Quick and Easy Zombie Makeup
Undeath has never been so fast and cheap
Quick and Easy Zombie Makeup – Why did I do it?
A few years back, a friend and I decided to expose my lovely wife and daughter to the soul-sucking influence of the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland. Sometimes, showing off American culture can take strange twists. As we chatted about it later, my friend and I were wondering if we could arrange for a boatload of people to go into the ride alive, but to emerge from the exit as zombies. In this special case, as zombies not intent on eating brains, but instead intent on continuing to get the most out of a day at a theme park. Part of the discussion was “how could we make the transition from live park guests to dead people who still want to ride a roller coaster fast enough?” We batted a few ideas around, but never finalized anything.
Last October, I found out that the English training center my daughter attends (Why does my daughter need classes like this when she’s got me? 
I used to teach English, both in the US and China. Some mysteries have no solutions.) was having a Halloween party. Better still, she was allowed to bring family members. Best of all, the party was in costume.
Going on an All-BRAINS Diet 
So, this kicked my quick zombie plan into high gear. First, I tore the internet apart. I found many good ideas, but most were rather . . . complex. I wanted something where I could shift from my usual diet to nothing but BRAINS! in 20 minutes or less, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it. I grabbed a number of the best ideas I could find online and did my best to strip them down to the barest of zombie essentials. This began my hobby of occasionally turning up somewhere as a brain eating zombie.
For a warmup before the party, I took a long, slow stagger through the DongCheng Carrefore. It was very hard not to laugh as wide-eyed children stared in mute horror from their seats in shopping carts – while their parents were too intent on some item on the shelf or checking out something on their phones to notice that a zombie was passing by within arm’s reach.
At the party, my plan was to stagger around saying nothing more than, “BRAINS! I want to eat your BRAINS!“. The plan almost worked too well. Although I had people fleeing in terror at first, most of them figured out I was harmless (well, mostly harmless) after the initial shock wore off. But, there was this one girl who was so scared that I had to back off to keep her from hurting herself. 
Quick and Easy Zombie Makeup – What do you need?
Everything you need to start your all BRAINS! diet
If you’ve seen enough zombie flicks and also watch shows like The Walking Dead, you’ll notice something about the extras. Although a specific front-line zombie may have all sorts of gooey bits hanging off and may have a lot of skin showing, once you get into the second and third rank, most of our low-ranking brain biters are wearing long sleeves and long pants, with no regard to how hot the weather may have been when the zombie apocalypse happened. The reason is simple. Less skin showing equals less time in the makeup chair. Do you want to spend 3 hours getting ready to scare people for a few minutes, or 20 minutes so you can inflict hours of hilarious terror?
So, item #1 on your zombie shopping list is an expendable long-sleeved shirt. I got my lovely wife to order one on Taobao for 15 RMB (less than $3). I did some creative ripping and tearing. It’s also fun to find a red stamp pad, slide your hand across it, and add a few “bloody” handprints on the shirt.
Next, think about the hair. Zombies don’t bother to comb their hair, and spend most of their time wandering around in all sorts of weather. Get yourself a cheap bottle of hair gel to help you get that special “I’m dead and you’re about to die too!” hairdo you’ve always dreamed of.
As for the skin, you’ll want some eyeshadow – you need dark grey (or black), light grey, and either green or brown (preferably both). An eyebrow pencil is also useful. You’ll be aiming for a dirty, rotted look. If you want to use some real dirt, that’s always an option.
About blood. It’s very easy to make. Corn syrup is a good base, but you can substitute pancake syrup or even honey if you need to. Food coloring is essential. This probably means going online or else visiting some of the foreign foods shops around New World Garden if you’re here in Dongguan. Happily for my impending zombie status I’d already bought some food coloring for another cooking project while I was on a trip to the US, so was fully equipped with an assortment of colors. It’s a good idea to start with a VERY small batch of corn syrup and add a drop or two of red. Once it’s red enough, you need to darken it with the tiniest amount of green or blue to make it look more realistic. Once you’ve found a pleasing ratio, make some extra. You can always freeze it so you have plenty for your next undead outing.
Regarding the blood, there are 2 things you need to remember. One, you’re a zombie and shouldn’t be dripping large amounts of blood. Two, if you drip all over the floor and other people’s costumes, you might not get invited back (live people are so picky ). A little blood around the mouth helps get the point across without making too big of a mess.
