How to Do Special Effects Makeup: Car Crash

Series Summary

Cosmetic makeup has been used for years to enhance the natural beauty of women around the world. When used on stage or in a movie, makeup takes on a role of its own. Special effects makeup can be as simple as a cut or a scar on the face or as complicated as full-body character makeup. Do-it-yourself special effects makeup is easier than you might think and can be done using things you have around the home.

In this free video series, our experts Grace Fraga & Brad Schecter will teach you how to do special effects makeup. They will teach you how to apply gelatin, black makeup, and red to make it look like burning and charring. They will also teach you how to make fake shards of glass and attach them to the face. Finally, they will apply the fake blood and teach you all the things you'll ned to do-it-yourself.

Video Transcript

"So we're going to have fun today applying some makeup to look like a car accident. I'm going to look like I'm going to be in a car, or I was in a car accident. And here is my guest my expert Brad Schecter. Hi Brad how are you doing? Good how are you doing? I'm going great so you are going to make me look like a car accident victim. I am very well, like you went through the windshield and everything, yes. Oh really. Yes. Wow so I can scare the guys I don't want to date and I hope that the guys that want to date me are not watching right now, right. Exactly. Ok. Well we will have a before and after picture so we don't have to worry about that. Oh great, I am always the before picture but in this case I'll be both. You'll be both. Sweet I like that. It'll be great. Yes, pretty or pretty. Exactly right. So tell us a little bit about what are the steps to make me look like a car accident victim. First thing we're going to do is wash your face just to get off all the excess dirt and oil that's on there, just to have a clean, so we have a clean firm adhesion with the prosthetics we're using with the gelatin. Ok. And that's the reason, just plain unflavored gelatin, no colors. You can eat this thing. You can, I wouldn't recommend eating it in this form because there's no flavor or color added so it's a Cosby would not put his seal of approval on this. That's great. And is this something that people need to worry about being allergic too. No it's all natural, there's no dyes or chemicals added to it, it's perfectly natural and what it does it just creates a nice effect for burns or scars when you add a little hot water to it. Oh ok. So we're going to use that, we'll use that to create to build the effect of the burn. And then after that we'll do is add makeup using an injury stack which I have right here. It's all different colors. And we will apply a deep red just to give it that burn effect. Wow this is great. Yeah, and a little black for the charred effect for road burn as if you kind of slid through the window shield (Oh My Goodness) and went chhhh on your face yeah. So a little black to give it that charred effect. And then I have some pieces of broken plastic to look like glass I'll stick in the forehead so it looks like you actually went through the windshield. Wow. Because that's the effect we are going for. Are you going to stick those with the gelatin? Yes, you have the gelatin, it acts like an adhesive you know as it dissolves. So I can just put it on there and add the makeup and then I can just, it's still going to be warm so I can go ahead and stick them in at that point, after I apply the makeup. So it will be, it will just stick, it will hold itself (nice) I won't have to add anything to it, exactly. Ok and and then we'll go ahead and add just maybe some scrapes and some extra road burn on your face so it looks like, yeah. So I look like I really had a car accident. So you really had a bad accident. Exactly. It's going to be like don't let this happen to you. I'm glad there are no mirrors in here. So first let's go ahead and yeah, let's start by going ahead and applying (ok) washing your face."