Zombie Hand Paint Job

Due to the fact my husband and I will be spending our anniversary knee deep in Costume ball decoration for our anniversary we decided to celebrate early.

And what better way than by traveling to the Big City to do some Halloween gawping?

(For the sake of my acting like a slack jawed yokel Omaha is a big city now while Lincoln is just some tiny hole in the wall with three people and 10 cows. You know, the way everyone pictures Nebraska.)

We said goodbye to the dog and were off on a grand adventure of wading around piles of sticky kids who were adorably pushing their noses against the glass waiting for stores to open and not so adorable sticky teenagers.

The trip was mostly a look and savor, neither of us expected to find much of anything but there were a few cool scores. First up was this Lenticular I'd had my eye on for some time from Halloween Express.

I call it Redcliffe. If you have no idea why I call it Redcliffe it's really not worth explaining, but trust me it makes me a giant dork.

Now the really cool thing that I didn't realize from looking online is that it's actually 3D and a pretty good 3D too. It gives a nice slightly more authentic undead coming at you feel that other lenticulars don't have.

But enough about Redcliffe now to get to why you're all really here. The hand.

This zombie hand was only $6. And the details in the sculpture are amazing, not something I'd expect to find for such a low price that's for certain. But that paint job, unless one has an unusually large undead smurf population it simply wouldn't do.

Luckily we have ways to fix that - Mwhahaha ha *cough cough* ha. Okay I'll get to it.


To paint your own zombie hand you'll need a paint brush, a small paint sponge, four cheap craft paint colors, and a cup of water.

First, cover the hand in a couple layers of paint that I swear is called "Santa's Flesh." It's not every day you get to cover a zombie hand in the flesh from Kris Kringle.

It will take a few to hide the blue, but it's okay if you don't completely coat it. There are more layers coming.

Once that's dried take a darker tan and use it to outline shadows on the edge of fingers and the wrist, within the palm and wherever else you'd like. Now it will look a little obvious and stupid at first but don't worry.

Dip your sponge into Santa's Flesh and dab it over the dark spots, while that's still wet go back over with the darker tan for a mottled layered effect. It'll blend some which will help give a skin look.

Keep doing those steps until you're happy with the effect or are sick of waiting for shit to dry.

For the base mix your sponge up in the dark brown and the tan and just sponge, sponge sponge. You can go as light or as dark as you'd like.

To help bring out the nails I used a smaller brush to outline the nails in the dark brown and then went over the nail bed in Santa's flesh again.

The hand is looking at lot less Smurf like but dare I say it, it looks too lively.

For the next step take some grey paint and get your sponge good and wet now grab up a bit of grey and create a nice sickly skin color. It'll look mottled and messy but that's good. Trust me. Let that dry.

If you want that "just burst through the ground" look add a bit of brown dirt lightly with the sponge.

The biggest problem with using acrylic is how matte it gets. The hand looks cool and all but not quite hand like. There's the sheen of life missing, luckily that's why I have a Satin spray.

You can find them in most craft or hardware stores near the spray paints.

I recommend satin for things like this, and a good strong acrylic for shinier shit. But it's up to you. If you go too far there are matte sprays as well to help bring it back.

Spritz and let 'er dry. Now your hand is ready for a bursting out of the ground photoshoot.

Now that's a zombie hand worthy of scaring the pants off some Trick-Or-Treaters and it was just $6 and about another $2 in craft paint supplies.