How to Make An Eyeball Poppin' Glenn Costume for Halloween

Well, it happened. During Sunday’s Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead, we found out who got to meet the business end of Negan’s bat, Lucille, and it wasn’t pretty. There was blood, there was gore, and, yes, there was an eyeball popping out of a long-beloved character’s head.

Glenn is gone. And so is Abraham (since the writers felt the need to brutally butcher two fan-favorite characters), but Abraham’s death isn’t as poignantly inspiring for upcoming Halloween festivities. Sure, you can go with the whole “beaten and bloodied” aesthetic. Dress up like Abraham, stand in your shower, and have someone drench you in fake blood after applying a few prosthetic gouges to your face. Will your Abraham impression get people talking? Yes. Will you be able to sit on your friend’s couch at that Halloween party you’ve been looking forward to? No.

So we return to Glenn and his eye-poppin’ Season 7 premiere. There are a number of ways to achieve the look, and as upset as we’ve been about his death we are happy to inform you that replicating Glenn’s demise for Halloween is as easy as “eenie, meeny, miney, moe.”

There are a couple ways to go here depending upon what you’re looking for. First is the ever-subtle black-hole-in-your-skull look as you carry a prosthetic eye around with you all night. This option has its challenges, as you’re more likely to lose the eye than not. But if you’re looking for something truly similar to Glenn’s new look, then your second option is something a little more not-so-simple.

Also: if you’re working with a latex allergy, keep in mind that a lot of prosthetics work with latex — both solid and liquid. We don’t need anyone breaking out in hives right before the big night.

So, let’s get down to it. You’re going to need a lot of fake blood, a lot of liquid latex, and an FX kit to reenact poor Glenn getting whacked so hard that one of his eyes bulges out.

The easy route is to (carefully) place a large bandage over your left eye and the surrounding area, and then to apply paint and liquid latex to the top to achieve the proper shape, color, etc. You’ll get skin-tone matching makeup and blend like your life depends on it once the latex is dried to make it convincing.

Of course, you’d want a bulging eyeball. Below is a video that details how to use polymorph plastic to make a full eyeball, but make sure to only make half of one so you can attach it to your beautiful bandage-latex creation when you’re ready.

If you want to go all-out with the latex, you can create your own mold from clay and make a latex prosthetic to cover your eye.

Shape out some clay to fall below your left eyebrow and to sit atop your cheekbone, fully covering your eye. Shape up the clay, including spaces for eyelids, etc. You’ll want this to look as realistic as possible, so don’t rush it.

Here’s a tutorial, though yours will be far less gouged-and-burned looking and far more raw and bloody.

This one will be a similar idea to the less labor-heavy bandage option once you’ve attached the skin and eye socket area — use liquid latex to attach half an eye.

Finally, once everything is dried, sticking in place, and blended to look like it actually belongs on your face, bring on the blood. You’ll have to soak half your head and maybe apply an open-wound prosthetic to part of it if you don’t mind getting gunk in your hair. From there, dribble and smear fake blood to your heart’s content.

Manage to look stunned for the rest of the night and you’ll maybe be half as great as Glenn was on his six-season run on The Walking Dead.