Character 4: Alex

Influence: 30 Days of Night, Gagged to Death Shoot and Bloody Zombie Shoot

The make up for this character is all focused on the mouth, as the scenario for this zombie was that he had just been feasting on human flesh. I have used a combination of the 'gagged to death' shoot and the 'bloody zombie' shoot to create a design around the mouth continuing down to the neck. I have followed a similar structural composition from 'gagged to death' but developed it further combining the wound aspect from the 'bloody zombie' to create a realistic blood thirsty zombie. When I create my designs I look at them together as a group so I can view them in terms of how they fit together compositionally. I have already got a mixture of vertical and horizontal lines from Pedrom's make up, Jodie and Steph both had quite vertical make up designs, therefore for Alex I wanted to complete the balance and create a wound that extended vertically down the neck but applied horizontally across his mouth. He is wearing glasses in the trailer, balancing up the horizontal line. As we only had 4 sets of contact lenses for 5 zombies, I have had to choose which ones I think would look best with them. For Alex's character I thought it would look good to have only 'one' lense, as the rest of his make up is so symmetrical and I thought I'd upset the balance to make it look freaky. In 30 Days of night one of the characters has a similar look of a horizontal wound going across the mouth. I have printed off the image and used it for referencing with regards to composition.

How I created the make up:

I used a very light shade of Mac full coverage for a pale zombie colour. We associate zombies with being very pale because they are dead bodies which have been brought back to life by a supernatural force. I built up layers of tissue and gelatine in the same way that I did for the others making sure the gelatine wasn't too hot before placing it onto the skin. Once this had dried I sealed some of it at the edges with rigid collodion which tightens the skin and creates a realistic scar. I used mainly bright red with only a little purple as it's supposed to be a fresh wound with new blood from a human limb. The older the wound the darker it gets so that is why I have used mainly reds with a touch of purple to indicate a deep wound. I applied some tuplast and picked some of it up using tweezers to suggest raised flesh. Once I finished painting the wound with greasepaint I gave it a light dusting of powder to set it and make it last longer especially important when he's moving about. I applied clumps of wound filler to look like clots of blood, and mixed them with congealed blood. This was the perfect consistency to stay on the face well, for the day. I will apply running blood on set otherwise it will dry by the time we film. I blended the edges in with splashes of blood using a stipple sponge to finish it off.

What would I do differently:

I would consider the teeth more. I placed some blood in the mouth around his teeth to look like he had been swallowing blood. However, I should have s considered the fact that he would have been eating everything and anything so his teeth would be rotten and extremely dirty. I should have applied some dirt around his teeth as I did in the 'bloody zombie' shoot. I will remember this for my next zombie.