Blood Blood Blood

Heh heh. Probably got all you horror freaks in here with that title... GOOD. I need your help.

I have been inspired by Propstore's recent listing of Dizzy's death costume. I want to make one of my own. Where I need help is with the blood. My desire is to have a suit that is wearable but one that will probably spend 99% of its life on a mannequinn. I want this trooper to have been mortally wounded with several puncture wounds but I don't want it to be quite as severe as what is seen on Dizzy's suit (see pics below). I have two different approaches in mind and which approach I choose will greatly depend on what can be done with the blood. For costuming purposes, I would love to be able to have blood that is not all dried but is still liquid and runny and sticky. However, I have no idea what to use for that and it would have to be something that could be removed or cleaned up as eventually the entire suit would be covered in blood if not. The other approach would be to make a static blood display, kind of like what is seen in the pics below. However, I don't know how to replicate the look of blood seen there either. I have one screen-used bloody jacket from SST and it is so stiff you can't even wear it. Is there a way you can permanently add blood to clothing without it becoming stiff? Any thoughts or suggestions you have reagrding this would be greatly appreciated.

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Colored epoxy?

For costuming you probably want to use a blood gel, which is pretty damned thick, but keeps a nice gooeyness to it. It'll dry into a kind of gunk, but it can be easily removed (in my experience)

I'd imagine a combination of wet blood elements and a static bloody paintjob would be usable, right? I think I've been able to recreate that bloody sheen with some mixed matte/glossy paints in thinned/alternating layers. I've always layered blood red over a dark brown to give it some depth and give it that "movie look"

I hope any of this is useful

I did a bunch of testing last summer, and found some things to work for my zombie costumes. For a permanent color job, use boiling RIT dye. For a permanent "wet" look for blood, I made a mixture of enamal paint and rubber cement.

Well, depending on the environment you will be wearing it in, I would not reccomend anythign that could rub off on anyone else. I mean if you are at a con with blood gel on your costume you could easily get that stuff on other people, or curtains, or displays.

I have used food coloring on garments plenty of times, and it washes out pretty easily in the washer and dryer.

I have used watered down (and not watered down) acrylic paint on helmets, guns, swords, knives, gloves, boots, whatever I needed to have a bloody look that would dry and not rub off, but that I could wash off later with some soap and water, or a bit of rubbing alchohol.

It sounds to me like you want to avoid anything sticky, and anytyhing truly permanent.

And ya probably know this already, but it never hurts to say it, make sure to practice the techniques on expenable items before applying it to your actual costume. I'd hate to see a post here stating how the costume was ruined