The Making Of.

And so, the end of my journey into zombiehood.  But at least a semi-successful one, given that I was awarded the Best Costume prize at my workplace.  Because I've received a lot of positive comments, combined with a little scepticism about how I proceeded with the makeup, I thought that I should document the process along with the materials involved:  white glue and toilet paper, and a bit of cardboard.  (As usual, just click on the photos for the full-sized picture.)

Friday dawned - actually, it was considerably before dawn when the alarm went off.  I indulged in a peaceful cup of tea, then started on the makeup at 4:00 AM.  (The down side of using white glue is slow drying time.)

Step one:  beard removal.  Not really procedurally interesting, but a very important step, and as always a bit of a shock - it's probably been a decade since I last shaved off my beard.  Fortunately, I was spared the minor irony of cutting myself while shaving, so no real blood was involved in the final effect.  (By the way, a couple of comments about the photography: first, the pictures were all taken in my bathroom mirror - I've flipped them over to match the photos taken at work.  Second, they're not great - it was very early in the morning, and the final post-makeup shots were evaluated without the benefit of glasses, or else I would have kept shooting until I got something that was in focus.)

I started the actual makeup process by creating the piece of visible skull on the left side of my head.  I had a lot of surgery after a childhood accident, and one of the results was a minor dent in my forehead, which I took advantage of to inset the piece of file folder that I used for bone.  Even so, the edges are quite visible in the photo, but it doesn't matter, since I'll be adding torn skin to mask the join.  As part of my testing during the week, I had produced some pieces of white glue "skin" for exactly this purpose.  (By the way, this was a common practise when I was in public school - boys would use white glue to make wrinkly skin on the back of their hands, and then gross out the girls by sticking pins through it and so on.  I very strongly remember a fellow named Carey Cain who was really good at it.  And afterward, the white glue pieces could be peeled off like loose real skin, once again grossing out the girls.)

Next, paint face with glue.  (It's not rocket science, is it.)  The first photo above about half way through the rough coat, with various runs and bubbles and so on.  The bubbles aren't a bad thing, though, because those provide the spots where there can be sores or other areas of damage.  The drips get smoothed out and the edge get blended - the great advantage of white glue is water solubility, so a wet brush evens things up quite easily.

The last two pictures show the dried ready-for-makeup results.  I've added in some toilet paper and glue to create what will be the gaping wound on my nose, and you can see how the area around the skull fragment has been built up.  On the other profile, there are two spots on my cheek which will also end up being open wounds - one of them was the open wound test from earlier in the week, moistened and glued into place.

Sadly, I don't have any in-progress photos of the makeup process, but for a very good reason:  I panicked.  I started to do the white undercoat for the makeup, and it looked horrible.  I blended in some green, filled in the eye sockets, and it still didn't look much better, and I was convinced that I'd screwed up the whole thing, and it wasn't exactly something that I could start over. But, as I kept working away at it, and as I added in more green, edged the wounds with black then added the fake blood, it started to come together.

I finished off with a liberal dusting of waste toner powder from the copiers at work, added a dental appliance that I bought for ten bucks with the rest of the makeup, dressed in my torn and bloodied suit and shirt, and I was done - just in time to head off to work, where fluorescent lighting added the finishing touch for the look of the undead.

Oh, as a sidebar, I also did a disgusting wound on my hand.  There was originally an open slice in my throat as well, but it started to come apart at the edges and I sacrificed it in the interests of getting the job done. 

Over the course of the day at work, the white glue around the mouth area began to break up as I stretched it to remove and replace the dental piece so that I could alternately talk to and horrify people.  This actually added to the effect, making it look like the skin was peeling off, so I just touched up the gaps with more fake blood.  In some cases, it was necessary to glue pieces back into place to to rescue the integrity of the whole thing, but again, this added to the impact:  the fresh glue giving the impression of pus under cracked skin.

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and when I tried to partake of a burger at the annual company Hallowe'en barbecue, the parts around the mouth broke up completely and I surrendered to the inevitable - peeled off the remaining bits, washed off the makeup and powder, and, as one wit suggested, returned to being Clark Kent.  Fortunately the judges had all seen me in full rig, so I wasn't disqualified from the costume contest.

I put the picture at the top of this posting on Facebook, and in addition to a number of compliments on the whole look, I was asked where I had learned how to do the makeup.  I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult - after all, it's just glue, toilet paper and a little imagination.   However, the question that no one has asked is "why a zombie?"  Once again I have to give credit and thanks to my niece Jody, without whose positive influence I would never have thought to become a member of the risen dead.

The biggest surprise in the whole process?  I shaved off my beard, created gaping, necrotic, blood-soaked wounds and the illusion of rotting flesh on my face, added a blackened dental appliance - it would have been nice if someone at work had failed to recognize me...

