The justification of the gruesome Season 7 opening is still up for debate, but eye-popping makeup is certainly one of a kind. In ‘The Day Will Come When You Don’t Be,’ Glenn’s fate from Lucille, Negan’s barbed-wire bat, was somewhat inevitable.
In one of the most memorable scenes from the show, executive producer Greg Nicotero allowed for a few behind-the-scenes photos to be available of Steven Yuen prepping for the gore from some gruesome makeup.
The Gruesome Makeup Experts
The gruesome makeup artists, Kevin Wasner and Kerrin Jackson, prepared Glenn’s skull-splitting and hair piece, that was prepared by Denise Baer. The shared photos also included a prosthetic head of the actor and various levels of blood.
In an effort to keep things under wrap, every character took a bat from Negan in Rick’s mind so each went through similar treatments. This footage, along with the fact of prepping each actor, was also delivered to avoid any story leaks to the media.
Steven Yeun and Michael Cudlitz reported knowing their fates as early as the beginning of Season 6, perhaps due to contract agreements, but it’s difficult to say under this secretive regime.
Steven Yuen Prepwork | Photo Credit Instagram
DIY Zombie Make-Up
For those looking to replicate Glenn or Abraham’s fate on Halloween, there are several ways to create your own walker gruesome makeup. When applying such, follow the steps below:
- Apply base over your face and neck to create a paleness
- Under a source of light, add eye shadow to make different parts of your face look sunken and undead. Find shadows and darken to an extreme.
- Black out your eyes completely, but don’t go too far. The idea is to make your eyes look shrunken with darkness in the middle and inside corners. Sometimes, a dark gray will work even better than black.
- Adding baby powder to your face will make the skin look dull and undead. Adding light greens or grays can also make the face look darker.
- Include bright red lipstick on areas where blood can be added later, such as the lips. Gray or maroon lipstick can also be added to areas where a dried-on blood can be featured.
- One last step may be to find scary contacts. This could involve bloodshot or crimson red eyes.
After the gruesome makeup has been applied, look for dirty, rugged clothing and mess up your hair. Fake blood can be made with corn syrup, chocolate syrup, food coloring, and water. Mix accordingly and add each generously. This will be messy, so keep that in mind as you find a prep station.
Steven Yuen Prepwork | Photo Credit Instagram
As Walking Dead make-up artist and walker expert, Jake Garber has said, “The blood and guts stuff is honestly, kind of easy. If you dump blood all over somebody and have a chainsaw wound on their chest, you can get away with a lot. If there’s an edge showing, you can just cover it up with blood.”
“But if you’re putting, say, a false nose in the middle of somebody’s face, then you have to be more exacting. People tend to look at the blood stuff as being really wild—but in actuality, it’s probably the easiest aspect of the work,” reminds Garber, who has additional credits on Kill Bill, Star Trek, and Django Unchained.
