SFX Tutorial: Burns [GORE]

• • ─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ─────── • •

Greetings AoT Amino and fellows cosplayers,

It's Mor from the Cosplay Legion here attempting to share some knowledge through a possibly educative post and today we are getting… burned!

Not like burned for real of course, you know, it's SFX makeup and we'll try our best to fool anyone and make them believe that everything is real.

Here I'm going to talk about the different methods to make burns and use the back of my hand for display purposes but you can really make them in any place, just a friendly reminder: we'll be using latex so be careful to not stick it to your hair or eyebrows or whatever because it will rip them off. If you are allergic to latex you could maybe achieve similar results using silicone but that's something I've not tried myself yet.

• • ─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ─────── • •

Latex only

This is the most basic option: you just need to layer some latex on the spot where you want the burn to be, let it dry and repeat (the number of layers really depends by the thickness you want, usually I do around 4 - 5). Once the latex is dry you can use your pointy tool of choice and rip some holes in the latex.

• • ───── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ───── • •

Latex and cotton

More "advanced" option, adding some more texture. It works pretty much like for wounds so you have to lay down on your wet latex some thin pieces of cotton and cover them with more latex.

You should always rip some holes in it but it would be better when not completely dry but in between the point when it's not completely dripping wet but neither completely settled, that tacky stage (I know it sounds quite tricky but I swear that when you're doing it is a lot easier to understand when the right moment is, plus you'll be able to see if you're opening holes in it or if it's still too wet).

• • ───── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ───── • •

Latex and coffee

This is very similar to the cotton method. Basically instead of layering pieces of cotton on top of your wet latex you sprinkle it in coffee to give it texture and then add more latex on top to seal everything.

Some people like to mix their coffee directly in the latex and then apply it, personally I find that it becomes a lot more hard to apply since in becomes more dense and dries more quickly but that's completely up to you, just use the method you find more comfortable for yourself, the results are the same.

When you have your latex dry you can tear some holes again like in the other methods.

The coffee I used to show you now was not the best, something a little bit more textured should work best.

• • ───── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ───── • •

Latex and tissue paper

There's not much to say, it works like the cotton one and works the best if you want bigger pieces of skin peeling off.

• • ─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ─────── • •

Coloring

Coloring works the same for all the methods.

1 - This step is completely up to you but I like to use a bit of foundation as base before actually painting.

2 - You would want to use a dark brown color to fill the holes you made. I usually use a liquid lipstick for this but you can really use any kind of color as long as you're not allergic and it's meant for skin, I just find that colors with a creamy texture work best for this step.

3 - Then apply a more light brownish / reddish color on top of all the burned skin, it doesn't need to be even, on the contrary you want to keep it quite messy, that we're talking about burned skin. I usually use water activated paints but every kind of color could be fine, I just find that these kind of colors are more easy to blend.

4 - At this point I apply some of the lipstick I used before with a sponge, not the one we use for latex but something actually textured just to pull everything together.

5 - Now we're pretty much done but the burn will be opaque. Now, it may sounds crazy but burned skin actually look wet. There are various methods to achieve this look, for this tutorial I simply used a clear gloss, yes, the one meant for lips but it does the job pretty nicely.

Blood is not necessary, I mean it looks gory but… burned skin is not actually bleeding (?) but if you're just looking for the gore you can do it with blood gel.

• • ─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ─────── • •

You can mix the various methods together to create the effect you want, for example the tissue paper method works better if you want rather big pieces of skin lifting up.

• • ─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅• ─────── • •