist but it didn’t turn out how I wanted to I
just kind of blended it out and left it alone so I wouldn’t ruin the rest of
the makeup. I then took fake blood and filled each gap with blood and stippled
around the hand with my stipple brush. Don’t forget to do both sides of your
hands and you’re done!
