Creating fake injuries for your cosplay is easy with SFX makeup. If you’re looking to create old or fresh bruising on your skin for a costume, you’ll need a bruise wheel. These cream makeup palettes can be found easily online for purchase. They’re easy to apply to create realistic fake bruises anywhere on your body. If you’ve never used one before, you may feel uncertain which colors to apply and when. That’s why we’re going over how to use a bruise wheel to create both new and old bruises.
Typically a bruise wheel has a minimum of 5 colors to choose from. This includes a dark purple/blue, maroon/brown, red, yellow and green. These colors are able to blend and create an assortment of bruises. The makeup can be applied with a sponge or brush applicator.
Old & Healed Bruises
To create an older bruise that shows signs of healing, you want to layer and blend the colors in a particular way. The blue/purple colors will have vanished by this point so you want to first apply yellow to the area. You can add subtle brown/maroon and green spots to the bruise. If you want a more mid-range bruise, you can add very light areas of blue/purple in the brown areas.
How to Use a Bruise Wheel for Fresh & New Bruises
For a new bruise, apply the colors in the following order:
- Apply a base of red to the area
- Layer on the maroon/brown and blue/purple throughout
- Add light spots of yellow and greens for healed areas
You can also consult my tutorial video on how to use a bruise wheel where I specifically recreated a black eye from Ashley in Until Dawn.
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