Quick and Easy Zombie Makeup – OK, you have everything. Get ready to become a zombie in 20 minutes or less.
First, put on the shirt. It will be a lot easier to get the shirt on before you start on the hair and makeup. Since you’re about to be a zombie, who cares if your shirt gets a little messy? Zombies certainly don’t waste time on such details.
Zombie Fashion – A ripped shirt with bloody handprints
Go ahead and have some fun with your hair now. Try to get it matted if you can. If any ends up in front of your face, that’s fine. Move it out of the way temporarily while putting on the makeup and then put it back once you’re done. If you’ve got a beard, mess it up too. Go for asymmetry wherever possible.
Oh wait, my hair looks like that most of the time anyway 🙂
The time has come to go from messy to dead. Start with darkening your eyelids and eye sockets to help give that undead look. You can use a black dry-erase marker for this, but it’s not a recommended use (and the vapors do sting a little). It’s very effective, but you should be able to get nearly the same effect with black or dark grey eyeshadow and not worry about what those dry-erase fumes are doing to your eyeballs.
Ahhh! My eye!
Black or dark grey eyeshadow is easier
I’m feeling a little dead this morning
Next, scrunch up your forehead and darken any creases with an eyeliner pencil. This adds to the dead look. My new black pencil was a bit too much, but the brown one I’d gotten earlier worked very well.
Use your lightest grey across all the exposed areas of your face (and the backs of your hands) for that special “Hey everyone, I just died!” look.
I hope we’re having BRAINS! for dinner
Now comes the part where you can get creative. Use the darker greys, browns, and/or greens to try to make yourself look both decayed and filthy. Remember, it’s dirt and rot, it’s NOT camouflage. Dark stripes on your face look good if you want to show up as a commando, but don’t look right for a zombie (unless, perhaps, you’re a commando who was bitten by a zombie ). Don’t forget the backs of your hands.
Looks like me after a typical day at work 🙂
Now that I’m looking at the pics instead of taking then while applying the makeup, I think I should have applied the makeup just a little bit thicker. This is the sort of thing that goes wrong when you try to be your own camera operator while demonstrating how to become a zombie.
The final easy zombie makeup item is the blood. I use a high-tech applicator – it’s the lower part of a folding fork out of a package of instant noodles. It’s nicely rounded so I don’t put my eye out with it. I like to put some bloody tears out of the side of one eye in addition to blood around the mouth. It seems to add a bit to the creepiness of the makeup job.
I may be dead, but I’m not going to poke my eye out 🙂
Take a moment to deal with the backs of your hands and any exposed skin on your neck. Just a quick coat of grey and some splotches of black, brown, and/or green and you’re set.
Now you get to start acting the part of the living dead. Tilt your head back just a little so the whites of your eyes show on top when you look at someone (practice this in the mirror). Walk with a slow, shuffling stagger (unless you want to be a 28 Days Later style hyper zombie). Groan with the pain of someone who’s dead and knows it. Give people that hungry, hateful look, stagger towards them slowly. and then lunge forward yelling “BRAINS!!!”
The most important advice – DON’T BREAK CHARACTER! Act like your very undeath depends on it. The best zombie costume and most professional makeup in the world won’t be very frightening if you don’t ACT LIKE A ZOMBIE! If you can do a good job acting the part, you’ll be scary even if your costume and makeup aren’t the best. If you can find a glass door (wall, window, whatever) to walk into (carefully) and bounce back while looking slightly surprised and confused, it can add to the effectiveness of your act.
BRAINS! I want to eat your BRAINS!!!
Now that you’ve got your easy zombie makeup on, get out there, have fun, scare few (or a few hundred) people, and EAT SOME BRAINS! 
Note: Some small rotting bits and pieces of this are also in the October 2015 issue of Here! Magazine (heredg.com). I’d agreed to do an article for them on my fast and easy zombie makeup method, but somehow that simple task mutated into me getting a 2 hour makeover session with a professional movie makeup artist. The result was pleasingly hideous, but was more focused on bloody wounds instead of the slow decay a zombie would experience. My intention was to make becoming a zombie quick and easy, and the methods used for the article were neither. So, I sat down in front of a mirror and did my own version so that you can follow me in joining the ranks of brain-eating zombies in 20 minutes or less.
