Are you going to a Halloween party this October 31st? Do you want to get yourself dressed up as a horrific zombie as your costume this Halloween? Great! Here are a few pointers on creating a great zombie costume with ease, fast and cheaply. You will need to pay visits to the thrift or charity shop as well as a good party goods retailer either online or in the flesh.

Clothes:

The Zombie outfit is easy to create. It would be best to use older clothes or garments you have purchased cheaply, especially for the costume. Pale colours for shirts are a good idea, as these can be ripped and bloodied easily. If you use darker coloured items of clothing then any gory special effects you use won’t show up as well. For example, a white t shirt daubed with gore and tears, over a black t-shirt worn underneath it, would look great, with the black fabric under the white shirt further accenting the ‘wounds’. When it comes to trousers and footwear, think battered and gnarled.

Damage the garments a little, and also daub them with blood and gore effects. These bloody and gory special effects are really easy to make at home utilizing corn syrup and food colouring, but a somewhat better idea for keeping your effects looking good on clothing is to use paint. Once you have the rips you want, paint dark red mess around the ‘wounds’ on the fabric and then decorate further with red food colour and further splashes of paint. This creates a good, nasty looking mess that won’t melt or run while you’re partying!

Make-up:

Zombie make-up is one of the easiest types of special effects make-ups to create. As a basic start, you’ll want dark circles under your eyes and a pale, deathly hue to your skin. A green tint works well to suggest rotting and decomposition. This can very easily be attained with greasepaint from any good party goods store, which is then decorated with a little fake blood around your mouth area. If you want to get a bit more technical, get some make-up latex from your party retailer and follow the next steps:

On plain flesh, newly washed and dried, apply a tiny amount of liquid latex to the desired area (Be sure to follow all directions on the latex’s packaging). Two main wounds work well on a zombie make-up, and stop things looking too cluttered. Shape the latex into the required ‘wound’ shapes and let them dry. Once dry, apply another level to each one and repeat the process until there are raised ‘wounds’ that look suitably grisly.

Next, apply whatever colour of greasepaint you want to the face, covering evenly and avoiding the eyes. Over the latex ‘wounds’, gently apply the colour with a sponge until covered, but take care not to damage your ‘wound’ make-up.

Next step for your zombie costume is to create dark circles around and under the eyes with greasepaint or other safe make-up. The final step off this zombie make-up is then to decorate the ‘wounds’ themselves. Take a paintbrush and paint blood and gore colours onto the latex wounds. These can then be highlighted with fake blood drops or the corn syrup/food colouring mixture. Don’t use much- just enough for it to look good!

There you go. Zombie costume complete. Now all you need to get used to is crying out “Braaaaaaaaaaiiiiinnnssss!”