Bizarre Halloween Tutorial: What Did You Do Today?

Oh, nothin' much. Just cleaned the bathroom, mopped the kitchen, and painted a severed hand? You?

I've gotta say, it looks pretty darn good, too.

Here's what it started out as:


Photo Credit



 And here's how it looks now:

As I've said before, my world is a little strange. The hand's for a short we're filming next weekend, and while it's still not quite finished (those seams! My God, those seams!), I'm really happy with it. Now, I know most of you guys aren't going to need to film a severed hand, but some of you may be planning Halloween decorations, so I thought I'd share how Thomas and I livened up the undead hand.

The hand, itself, came from the local party supply store. It was in a mesh bag with another hand and a couple of feet (and that is a sentence I never thought I'd write). The hand is almost exactly the same size as my hand. Aside from the zombie color and plastic bone sticking out, it was fairly realistic, and the whole bag cost about ten bucks. I guess, if we ever need any severed feet, we're all set.

I'm not counting that out...

Anyhoo, Thomas gave the entire hand a base coat of Apple Barrel acrylic in Lite Mocha (two coats), which looks like my liquid foundation, and repainted the red "blood". The red is really just a guideline for where to put the fake blood...that I still need to make and just remembered. Great. Once all the paint was good and dry, I started detailing.

The nails are fake press-ons from the drugstore. The hand had some nail bed detailing that I was able to use as a guide for sizing. The nail kit came with glue, but I opted to attach the nails with some rhinestone glue. Honestly, I figured there was less chance of gluing my fingers together that way.

Once the nails dried, I was able to file them into the shape I wanted. Then, I painted them with two coats of Essie Naughty Nautical. After that dried, I took a small detailing brush and touched up the skin-colored paint, adding in cuticles as I went. Finally, I painted one more coat of the Essie, just to clean up the cuticle area a bit.

When all of that dried, I was able to add the finishing touches. With a sponge, I applied a cream foundation over the entire skin area, giving the hand more of a natural skin finish. I set the foundation with a powder, then brushed a berry blush very lightly over the entire hand, concentrating the color around the knuckles and nails--where my own skin is naturally pinker. Then, I used a fluffy brush to apply a matte bronzer over the entire hand. The final effect is a little unnerving. It looks real. And off-putting. And kind of cool.

So, if you're in the market for a life-like severed hand...well, here you go. Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go reevaluate my life choices.

Oh, who am I kidding? I freaking love this kind of stuff. Bring on Halloween!