Grad Success

Join Vancouver’s Zombie walk and become part of the living dead.

Get into the ghoulish spirit.
Learn how BMC Makeup Grad, Shayne Gemmell’s transforms 24 Hours reporter, Kristin McKenzie into a flesh eating Zombie.

Attention all zombie slayers! The undead will rise on August 15 as the participants of Zombie Walk Vancouver congregate on Robson at the Vancouver Art Gallery and then flood the streets of downtown. Blanche Macdonald makeup students have been participating in this drop-dead-fun tradition several events in the running, and this year, BMC Makeup Grad Shayne Gemmell takes advantage of the safety offered by our City Square campus to prepare a reporter from 24 Hours Vancouver for the upcoming invasion, transforming her into a flesh-eating zombie.

Want to join the ranks of the undead too? You’ll need…

- 99% alcohol

- Powder puffs, Q-tips, brushes

- Tissue Paper

- Latex

- Latex Sponge

- Tweezers

- Tattoo Colours

- Kryolan - Rubber Mask Grease Paints

- Pressed powder colors

- Thick Blood

- Uncooked Rice

- Bran cereal

- Food colouring

Here’s how to do it:

Have your latex, tissue and sponge ready to use for application. With tweezers, tear open some tissued latex and use this to create sores on the face.

Begin colouring with the grease paint. Gemmell suggests “using a combination of grey and natural skin tone” to achieve the dead skin look.

For realistic maggots, use latex to adhere grains of rice inside the wounds you’ve created, then use more latex over it to secure it. Break out the tattoo/alcohol palette and colour the wound in shades of red and the “maggots” a pale yellow.

Next, add bran cereal to a wound to create a scabbed effect and colour it red – this is what Gemmell did to the wound on the forehead of his zombie-to-be.

Shade a bruise-like purple-pink around the eyes to make them look drawn-out and accentuate the sockets of your zombie’s eyes with dark.

Using dark grey, add some wrinkles on the skin for depth. Colour lips in with an even darker grey.

Gemmell used red and green food colouring as a tooth stain, and finished off the entire look with “some fake blood in certain areas on the wounds and around the mouth.”

Watch for more details of the Zombie Walk and BMC Makeup Grad Shayne Gemmell’s Makeup tips in an upcoming issue of 24 Hours Vancouver.