Diabetic foot ulcer

For this week’s Moulage Monday blog post I want to talk about a past piece of work. This makeup is my single favourite piece of work I have ever done to date personally as I was so happy with the final result.

I created this piece using layers of coloured sculpt gel, built up in differing translucent layers. This not only gives the appearance of different layers of skin and varying amounts of tissue that has been eaten away but also help aid in the look of swelling on the foot.

As always I used a reference image to base this look on. This was found on Google by searching ‘diabetic foot ulcer’ please if you Google this be warned what you are letting yourself in for as you will see some highly graphic images (although if you have made it this far I doubt that bothers you).

When it came to dressing this piece I decided against using too much blood, as there was not a lot of blood present in the reference image. Instead I wanted to give the feel of the wound being wet and gunky so instead I chose to opt for a clear hair gel, applied just in the centre of the wound. This will stay on the surface of the piece rather then drying, leaving the wound looking fresh and assisting toward the realism that I am aiming for. I did dab a very small amount of drying blood around the outside of the wound, more for colour then the actual look of bloodiness itself.

The way that this piece turned out truly fills me with happiness to the core. Even to this day after nearly a decade of doing special effects makeup I still rarely like anything I create; the artists curse, but very occasionally I will do something that turns out exactly how I set out to make it look. It’s like striking gold! This is one of those pieces for me. I know it’s not perfect, but honestly I think perfection is a myth and any flaws that I see in this piece are overtaken by how proud I am of what I have created.

I would love to know if you have a piece of work that you have created that gives you this same feeling, whether that be a Moulage look or any other piece of creative work that you have done.