Halloween is coming, and what better way to get ready than by making your own shredded skin revealing a rotted grin? In the haunt world, those latex bits to make it look like you have a pencil through your head are called appliances. Why? I have no idea. Don’t get me started on FCGs.

Rather than spend the money and time buying one only to have to cut it down to fit, I prefer to make my own. This requires some uncommon ingredients, but it’s really easy to do. The use of polymer clay for fake teeth really ups the creepy factor.

All you need is:

• polymer clay 
• latex – I got a big bottle from Gore Galore, but some home improvement stores will have it
• kleenex
• acrylic paint

First, put down some tin foil and roll the clay about as flat as you can. Fold the clay over top itself, that nice fold makes for the perfect tooth edge. I cut off small chicklet-sized pieces and used the pressure of my fingers to roll up the sides to make a tooth shape.

I also pressed down on the edge to super flatten it out and join each tooth together so it’ll meld better with the ripped-up flesh.

Bake that for 30 minutes at 250. Let it cool. I added a few coats of white paint, and since these aren’t supposed to be pristine teeth, I added some tan and darker brown spots on the edges.

I finally finished with a glossy clear coat of acrylic for that creepy shiny teeth look.

Got your teeth painted a nice, creepy zombie shade?

Dredge a kleenex in the latex and put it down on the tin foil, to that add your teeth and position them.

Tear off another strip of kleenex and again put that through the latex, then pucker and rip the sides up to create the torn skin. Wrinkles are actually fairly helpful, so don’t worry too much if it doesn’t lay flat.

Let all that dry. If you want, you can always go back later to add more layers of torn flesh.

Here, I try out the unpainted and dry teeth.

As you can guess, the final stage is painting. Carefully add some red and black to the torn muscle part and whatever flesh color you want it to be to the outside.

Here’s a video of me painting them if you need some reference:

The night of, pull out a crap ton of spirit gum, flesh latex, and makeup to blend, and you have zombie teeth!

Once you’re done feasting upon the flesh of the dead, just pull it off and save for next year.

With the latex, you can make all kinds of different appliances to match whatever costume you dream of. The possibilities are endless.