Tag: casualty makeup

Moulage (warning: graphic pictures)

My other hobby

I forgot to talk about one of my other hobbies yesterday, or rather, I neglected to talk about my other hobby/volunteer work. I do moulage, otherwise known as casualty simulation. In short, I make people look injured for emergency disaster training.

This isn’t a hobby I can share casually, because, actually, I did a pretty good job. The pictures creep people out.

My favorite story on the realism of my work is going into work after our big disaster training weekend (I’m a professor) and getting the rumor that one of my “victims” was sent to the hospital for a simulation, and they started hooking up an IV on him. He had to stop them from doing so. I mentioned this to another class, and his girlfriend corroborated it.

None of this is real

Moulage requires a certain amount of art and science. The science comes in studying injuries — knowing how they’re inflicted, what they look like on the body, how they change over time. The art comes from recreating them in grease paint, fake blood, wax, and latex.

Examples (warning: do not go below this point if you are upset by these pictures)

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  • The tent where moulage crew works
  • A burn (fourth degree)
  • Broken sliver of kneecap
  • Extensive burns (third degree)
  • Lacerations and road rash
  • Scarring

A bloody good time

I don’t have a lot of time to put in a big post, because I will be moulaging a bunch of high schoolers for the high school docudrama. This means that I look at a card detailing injuries and recreate it on a volunteer using makeup.

The docudrama exists as a way to scare teens out of drunk driving, distracted driving, and various other jerky things teens do while driving that will get them and others killed. The woman who runs it encourages us to get severe and bloody with our casualty simulation because they will be seeing it from a distance (unlike Missouri Hope, where people will see it close up). 

It’s a fun time. 

The Art of Gorifying

Last night, I made shrapnel. Lots of shrapnel.

Missouri Hope is this weekend, and all my creative brain cells are occupied in making prosthetic plant-ons for casualty simulation. These are used to simulate impalements, and can be glued on someone’s skin with spirit gum. I learned this from Will Lanfear, who is a professional moulage artist in New York state.

I made a quart of special effects gelatin — 2 cups each of water and unflavored gelatin, 1/4 cup each of sorbitol and glycerin. It’s actually fun and soothing to make, and it can be frozen.

The loops of intestines are ready, and all they need are fake blood  (1 jug liquid starch, 1/4 cup red food coloring, 1 teaspoon blue food coloring).

Yes, moulage (casualty simulation) is gory. It’s a lot of sitting around the dinner table talking about the color of day-old bruises and how laminating plastic makes good glass debris. It’s googling pictures of hand deglovings (this is exactly what it sounds like) and third-degree burns, and then figuring out how to recreate those injuries. It’s buying a large wheeled toolkit to bring supplies in to the site.

It’s being nicknamed “The Queen of Gore” by a retired Army brigadier general.

Yes, it’s creativity.