How to get human skin color and blood on leather.

[SUP]

I am making that hand from The Addam's family for Halloween for my daughter. She wants it to look relatively newly chopped off, so it needs to have a color like skin and bleeding, maybe a little early putrefaction.

I am making it with veg-tanned leather, so it is naturally skin colored. I plan to apply neatsfoot oil so it will darken a little. Before that I need to decide on how to color it. 

What type of paint should I use for this? Acrylics was suggested but they would be shiny and not look very natural, isn't it? Alcohol based Dyes? Can they be painted on? Or are there other types of paints or dyes that I could use?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Wepster]

Wet blood is somewhat shiny, only dried is dull looking. So if you want it fresh severed looking... I would use shiny, and skip any putrefaction, since you mentioned bleeding. However a little blue at the fingers might be appropriate.

But if you want to dull it a bit   https://angelusdirect.com/search?type=product&q=matt

[chuck123wapati]

have you tested acrylics on a piece of  leather to see if they will do what you want? 

[Dwight]

I don't know if Lowes still does it . . . but they used to sell a half pint of "sample" paint of your color for like a buck apiece.

Bought bunches of them for small church projects like Sunday school, etc . . . 

May God bless,

Dwight

[SUP]

@Wepster Thank you for that link.  The matte finish should help get just the right balance of matte and gloss. 

 I was planning on making it look like dried blood.  Some bruising and cuts in blue and purple and yellow maybe. But fresh blood with the rest matte might look better.

@chuck123wapati yes I have used acrylics. For a while I used them on edges and I know they become pretty glossy, more than I want for this project.

 

[SUP]

@Dwight I will check at the local Lowes. Good tip!

My daughter says she will paint the hand once I make it for her, which is a good thing as she is very artistic while I am not so much. However, she has never done leatherwork, so I would like to provide her with everything, along with instructions.

[Gezzer]

No firsthand experience ......... but a quick search brought this up . You ma have already seen it .

 

[chuck123wapati]

1 hour ago, SUP said:

@Wepster Thank you for that link.  The matte finish should help get just the right balance of matte and gloss. 

 I was planning on making it look like dried blood.  Some bruising and cuts in blue and purple and yellow maybe. But fresh blood with the rest matte might look better.

@chuck123wapati yes I have used acrylics. For a while I used them on edges and I know they become pretty glossy, more than I want for this project.

 

I'll be darned I made and painted a skull mask just last year with acrylics and it came out great, no gloss what so ever.

[SUP]

@GezzerI have not seen this, since this is the first time I am attempting something like this. Did not think of searching for 'fake blood'. Been busy trying to stitch that hand - complicated!

 Thank you.

@chuck123wapati if that's so, all the better.   Which brand did you use?

[chuck123wapati]

26 minutes ago, SUP said:

@GezzerI have not seen this, since this is the first time I am attempting something like this. Did not think of searching for 'fake blood'. Been busy trying to stitch that hand - complicated!

 Thank you.

@chuck123wapati if that's so, all the better.   Which brand did you use?

liquitex heavy body acrylics.  

[billybopp]

11 hours ago, SUP said:

I am making that hand from The Addam's family for Halloween for my daughter. She wants it to look relatively newly chopped off, so it needs to have a color like skin and bleeding, maybe a little early putrefaction.

I am making it with veg-tanned leather, so it is naturally skin colored. I plan to apply neatsfoot oil so it will darken a little. Before that I need to decide on how to color it. 

What type of paint should I use for this? Acrylics was suggested but they would be shiny and not look very natural, isn't it? Alcohol based Dyes? Can they be painted on? Or are there other types of paints or dyes that I could use?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Most acrylic paint lines have additives and/or topcoats to give a more matt finish (along with a bunch of other properties too).  You also might want to blend to black with red to get a darker red that's more like blood, and also to vary the color some.  It would be darker in places where it's starting to dry than in places where it's fresh.

- Bill

 

PS - be sure to show us what you come up with when you finish it.  This sounds really cool.

