Do Appliance Effects Have to be Expensive? by Leonard Engelman

You can make appliances out of your kit for about 85 cents and a tube of Duo Adhesive.

While working on "Cat People" one night in the swamps of Louisiana, the first assistant director said "Tonight we have one character hanging from a tree who is to have a chunk bitten out of his face and we forgot to mention that when you were given the appliance requirements." I quickly turned to my ever ready "Gum Eraser" This is a great, inexpensive way to make various types of wounds and effects.

The actor had about a one week beard growth, so I shaved an area a little larger than the open wound I was planning. I made a good size mound of gum eraser residue (see prepared gum eraser below) and  Duo Adhesive on my work space. Using an appropriate size makeup sponge, I applied Duo Adhesive to the wound area leaving about a half inch space away from the bard. I then dipped the same sponge into my mound of gum eraser, and transferred the mixture to the Duo on the face. With the same sponge, I followed hat with another coating of Duo and then the gum eraser residue. I continued this until I had an irregular "meaty" looking surface.

My next step was applying wax to create the jagged skin around the wound. The wax can be any brand of what is often referred to as mortician's wax, or nose putty like Naturo Plasto or Ben Nye's product. I took a good amount of wax on a spatula and working from the direction of the edge of the wound toward the skin, I spread the wax blending it off flat to the skin just before the edge of the beard. By doing this all the way around the wound, the wax created a very erratic look to the edge of the wound as if the skin had been torn away. After blending the wax smooth and creating a little pore structure, I sealed the wax heavily with a strong sealer. In this way the wax was not going to move.

Next is coloring the wound. I first used a small amount of cream type makeup to insure the wax matched the actor's skin. Taking a small amount of gel blood on a brush, I laid the gel blood just along the edges of the wax to help create depth to the wound. The major part of the wound was simply colored with Reel Blood. The eraser material absorbed the blood in different coloration. As some of the eraser residue material showed through it gave the appearance of "meat" from the wound showing through.

The next step was to position the actor in the tree and apply enough blood for the appearance of a flow, but not to cover the "very effective" wound.

I first discovered this "cheap" appliance substitute while working on Rod Serling's "Night gallery" television series. The script called for a character to appear at the door who had come out of a grave. The face was to be almost skull like with amounts of flesh. I of several ways to accomplish this that had been done in the past, but I wanted something new. I wanted a different material...knew the look...but had not come up with the exact material. While talking with a makeup artist friend who is also a working artist, Rich Sharp, he said "You know when I use a gum eraser on my artwork the used eraser material sounds like what you are talking about." He was right. (Thank you Rick.)

I asked for a very gaunt actor to be cast and this new process began. I set the actor back in the makeup chair so his head was as horizontal as possible. I then coated areas of his face with Duo adhesive followed by the gum eraser material. I covered the entire area of the face, neck and hands. By using larger amounts of material on the forehead, frontal bone, cheek bones, jaw bone, and chin, I was creating or emphasizing a skull. In the areas I wanted to have the illusion of hollows, I used only one layer of material. As the material built up, I was actually creating a rubber appliance that moved easily and freely with the actor's speech and movement.

Then came the time for coloring this "old meaty skull." The color of the gum eraser residue and Duo had a dull yellowish-gray appearance. Very much like bone!! I used that as my base color and simply dusted the surface with a bit of grayish powder, and where I wanted more depth I sprinkled a blackish-gray powder over those deeper areas. It was a great hit and I was very pleased. I couldn't wait to find more uses for this wonderful, inexpensive material.

GUM ERASER RESIDUE FORMULA: Take one gum eraser and a piece of very coarse sand paper. Now rub the eraser against the sandpaper like crazy for as long as you can. Keep the residue in a closed container. In the beginning I said you can create an effect for 85 cents. That's just the cost of the gum eraser. You will be able to use this material many, many, many, times for only 85 cents.

Leonard Engelman

Director of Education, Cinema Makeup School

Makeup Artist and Hairstylist Branch Governor for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.