Make-up FX: Blood part 2

by Gordo Loving

Well all ye' indy microbudget filmmakers, here is a list of cheap FX anyone could do. Since most of us don't have any real effects artist near us, unless we're in Florida or California, we're stuck with making our little homemade effects by ourselves or with a friend.

But here is the most important effect in ANY FILM - EDITING! I have seen too many micro films that rely on pouring really terrible thick strawberry blood on tissue paper and call it "special make up effects". I am sorry people, but the first thing any microbudget filmmaker that is doing a film all by themselves needs to realize is that its really hard to make a decent film. It's even harder to make realistic looking body parts and wounds with little to no knowledge of sculpting and art. But it's not impossible! Given, I am no Ron Karkoska, Dick Smith, or Tom Savini, but one thing I bet all of them will agree on is NOT LEAVING THE SHOT OF THE EFFECT ON SCREEN FOR MORE THAN 2 or 3 seconds. Why? Because no matter how good an effect is, eventually a foam latex slit throat will start looking fake. Look online, you'll find an article or two where Savini even mentions this.

So, to end my editing rant, learn how to shoot and edit your film. You don't have to have the MTV style editing and cuts down, but know when enough is enough. Play around with editing, and you will be very surprised at what you can do.

And now, on to some grue!

The BASICS: Blood. Everyone knows Karo syrup and red food coloring. That's outstanding, but sometimes you might not have any laying around, or 2 dollars to spend on corn syrup.

"So what do I do?"

Simple, just go get PANCAKE AND WAFFLE SYRUP! Sure, its sweet, but I can get 24 oz bottles (that's 8 oz more than the Karo bottle) for .90 cent locally. I can get a gallon for around 6 dollars! That's a lot of blood! And for RED FOOD COLOR, try to buy bulk. You see a lot of these little 1 oz bottles everywhere. If you can find a large bottle of it, get it. You'll need a lot of it. And if there is one thing that looks horrible and can kill an effect right off, its bad looking blood. Make it opaque by adding a bit of baby powder or cornstarch to the syrup BEFORE you add anything else. This will also help it stay on skin. Of course, everyone has their own style of blood that they like, whether it be really dark, or really bright. Some like it thick, some like it to spray. It's really up to you, but here's a few of my own recipes (although on most of these, I guess my measurements).

MAPLE BLOOD for normal wound applications-

24 oz bottle of generic maple syrup.
5 oz red food color
1 cap full yellow food coloring
½ tablespoon of hand soap

This blood looks good on anything. The hand soap will make it stick to anything, really. Usually, straight syrup will bead, but the soap helps it stay on oily or slick surfaces.

Now, if you want to pump this blood—

24 oz maple
6 oz red food color
1 cap yellow
½ cap green (WARNING-DO NOT USE TOO MUCH GREEN, AS IT WILL MAKE THE BLOOD REALLY BROWN—ADD IN SMALL INCREMENTS)
6-to-12-to-24 oz of boiling water. It depends on how you like your blood to look, and what type of pump you are using (see below).

Of course, if you want darker blood, add some chocolate syrup, or a dash of blue and/or green.

But then if you like dark blood, that looks incredible on white, use chocolate blood!

CHOCOLATE BLOOD

24 oz chocolate syrup 5 oz red food color

And of course, KARO BLOOD, which ,by the way, boils and ghouls, there is a great article on Karo Blood and effects also on this site, here.

Karo is a bit of a different beast than maple. In actuality, blood is not thick, for it's quite runny or watery if you will. I know, I accidentally slit my wrist watching Cliffhanger…okay the movie wasn't that bad, but it was on when I did (model car accident).

Maple, especially the watered down generic kind, looks great. It's a bit darker, so you can save money on red food color, and less thick, making it much easier to clean up. Yes, Karo is without a doubt, in its undiluted form, the biggest pain in the ass to clean off of things (although, it comes out of clothes great). It is sticky as hell, and can actually be used to make zombie and ghoul effects, but more on that later.

KARO BLOOD

16 oz Karo or Corn Syrup
5-6 oz red food color
1 cap full yellow
½ cap full blue
2-3 oz of boiling or hot water to thin it a bit.

Like I said, these are all estimates on the measurements, but try to make them as red as possible because Karo is clear and will take a lot of red and assorted colors.

Also, if you are like me, you like seeing spraying blood. It's just cool. A good friend of mine, Marcus Koch, has designed a cheaper alterative to buying up gallons of Karo or Maple if there is going to be heavy bleeding - old fashioned tomato sauce.

Don't get me wrong, tomato sauce looks like shit for blood, with water and red color. But, the cans of bright red tomato sauce are cheap, and easy to come by in gallon form. Here is what he calls a ‘splash blood', as it might not be the best for oozy wounds, but it is incredible for spraying and massive blood letting arterial gouges. Although a bad drawback is it smells something fierce.

1 gallon tomato sauce (the thinnest)
1 gallon Karo or maple
¾ gallon of water
A lot of red, and the other colors to taste.

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