Back when I did the Fake Bone tutorial, a common question I got was, "Great, but what can I do with that?" Well I am going to show you how to take the basic concepts behind foam-bones, and how to use it in a fake protruding bone, for any kind of fake compound fractures.

Start with a foam tube same as with the fake bone tutorial I made originally.

This time though you're going to want to break it instead of having a singular piece like last time. If you're willing to sacrafice it, you can even break and cut up any full-fledged fake bones you made with the original tutorial.

After you break it, hollow out the inside of the tube, scissors work pretty good for this, get help with this if you're worried about cutting yourself, and be VERY CAREFUL.

After you hollow it out, carve off the outside a little, to remove the unnatural smoothness from the foam to make it look a little more like bone.

Cut them at sharp angles toward each other, since breaks are angled outward, with the bones aimed toward one another, I ended up cutting them about half an inch shorter than they are in this photo.

Next, powder the site of application, i've found flour or talcum powder works well for this purpose.

After that, apply a layer of liquid latex over the powdered site, then let it dry.

Poke a hole in the liquid latex, and peel it back leaving it open.

Next, add additional liquid latex to the wound, and push your foam pieces against your leg, letting them dry in place.

Now comes the paint, first I layed a bright red layer of crimson paint, inside and around the bones.

Next, I layered some much darker red in with the paint, just mix a lot of red with a little brown and a dot of black. For older wounds, (especially on zombies or ghouls), you'll want to layer lots of browns and blacks on top of this to make it look old and congealed.

Blend the paint into the wound, and then pour fake blood all over the wound.

And there you go, a VERY cheap, rather simply bone break. You could add additional darkness around the skin break, with some dark purples and blended blacks to help  bring out the brightness of the wound, and make it work for your needs.

Now that you know how to make the prosthetic, how you would probably do this in your film, is you can go ahead and create the break prosthetic under a shirt or pants, have your actor pretend to fall and hurt themselves (have them fall at a normal controlled speed onto a pillow or cushion, and then speed it up all the while keeping the cushion they are falling on out of the frame.) have the shirt or pant pre-cut for the fall, so when they fall, they can pull the fabric back and make it look like the break is poking out of the fabric, THEN, just add lots and lots of fake blood onto the wound between each cut to make it look like it's bleeding very badly. (Make sure the pant or shirt is one you're willing to sacrafice since you're not only going to soak it in fake blood, BUT you may have to cut it to show it poking out if you don't want your actor to just pull their pant leg or shirt up to show the break like I did in my photos. )

Now... Break a leg!

-Wes