Technical - Wax Wounds

Health & Safety:
Make sure you place an apron around the model to avoid damaging their clothes.
Carry out a consultation to highlight if they have any allergies or contraindications.
Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with soap before touching the clients skin.

Products Used:
Spatula
Moulding Wax (e.g. Plasto or Cinewax)
Make-up sealer or Latex
Tuplast
Collodion
Fake Blood (optional)
Fake Puss (optional)
Wound Filler

Like bruising, when creating wounds using make-up you must consider the circumstances, for example how the person fell (the point of impact), is the wound infected (you would then consider using fake puss and greens and yellows in the wound)? and how new the wound is (the newer the wound the brighter and more liquidised the blood is).

*Tips: apply the wound first and then do the rest of the make-up look afterwards, and always sit the person down when applying any kind of liquid makeup to ensure that it sits exactly where you want it too and it doesn't run (an important part of ensuring continuity).

Step by Step:

1. Take a small amount (depending on the wound you are creating) of the moulding wax you wish to use and begin by rolling it on the back of your hand in order to warm it up slightly and make it easier to manipulate and shape.
2. Mould the edges of the wax in to the skin (you can apply a small amount of cleanser to make it easier to move)
3. Take a spatula or a palette knife and cut the wax (dependent on what type of wound you are creating), you can also use a pin to pick at the wound to make it rougher and more graphic.
4. Take the sealer or latex and lightly coat the wax using a cotton bud in order to help the wound last longer on the skin and stick better.
5. Take a hairdryer and, on the coolest temperature, lightly blow it onto the wound until the latex goes clear (or until the wound is dry).
6. When creating a new, recent cut, stick to red colours when applying makeup to the wax in order to give it a fresher look. (the colours you use on the wax are dependent on how recent etc. it is).
7. If you wish to make the wound look deeper then you can use wound filler within the wound, take a small amount and apply it where necessary.
8. Then take liquid blood (if you want the wound to look like its bleeding) and lightly apply it using a brush or sponge. 

*Consider where the person is supposed to have got the wound ... if they fell outside it could have dirt in the wound (you can use greys or browns to create the look or specialised fake dirt).

Evaluation:
I enjoyed learning how to create wounds using wax and found the whole technical very interesting, however I did struggle to blend the edges of the wax into the skin and found matching the colour of the wax when applying foundation, to the colour of the skin quite difficult. However I'm not too worried by this as I feel with some more practise and experience I will be able to master this.

Technical - Bruising & The Perfect Black Eye

In todays technical class we learnt how to create realistic bruising on the skin. In order to create a successful and believable bruise, there are a few factors that need to be considered ...

• How was the bruise created in the first place? (e.g. A broken nose often causes bruising underneath both eyes) 
• Where was the impact to the skin? (a black eye goes into the eye socket the majority of the time).
• How old is the bruise? (a new bruise is often quite red, whereas an older bruise is usually shades of green and purple) 

In order to create a bruising effect the supra-colour palette by Kryolan (Charles Fox) is good to use as its easy to blend so the makeup doesn't just sit on the skin but instead looks as if it is part of the skin.

Health & Safety:
Make sure your hands are clean, washed thoroughly with soap.
Place an apron around the model to avoid damaging their clothing.
Carry out a consultation with the client to highlight any allergies or contraindications.

Step by Step:
1. Make sure the skin is completely clean, free of dirt and/or any other makeup. If it is not then begin with the cleansing routine.

2. Once you have decided what type of bruise you would like to create, take the appropriate supra-colours and begin applying where necessary. 
3. As you apply the colours, keep a clean sponge to hand to help blend them together and into the skin, you can also use your fingers (make sure your hands are clean first).
4. Keep applying the colours and blending until you are happy you have achieved the appropriate bruising. (with a black eye it can sometimes be effective to add a small amount of vaseline on top of the colours to make the skin look stretched and swollen).

A Black Eye

Evaluation:

After briefly looking at images to work out how bruising differs across different skin tones and as the bruises age, it was a lot easier to create the looks with makeup. I found that old bruises tended to be more of a yellow/green tone, whereas fresher bruises were more purple and blue (sometimes also black depending on where on the body and how severe). I enjoyed experimenting with this idea and created one of each. I learnt what colours work best on a darker skin tone, which I hadn't had much practise on before. Overall I thought this technical went well and I produced good results which can only improve with time.