Faking Scars vs Fake Scars

I've mentioned making fake blood for videos before. But this week, while watching a teen vampire television show, I noticed a shot where the fake wound looked, well, fake.


Fake Scar

Part of the problem was that this character's bite was all of an hour old--in the show--and already it looked like the wound was scarring, something I wouldn't expect for more than week.

Lesson 1: Make sure your makeup fits the scene. You may be great at using latex to make scars... but that's not very important if you need an open wound instead.

Related to this: liquid latex is awesome, but once it sets, the stuff is going to bend and stretch like flesh, not a puncture. If you need holes, you need a different kind of makeup... or glue (which is more like the latex, but... oh well).

Lesson 2: I'm all for using low-tech and inexpensive tools, but use the right stuff if you need a specific look.

Have you done any makeup projects recently? How'd they turn out?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor