You may grimace or groan when you see a truly horrific wound in a film, or even turn away out of sheer disgust. But that visual violation that licks at the reptilian kernel of cortex deep inside your brain, that glory of gore, is usually brought to you by some seriously sweet handiwork by some very talented make-up artists.

Exhibit A: this faux super disgusting-looking knee gash created by YouTubers Freakmo and Powdah. (Say their names out loud, it’s worth it.)

The knee you see stapled and stitched in the above video belongs to Freakmo, a.k.a Kiana Jones, a PhD student from Perth, West Australia. She’s a self-taught make-up artist, who loves “gore and simulated injury the most,” and if you take a look at her YouTube video selection, you will see lots of—very frightening—proof of that statement. She’s joined by Powdah, a.k.a. Marc Clancy, who also does tons of beautifully gross special effects make-up tutorials on YouTube.

In the video, the duo discuss the sequence of steps required to create the knee wound, and they involve everything from sketching and sculpting, to airbrushing and pouring silicone. And with every additional element added, every drop of red paint dabbed, or gloss of jelly stroked, the knee wound looks more and more real. And unfortunately it is for somebody.

The pair say they used a reference image of “a total knee replacement which got infected… [where] the skin started to die.” In fact, you can see that person’s truly wounded knee on Freakmo’s phone in the video. Considering this, it kind of makes you wonder about all of the other gory images you’ve seen on screen… Leo DiCaprio’s back in The Revenant… Tom Hardy’s fingers also in The Revenant… Deadpool’s little tiny gross hand?! No wait, that was probably CGI.

What do you think about Freakmo and Powdah’s gorgeously graphic special effects make-up tutorial? Let us know in the comments section below!

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HT: Sploid

Images: Freakmo