Special Effects - Cuts & Bruises 1

Now we've all done our burns assessments, it's time to move on to Cuts and Bruises in special effects class, although this week I just practised bruises. This is a really interesting topic, because bruises in particular come in all shapes, sizes and colours, so it's fun to lose yourself in it and see what can be created! It's also good to practice on different parts of the body, and I decided to try doing a 'black eye'. This can be paired with cuts around the nose and lots of fake blood to create a very realistic broken nose, but due to time constraints I just did the eye. But before I post my work, I'll talk a bit about bruises and how they can be created with makeup.

Bruises are minor tissue damage under the skin, caused by blunt trauma. The discolouration of the skin is evidence of broken capillaries, damaged veins and internal bleeding in the surrounding tissue. A lot of the time, bruises aren't particularly life-threatening - although they can be very painful - but they can vary in severity in terms of tissue damage.
Creating bruises with makeup is realtively simple - all you need is a soft sponge, a stipple sponge, a bruise wheel and your fingers and it turns out really effective! As you can see from the pictures, many colours are used and different levels of severity can be created.

Last week the lecturers were going to a meeting so we didn't have very long to practise, but I managed to do a bruised eye on Debbie, which Mo said was really good. I'm really happy with it!

I used a mixture of purple, red, brown, black, navy and green to get the overall look - I blended it in mostly using my fingers, but I also used brushes and a sponge. I was trying to make it look really fresh and sore, and I think I managed to capture that! I also used white under her eye to highlight, and make it look really swollen - a technique I learned in Character class!

For our cuts and bruises assessment, we have to recreate an accident scenario, so I've had that in mind while practising. We have to do both a face and body contusion, so this week I tried to incorporate the two. I worked with Debbie again and we came up with a scenario of our own - we were in the car and she crashed because she was dancing at the wheel, and we both got pretty bruised and battered! Debbie gave me a bruised eye, cut nose and a big graze on my forehead which had glass in it. She also did a huge graze on my arm to make it look like I had injured it shielding myself from the crash. Pretty creative!

Here's my work on Debbie, with and without flash:

I wanted to make Debbie look like she had a broken nose, so I bruised both of her eyes and added some pro blood coming out of her nose. I made the bruise darker right in at the corners of her eyes and down the nose to give it a really swollen effect. I figured she'd hit her head on the dashboard, so I added a large, deep cut on her eyebrow bone and made it look really sore by mostly using reds in that area. I added plenty of wound filler and fake blood to add to the realism.
I also decided to give her bruised/grazed knuckles to make it seem like she'd scraped them on some glass in the car crash. I'm really happy with how it turned out, particularly because I don't feel very confident with the dermawax yet.

I find the cuts and bruises to be a bit more difficult than the burns because they are more technical - colour and placement are really important, and the cuts and bruises have to work together to make it look realistic. I felt like this was my best cuts and bruises practise so far, and Mo gave me good feedback on my competent use of colour and overall realism. She even used mine and Debbie's work as an example of what everyone should be doing - she wants us to stop playing it safe by doing small cuts and bruises, and instead get into the accident mindset. Her advice was to think big and to combine the facial and body injuries, to apply to an accident scenario. I couldn't be happier with how it all went!

Gill :) x