Edited October 11, 2023 by billybopp

[Sheilajeanne]

How to get blood on leather?

Um, I think we ALL know exactly how to do that...   There's a reason I keep a box of band-aids handy by my work bench!

 

You'll show us pictures when it's all done, right??  RIGHT??

Sounds like a really cool project! 

[SUP]

@Sheilajeanne @billybopp I would love to put it up when done - both when I finish the stitching and when my daughter completes the painting. 

Fun project but a little complicated. Hats off to the people who designed this. I have no idea how they came up with the ideas of making the nails embedded at the base, how to make the fingers curl a little and so on.  

It's worth the price of the pattern. It's on Etsy, if you search for  - 'The Hand'. 

Edited October 11, 2023 by SUP

[Sheilajeanne]

It took quite a bit of searching, and I kept coming up with fake silicone hands, but I finally got it!

Here's the link, if anyone wants to give it a try!  https://www.etsy.com/listing/1389838800/leather-hand-pdf-pattern

Edited October 12, 2023 by Sheilajeanne

[SUP]

@Sheilajeanne  I should have thought of putting up the URL.  Sorry about that! You had quite a search.

[fredk]

mmmm, I think I may have to consider buying this pattern

As for paints; any acrylic paints will do. You can get sets of tubes of acrylic paints in discount stores. But you'll need to mix the colours. Alternatively, Warhammer/Citadel does a full range of flesh and blood colours. Any colour of 'flesh' you can imagine, from Goblin Green through Dwarf to Dead and many colours & shades for red. Citadel paints are acrylics meant for painting miniature figures for fantasy war-gaming

[SUP]

@fredk  The ready mixed colors sound delightfully gruesome.  Just checked Citadel. Available on Amazon too. Thank you for that tip. This will make painting the hand much  easier.

[billybopp]

Ah hah!  A Creative Awl pattern.  They most always have a video of their patterns being assembled, so I took a look and there's a lengthy for this.  If you look at about 57:15 or so they show the dye and paint used for the one they show.  I don't usually watch videos this long, but I'll often jump ahead to see if there's anything that catches my eye. 

 

[SUP]

@billybopp I should look at it. It is so long and I bought a class at Tandy... so got all the instructions there. Thank you for giving me that specific time so I don't have to go through it all!

[fredk]

@SUP another idea, cos I spotted it in the shops yesterday; at this time of year, ie pre-Halloween, the shops, especially the discount shops are selling cheap sets of face/body paints. I saw sets that looked like dried water-soluble cubes of colour, like wot we used at school, but I also saw sets of tube paints. All sets had various 'flesh' and 'blood' colours. The tube set I looked at had a good selection of paints, a mixing palette and brushes for £6 

[SUP]

@fredk I did not think of that. I don't usually do any of this Halloween stuff other than pass out the sweets. Will look for this tomorrow. Thank you for the tip.

[SUP]

The hand is half done. This is how it looks now. There are some mistakes I allowed to remain instead of correcting.. more authentic I thought.

I will probably be able to complete it tomorrow. I will put up a pic of that too.

 

[fredk]

Excellento

[SUP]

@fredk Thank you.  I am rather pleased with it. 

I am trying to get it to the color of skin with oils. In the thread about the effects of different oils on leather, I noticed that coconut oil darkens leather even more than neatsfoot oil. I don't know whether the effect is long term or not - in the experiment, it has remained dark for over 2 weeks now. The smell disappears within a couple of days as well.  The leather I  have used is very pale, looks anaemic. Now with the coconut oil, it looks realistic. When I send it to m y daughter, she will only have to apply the blood and gore.

A word of caution to anyone making this hand: Make the rim of leather on the outside of the punched holes as wide as you can; even cut outside the lines if possible. There are places where the thread is passed through one punched hole three or more times and sometimes, it can't take the pressure of being pulled tight and the leather edge tears. Not fun, let me tell you.

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by SUP

[SUP]

This is 'The Hand', complete. Sending it out to daughter to paint today.  

 

Also sending her this key choker - the key turns!

Edited October 21, 2023 by SUP