looking for help making blood slap-bags

[Mike944]

Hey everybody.

I have a question. I'm doing a show where we need blood packs that an actor can pick up, and slap onto their chest, and get a blood effect.

Most places i can find seem to reccomend using unlubricated condoms, filled with fake blood. This doesn't seem to work, the condoms are too stretchy. Instead of bursting, they just stretch.

Now, i only tried this with water last night, just to see of it would work, before starting to make messes with the actors. Now maybe fake blood has chemicals that weaken the condom and alow it to burst easier, but it definitely didn't work with water.

I was able to get it to work eventually, but i had to tie them so tight, i'm afraid half of them will burst while i'm tying them, making a big mess. In addition, it's extremely difficult to tie them this tight.

Does anyone have any reccomendations?

Thanks,
Mike

[Arez]

For the condom trick it works best in your mouth, for say a fist fight, kinda coincidental how that works, isn't it. But maybe you need to have it rest on a pushpin or something.

[wolf825]

You have to put the condom under compression or pressure and leave a window for the burst... Most folks will wrap the condom tightly in e-tape or duct tape except for a small area that they leave open and untapped. This reduces the amount of stretchy surface area and allows when you squeeze or smack it for that area to be the one that pops....

-w

[Mike944]

I'll give that a try. Taping them to leave only a small area exposed.

Thanks!

[sandals1621]

If the taping doesn't work (almost always has for me) The next alternative is to try and find small water balloons (they're made just hard to if find, about 1/2 the size of a normal one)
I've found that these filled with a small amount of liquid can burst easily.

[Mayhem]

A small plastic bag also works. The ones that are designed for food and are fairly thin and tear easily.

Place the amount of fluid that you require into the bag and tip it so it pools into one corner. Then grip the bag above the level of fluid and pull the top of the bag upwards, keeping a tight grip so that the fluid doesn't pull through.

You should end up with a cone shaped section of fluid filled bag, which when tied off should break easily.

Cling wrap can also be used but it is a bit more messy. You just poke a section into your fist to form a well. Add the liquid and then follow similar steps to above.

Both are also less embarrassing that buying condoms of having your folks find them

You could also cut down the spike on a thumb tack so that is just long enough to poke through the front of the costume but no long enough to go into their hand when they slap it against their chest.

[Mike944]

Just wanted to fill everyone in. Ended up running the effect with a hidden squirt-bottle of blood that the actor picked up while his back was to the audience.

But....we DID end up figuring out how to make blood packs that worked, and wanted to share it. Here's how> Using the fingers off of foodservice gloves. The kind that are like celophane, NOT the stretchy ones. We got a handfull from the local deli. Fill them & tie them up as described above. they break easily, yet are durable while handling.

Condoms do NOT work as blood packs. They're designed not to break. To get condom blood packs to work, you have to tie them so tightly, they become unstable. During our experiments, several times they exploded simply while they were being picked up by the actors. (fortunately, it was a rehersal)

[propmonkey]

for our last night of our play, theres a scene where the guy gets stabbed. the last night i found fake blood and we were going to use that. i used a thin plastic garbage bag(only thing i had at that moment, i just took the corner of it) sealed it with a rubberband and then a peice of tap. never used it on stage as we got it ready about 10mins before that scene. but i did test out with a friend and it worked.