- Sid

P.S.  Monday morning at the office and the prize for best follow-up comment goes to Joseph Shewfelt:  "Back from the dead, I see."

"Step 7: Add some blood and you're done!"

Just a quick in-progress photo of some zombie makeup testing - I wanted to try making an oozing sore (yes, I know, there must be absolutely nothing worth watching on TV tonight).  I did an initial layer of white glue on my cheek - white glue is the poor man's alternative to latex makeup* - and after it had dried down a bit, tore open a hole.  Then I curled back the edges of the hole, and added on some more glue to build up the depth.  I think I'll try for some more depth when this is dry, but it's not a bad proof-of-concept:  just add some red to the interior to create the effect of an open wound, maybe judiciously drip in some some pus as per yesterday's posting, and voilà.

And what is everyone else doing with their evenings?

- Sid

* The down side of white glue versus liquid latex is slower drying time, so I'll be getting up quite early on Friday morning to go into makeup, as they say in Hollywood.

Celebrity Skin.

Just finished the first phase of distressing my zombie costume (if a suit and shirt really qualifies as a "costume".)  I chopped one arm of the jacket off short, split the shoulder seam, ripped a pocket, tore up one of the pant legs, and judiciously smeared various areas with alizarin crimson, which I hope will dry down to a sufficiently russet blood-red.  I also did a diluted red which I poured down one leg from a tear in the pants, and soaked the right jacket cuff in the same diluted mix for the sake of variety.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow in what I expect to be muted daylight.

There's still some work to do. I need to tear the shirt sleeve off at the same approximate level as the jacket sleeve, but that will be fairly straightforward.  At least now the better part of the blood is finished, and that will be nice and dry for Friday.  The down side is that since I was doing all of this in the bathroom, my tub ended up looking like a serial killer had been at work.  (Perhaps a positive sign, under the circumstances.)

I've also been doing research into zombie skin.  To my surprise, people seem to feel that zombie skin is a lot lighter than I expected, at least in the case of Caucasian zombies.  (Zombies of other ethnic derivations tend to slope off toward a sort of dark slate colour, with a bluish tint.)  So I've done some minor tests with a white cream makeup base that I then colour with green, it doesn't look too bad, and I like the idea of contrasting the green hue with blood-red.  During my homeward commute, I also gave some thought to using hand lotion as pus - probably a good thing that I don't discuss these little brainstorms with the other people on the bus.

And the smiling blonde woman?  Ah.  Allow me to introduce Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob Zombie's wife - Mrs. Zombie, if you will.  Trust me, if you do a Google™ search for "zombie", eventually you say to yourself, "Okay, why does this woman keep showing up?  Milla Jovovich, I get that, no problem, but who is this Californian blonde type?"  Still, it's good to see that some women still adopt their husband's last name when they get married, I appreciate that sort of adherence to traditional values.

- Sid

Postscript: back from the gym, and the places where I used the diluted red looks too much like paint when they dry down.  Fortunately, I've got some time before Friday to fine-tune things.  I may either break into my actual fake blood, or perhaps see if baby oil darkens it down sufficiently to look gory again.  The good news is that the undiluted crimson looks not too bad, although different lighting may change my opinion.

P.S.  December 12. 2010:  I have no idea why - the title, perhaps? - but as with one or two previous entries this one has turned into an absolute spam magnet, and comments are now disabled for this posting.

Zombies R Us.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

- Walt Kelley, Pogo

You are now one of the living dead! Enjoy!

- Zombieplace.com zombie makeup tutorial.

It has literally been decades since I last participated in Hallowe'en, but due to the gentle but threatening pressure being exerted by Suki, our company's "employee engagement" manager, I've decided that a wise man would show up next Friday wearing something other than the usual casual garb allowed at the end of the week.

But wearing what, exactly?  After a bit of careful consideration, I decided that going as a zombie was probably the simplest option.  After all, zombies are just people, albeit dead ones, and as such are unhampered by silliness like fairy wings, clown shoes or ungainly mascot heads.  When you think about it, a zombie costume is basically comprised of torn clothing, bloodstains, and decaying flesh - seems simple enough.

The Internet is thick with helpful suggestions on how to look like a zombie, to the point that a neutral observer might be concerned about our society as whole, this can't be healthy.  One of those helpful suggestions is that as creatures that have risen from the grave, many zombies are actually quite well dressed.  After all, no one ever get buried in t-shirt and jeans.  (Although now that it's come to my awareness, I may put something in my will about that...)  This doesn't rule out casual zombie-wear, due to the "tell two friends" aspect of zombie creation-by-consumption, but it provides a good starting point.

