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I've recently come up with what I believe to be a new "recipe" for fake blood. It isn't sticky once it dries, it can be layered, even sculpted to a limited degree. I haven't tried it with the extremes of temperature you can get from outdoor displays, but I see no reason it wouldn't hold up as well as store-bought fake blood, or the stuff you make yourself with corn syrup.
My theme for this year's Halloween is "Slaughterhouse" - kind of a mishmash of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn. To that end, I've been busy bloodstaining props. So far these include three meat hooks, two cleavers, several body parts, a severed head
...and a partridge in a pear tree! (Okay, not really.)
The secret to this recipe? Fabric paint - the same stuff you can get at Wal-Mart, Michael's or your local fabric store. I've used Tulip brand (because that's what they have), but I see no reason why other brands wouldn't work just as well.
I use the large 4 oz. bottles... never know when you'll need to whip up some blood on the fly, right? Red and brown are the only two colors you need. Red fabric paint is frequently too close to pink to pass for blood, so adding brown deepens the color. You'll need to experiment a bit, see what looks right to you. My first batch was roughly two parts red to one part brown; for later batches, I reversed the proportions. Both work well; if you go with mostly red, you'll get a good wet-look blood - fresh blood, if you will. If you go with mostly brown, you'll have blood that's been drying for a while. Or you can do what I did with the meat hooks; start with the fresh blood, let it dry, then streak it with the drying blood. Blood doesn't dry uniformly anyway. Deeper puddles will take longer to dry, shallower pools will dry more quickly. Because fabric paint is thick, you can even gradually build up shapes by careful layering.
When I first started staining stuff with this mixture, I used rubber gloves to apply it; but if you don't worry overmuch about spoiling your manicure, you can just finger-paint with it. It washes right off with soap and warm water. I've toyed with the idea of using it to paint something on a "victim" - a heart, maybe, or a smiley face.
I'll be using it later this year to stain a butcher's apron - wow, I'm even using it for it's intended use! (Though I don't imagine the Tulip people had bloodstains in mind....) I also have a metal tray, the size to hold your Thanksgiving turkey. I'll be creating a very large pool of blood on this - and after it dries, I'm going to stick a severed head right in the middle of it.
This stuff dries to a hard, rubbery or plastic-y finish that absolutely is not sticky to the touch. You can't leave a fingerprint in it by touching it, the way you can with spray paint - which is what I used to use. (If you actually want to leave a fingerprint in this stuff, you should do it while it's still wet.)
My theme for this year's Halloween is "Slaughterhouse" - kind of a mishmash of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn. To that end, I've been busy bloodstaining props. So far these include three meat hooks, two cleavers, several body parts, a severed head
...and a partridge in a pear tree! (Okay, not really.)
The secret to this recipe? Fabric paint - the same stuff you can get at Wal-Mart, Michael's or your local fabric store. I've used Tulip brand (because that's what they have), but I see no reason why other brands wouldn't work just as well.
I use the large 4 oz. bottles... never know when you'll need to whip up some blood on the fly, right? Red and brown are the only two colors you need. Red fabric paint is frequently too close to pink to pass for blood, so adding brown deepens the color. You'll need to experiment a bit, see what looks right to you. My first batch was roughly two parts red to one part brown; for later batches, I reversed the proportions. Both work well; if you go with mostly red, you'll get a good wet-look blood - fresh blood, if you will. If you go with mostly brown, you'll have blood that's been drying for a while. Or you can do what I did with the meat hooks; start with the fresh blood, let it dry, then streak it with the drying blood. Blood doesn't dry uniformly anyway. Deeper puddles will take longer to dry, shallower pools will dry more quickly. Because fabric paint is thick, you can even gradually build up shapes by careful layering.
When I first started staining stuff with this mixture, I used rubber gloves to apply it; but if you don't worry overmuch about spoiling your manicure, you can just finger-paint with it. It washes right off with soap and warm water. I've toyed with the idea of using it to paint something on a "victim" - a heart, maybe, or a smiley face.
I'll be using it later this year to stain a butcher's apron - wow, I'm even using it for it's intended use! (Though I don't imagine the Tulip people had bloodstains in mind....) I also have a metal tray, the size to hold your Thanksgiving turkey. I'll be creating a very large pool of blood on this - and after it dries, I'm going to stick a severed head right in the middle of it.
This stuff dries to a hard, rubbery or plastic-y finish that absolutely is not sticky to the touch. You can't leave a fingerprint in it by touching it, the way you can with spray paint - which is what I used to use. (If you actually want to leave a fingerprint in this stuff, you should do it while it's still wet.)
Thats a great tip. I was wondering how I get the effect I wanted for our lab experiments gone wrong. this might just do the trick. thank you for sharing.
