If your tastes run to the dark side, Stolen Innocence Photography is for you. I like most of the work, it’s interesting, evocative, and creative. I will admit to loving the blood dress, it’s grand. Hat tip to rq.
© Stolen Innocence Photography, all rights reserved.
You can read more about the Blood Dress here.
rq says
:) The blood dress left me mildly shocked, I must admit. Elegant and gory, all in one!
Caine says
It would have been cleaner if the blood on the legs had been cleared off, but given the difficulty of doing liquid dresses, this gets full marks.
rq says
Actually, I kind of like the streaks on the legs -- it adds another level of morbidity.
There’s pluses to cleaned legs, too, of course.
Caine says
It does, yes. You could also read that as menstruation signaling that so-called loss of innocence. I’d love a wearable version of that dress, it would go great with my Doc Martens.
Marcus Ranum says
Lovely find!! Thanks for sharing that.
I have had the honor of aiding and abetting weird blood photography now and then, since I created my BloodBath(tm) shower gel -- hand-brewed hemp oil soap (made in my own kitchen!) with a heavy addition of gelatine and red/purple dye, served up in a surplus blood bag. The stuff washes off and is raspberry scented and is actually quite nice soap, but people have been known to squirt a load of it in their hair, look in the mirror, and scream. Or they scream when they put their head under the shower and the red stuff starts swirling down the drain like in the Hitchcock movie. When I first made BloodBath I sent samples to a few weird kinksters on fetlife, and there was a brief upsurge of bloody-looking hotel bathrooms, slashed wrists, etc. Great fun.
I’ve recently been figuring out the right mix of additives to some polyurethane rubber to get a kind of reddish white look (think: brain) with a bit of titanium dioxide and red pigment. With urethanes you have to be aware of compatibity with your materials or you can get rubber that never cures… Anyhow, I had a leftover bit of red liquid rubber so I took an old steak knife, cut the tip of the blade off and made a little ‘bump’ out of epoxy paste to hold it upright, then poured blood red poly rubber into a nice pool all over the blade and a silicone mat surrounding it. I now have a perfectly lovely murder weapon.
If anyone here has any desire for BloodBath soap (available in bag, or hypodermic one-wash) or a murder weapon sculpture, you can find me easily enough and I’d be happy to send you one. I don’t do my weird crap for money, I do it for fun, and I always get a blast out of seeing where it turns up on the web.
Marcus Ranum says
Caine@#4:
I’d love a wearable version of that dress, it would go great with my Doc Martens.
If you want, I can do you one better. How about a do-the-damage-yourself kit? I can mix up some Part A and red pigment and a bit of Part B, bottle ’em up, toss in a big disposable syringe and some instructions and mail ’em to you. Then you can find a nice white cotton dress, hang it up, and go to town on it. Polyurethane rubber is amazingly horrible looking, thick and viscous, and it’d hand wash safely and be color-fast. I have some clear silicones come to think of it so if you wanted something that looked like shredded bloody flesh it could probably be done.. Oh, the fun!
Here’s some ickies I made for a person I know who is a mortician: (trigger warning: fake blood)
http://www.ranum.com/linkedimages/cutter.jpg
The blood is uncommonly bright because it’ll look darker on a floor or something.
Oh and while I’m at it: BloodBath soap
http://www.ranum.com/linkedimages/bloodbath-soap.jpg
Marcus Ranum says
The effects of blood pouring from head/mouth, etc, are easy to achieve using smooth-on’s “dragon skin” clear liquid silicone and a tiny (I mean TINY) amount of silc-pig pigment. Since the dragon skin is platinum-curing it’s hypoallergenic and can be used for body applications. Mix it up, put it in your mouth, let ir run down your chin. Then sit and let it cure. When it’s cured you can walk around with that blood geyser out of your ear for days!
https://www.smooth-on.com/product-line/dragon-skin/
Oh, yeah, it’s also a good way of removing unwanted hair. :)
Caine says
Marcus, the BloodBath Soap is awesome, I’d love some!
I used to do a lot of special FX make-up, until it got out of hand, and everyone wanted me to do special make-up for Halloween and every other occasion. I love doing it, but not that much. One year, a co-worker of Rick’s wanted me to do something small for him, so he came over before their shift, and I did a lovely 2 inch gash on his forehead, with my special mix blood, got a *perfect* suspended drop of blood, got all the artificial skin blended in, coloured up right, all that. Later that night, they walked in, laughing their asses off, because the other people at work insisted he go see the nurse, so he went, and she recoiled, offered aspirin (no, nurse, blood thinners are not good for an open gash), and told him to go to hospital. When he finally got someone to pay attention to the fact it was fake, they made him take it off because it was freaking everyone out.
Marcus Ranum says
Caine I’d be happy to send you some. I’m usually super sensitive about asking people online for shipping info and stuff (cuz I’m kinda weird I suppose?) But if you drop me a shipping address to mjr@ranum.com -- or, hey anyone else here reading this for all I care! -- I can whip up a batch and send you some.
I also make the supreme be all and end all cocoa-butter almond oil shea butter skin lotion (it smells like fudge brownies) if you’re in the market for something like that. I made a batch for Heina back in the day; I suspect she’d vouch for it.
I love doing weird projects but the headaches inherent in opening an Etsy store -- like, I might have to sell my good work to a racist or a homophobe -- means that I make stuff and tend to just mail it around and don’t sell it. I also would have to worry about getting a “Cease and Desist” for my fight club (black pepper oil and lavender!) soap. :) And I suppose selling stuff just opens me up to lawsuits. “I washed my mouth out with Marcus’ Fight Club Soap and it was really unpleasannnnnt!” All of which reminds me its time to make another batch..
Caine says
Email sent.
Oh, I still have to set up my Etsy shop. Pain in the ass that. I make lavender soap! Rick loves the stuff. Haven’t used black pepper though -- that sounds interesting. Rick has this fab pepper (from Zingerman’s, natch), that would be great.
Ice Swimmer says
On the left the blood dress looks like a zombie butterfly’s wing.
Caine says
Ice Swimmer @ 11:
*Quietly files this away*
rq says
If you manage to find the time to do this in real life, Caine, I hope you will share the pictures!!
Siobhan says
This is my kind of twisted. Hell, I’d model for something like that. And Marcus, I may have to be a customer of your Blood Bath too!!
Marcus Ranum says
@Siobhan -- I just made a fresh batch and it’s sitting down here waiting to be packed up. I have several bags. If you want one, send me a shipping address (need not be yours, can be just anyone who will hand it over to you)