In preparation, I did some simple prosthetic testing during the week, and frankly I was astonished at the ease with which white glue and toilet paper can be converted into a fairly ghastly head wound.  I also have ambitious plans to take advantage of an existing surgical depression in my skull to inset a piece of visible bone (white cardboard or plastic) with torn skin flaps around it.  I'm even planning to shave off my beard and mustache for the event - much easier to do makeup that way.
 
So out I went this afternoon to do shopping for my costume.  I purchased some green, black and white makeup, so I can dull down and brighten up the green for decaying flesh with shadows and highlights as necessary, I’ve got some fake blood for the wounds, and for around the mouth and on the clothes, and I managed to walk into the Salvation Army and randomly pick a $20 tan suit* off the rack that actually fits me just about perfectly.  In fact, if there weren’t a couple of stains on it, I’d be able to wear it to work on Thursday instead of Friday.  However, since there are some existing marks on the fabric, I can sacrifice it to the holiday with a clear conscience – tear one sleeve off short, that sort of thing.  I also purchased a dental appliance for that snaggly zombie look.

And there we are - wish me luck.  I need to do some prep work over the next five days, make some fake skin for the head wounds, distress my suit and so on, and I'll certainly be posting some photos of the results next weekend.  Now if I can just find those glasses with the one shattered lens that I've been hanging onto for years to use as a prop...

- Sid

* It had to be a tan suit because blood and grave dirt and so on wouldn’t show up as well on black, you see. Planning, it's all planning.

I don't think that Mars would make bail, either.

Regarding the missile shutdown incidents, my opinion, their opinion, is that whoever are aboard these craft are sending a signal, to both Washington and Moscow among others, that we are playing with fire - that the possession and use of nuclear weapons potentially threatens the human race and the integrity of the planetary environment.

Robert Hastings, UFO Researcher - press conference, Sept. 27, 2010

How do you know that we are not already living amongst monsters or aliens disguised as "normal" people? Whom would you call: Ghostbusters or Men In Black?

The Smith Machine, blog comment.

 Sigh...and here we go again.

In case you should decide to skip the video link above, it features retired US armed forces personnel reporting incidents involving UFOs that caused shutdowns and equipment failures at atomic/nuclear testing and missile storage sites.  Sadly, as per my previous comments regarding this sort of thing, there seems to be a dearth of hard evidence - in fact, at least a couple of the officers featured in the press conference seem to be relying on the reports of their subordinates rather than first hand experience.

Okay, fine.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that aliens are visiting Earth on a regular basis.  And, again, sake of argument, let's say that in a display of intergalactic brotherhood, or sentient-being-hood or whatever, they decide that they should send a signal to Washington and whomever else that nuclear weapons are bad.  They do this by causing sporadic problems at US military bases - perhaps Russian military bases too, but we only have the American reports to work from in this case.

If alien visitors have both the desire and the ability to cause shutdowns of nuclear weapons, why bother restricting themselves to intermittent difficulties?  Perhaps I should be more grateful to Mr. Hastings for his role as Daniel in the interpretation of this extraterrestrial mene mene tekel upharsin, but why would the aliens not shut down all the nuclear weapons everywhere?  If they've become sufficiently interested in our world that they feel that a message should be sent to the various nuclear-capable powers, they should realize that sporadic interventions at random sites is not the most reliable way to send that message if they really want to get a serious response.

Expatriot Canadian S. M. Stirling is writing a series of books set in a world that has somehow been pushed back to a medieval equivalent by a sudden, mysterious Change that has altered the fundamental nature of physics:  gasoline won't burn, electricity can't be generated, even steam engines fail to operate.  So far in the series, the reason for the Change hasn't been explained, but it's certainly a complete solution to the potential of destroying "the integrity of the planetary environment" with nuclear weapons.  A similar approach by the aliens who have been haphazardly shutting down missiles in silos would make World War Three much less of a concern for us than making sure we didn't freeze or starve during the winter months.

The funny thing is that the Men In Black scenario almost makes sense.  It's a lot easier for me to believe that aliens who had integrated themselves into our society as individuals might take independent action in regards to the possibility of a thermonuclear holocaust.  It would be the alien version of, I don't know, impulsively turning the hose on those loudly inebriated neighbours who are trying to light the barbecue at 3:00 AM, instead of calling the fire department.  As such, it would have the same sort of spur-of-the-moment feel as a response to the problem - and it might well be just the thing to keep the neighbourhood from going up in flames.

And on that basis, things could have been a lot worse.  After all, these theoretical aliens-in-residence could have decided to just call the cops on us and let them sort it out - do we really want to find out what the planetary equivalent of a night in the drunk tank might be?

- Sid

P.S. Should you be interested in a more complete explanation of Mr. Hasting's position, you are welcome to visit his web site: http://www.ufohastings.com.