… for Visual Effects

Tip #634: Three Easy Recipes for Fake Blood

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Fake blood stains easily. Be careful of your clothes.

This tip originally appeared in Raindance.com article. This is an excerpt.

We all gotta die sometime – however most actors prefer that it not happen on camera. For those situations, we need FAKE BLOOD! Here are three recipes.

Corn Syrup Blood

This is the recipe that pretty much everyone uses, and there’s a lot of variations so feel free to experiment.

• 16 oz. White corn syrup (Karo syrup – this is a US product, but adding golden syrup does the job just as well, alternatively just mix sugar and water and reduce on the stove until it becomes syrupy)
• 1 oz. red food coloring
• 1 oz. washing detergent
• 1 oz. water

Options: Add a drop of blue food coloring to create a more realistic color. Remove the detergent if you want to make edible blood. Adding condensed milk makes it less transparent and more like real blood.

The blood is extremely sticky and can stain skin and clothes so makes sure it’s washed off quickly and have stain remover handy for clothes!

Jelly Blood

Microwave 3-4 bottles of glycerin then add one cube of strawberry jelly and mix until dissolved. Then add a small amount of gelatine (1/5 of a packet) and then add red food colouring to desired effect. Keep stirring until mixed well. It is slightly runny but great for that Reservoir Dogs look in the back seat of the car. All ingredients are easily found in supermarkets.

Black and White Blood

Take a tip from the old school and use opaque chocolate syrup as used by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho. Tastes delicious as well!