Halloween prosthetics for dummies: The bullet wound

The scarily simple step-by-step guide to looking like you’ve been shot in the head


Halloween, the one night a year you’ll go to town in a freakishly good costume.

But if you’re a typical student, it’s likely Saturday 31st is not the only night you’ll be out this week. Juicy on a Thursday? Heebies on a Friday? Here lies your awkward predicament: do you dress up on these nights or not? It’s effort to spend money on multiple costumes, but no effort at all leaves you looking a right scrooge. Wrong holiday?

Your solution? Prosthetics. Totally cost effective if bought between your flatmates, and seeing as a little product goes a long way, this stuff will last you years.

Here’s the easy-peasy guide to a shot-wound. Although this tutorial is done on the forehead, you can replicate this anywhere on your bod, à la zombie 50 cent.

What products you’ll need (pictured in guide):

  1. Flesh coloured liquid latex (prices vary due to size, but under a tenner fo’ sho)
  2. Synwax professional wax (Mehron branded wax is £7.99)
  3. Matte black eyeshadow
  4. Cajoled, scab effect blood (£7.75 for Kryolan fresh scratch, 15ml)
  5. F/X liquid blood (can pick this up dead cheap online, in large supermarkets, fancy dress shops, etc.)
  6. Purple/blue/red face paint or eyeshadow

What tools you’ll need to apply:

  1. Small make-up brush (whichever brand/sort you have will do)
  2. Tweezers
  3. A tissue

(Pictures of products shown below)

Step 1:

Using flesh coloured liquid latex, apply a dot to the middle of the forehead to whatever size you want your bullet wound to be, then wait for it to dry.

Step 2:

Using tweezers, scrape and pinch at the middle of the dot, opening it up to give a broken skin effect.

Step 3:
Take a tiny amount of wax and rub it between your hands to warm it up (this makes it easier to mould). Apply this around the outside of your dot.

Step 4:
Take your tweezers and press down on the outside of the wax circle, so that it blends and moulds in to your skin, and in turn use the tweezers to pull out the inside of the original latex circle around the wax. Then, using a make-up brush, paint over the entire thing with more flesh coloured liquid latex (the stuff you used to make the original dot).

Step 5:
Take any matte black eyeshadow and apply it to the inside of the hole with a small make-up brush.

Step 6:
Now take a small amount of cajoled/scab effect blood with your tweezers and add to the hole to give it a grizzly 3D texture.

Step 7:
Add liquid fake blood to your scab wound. Don’t worry if this runs, if anything it’ll add to the effect.
Step 8:
Using a tissue, dab at the blooded wound to give it a “splattered” effect.
Step 9:
Taking your black eyeshadow once again, add small flecks around the wound to give definition and a sort of gun-powder effect, then blend.
Step 10:
Apply purple and/or blue/red face paint or eyeshadow around the outside of the gun-shot wound to give a bruised effect. Then, in the wise words of Peg Boggs (Edward Scissorhands, anyone?), you blend, and blend, and blend. Blending is the secret.

Et voila, the finished result:

Ouch

Credit to Laura Griffin for make-up and Lucy Granton for modelling as victim.