For my final tutorial in The Last of Us cosplay series, I made a prosthetic of Ellie’s Clicker bite. An Ellie cosplay is not complete without her notorious bite. For this tutorial I made the prosthetic on my own arm, but I recommend that you make it on a hard nonporous surface, as it will make the whole process much easier.
Supplies I used:
- Cinema Secrets Liquid Latex
- Cinema Secrets Liquid Fake Blood
- Crayola Air Dry Clay
- Spirit Gum
- Foundation
- Coastal Scents: Creative Me Palette
- BH Cosmetics: Malibu Palette
- Vaseline
- Hair Dryer
Step1: Start with a clean surface
Whether you make this prosthetic on your own skin or on a hard surface, just be sure that it’s clean. When you start putting latex down, you won’t want it to pick up any debris.
Step 2: The Clay
If you look at Ellie’s bite mark in reference images, it has raised nodules in it that are puffy and almost look like a burn. With the air dry clay, create small ball shapes about the size of a pea and set them aside.
With a sponge or brush, add two thin layers of latex to your surface. Once dried, use spirit gum to stick the clay onto the latex. You can of course use liquid latex to attach the clay, but spirit gum will dry much faster.
Step 3: The Latex
Once the clay is in place, you will want to add two to three fairly thick layers of liquid latex over the entire piece. This will take a few minutes to dry, but you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process. Use the dryer on a low, cool setting so your don’t blow the liquid around or burn yourself.
Step 4: Shape
It’s important to remember that this prosthetic is a bite, and therefore should be the shape of someone’s mouth. Once the piece is completely dried, you might want to trim the edges in order to give it a rounder shape. If you are making the prosthetic directly on your arm, you can use makeup to correct the over all shape.
Step 5: Makeup
The makeup is fairly simple. You’ll first want to cover the entire piece with a foundation that matches your skin tone. Next, consider all the colors that are in a bruise (purple, yellow, green, red, blue). You’ll want to incorporate all of these colors on the prosthetic.
Starting off, I mixed reds and browns together to get a solid base color that would make the area look swollen. I went around the clay nodules, deepening the color while leaving the tops of them fairly flesh toned. This makes them look more three-dimensional.
Gradually build up the color, while keeping in mind where the natural shadows and highlights would be.
Step 6: Blood and Vaseline
With a brush, slowly add small amounts of blood all over the prosthetic and then blot it away with a paper towel or cloth. You might also consider using fake scab blood for this, which really adds depth to the piece. However, I did not have any. I also recommend that you rub a small amount of vaseline on the prosthetic to make it look shiny like a burn. I did not do this in the video, and decided to do it after the fact because I thought my prosthetic looked too matte.
Step 7: Peel it off
You should be able to slowly peel off the latex. You can use your fingers like I did or use tweezer. Just go slow so you don’t rip it. Then you are done. You can stick this on your skin using spirit gum at any time. You may just want to touch up the makeup every now and then.
I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions or ideas for future projects, let me know in the comments. I am always happy to make things.
Published: Jul 11, 2015 10:08 am