DIY Monster Gloves For Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year! My wife Diane and I love shopping for masks, decorations for the yard, etc.

This year we hit three stores looking for a pair of monster hand gloves to go with my mask. I have average size mitts and these monster hands were swimming on me! So I decided to try making my own.

I started with a pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves. While wearing the gloves I marked the position of my knuckles with a black marker.

Next I got my supplies together. I would be using liquid latex from Michael's and a roll of cotton from CVS.

If you've never worked with liquid latex some precautions are in order. It has an ammonia like odor so work in a well ventilated space.

When liquid latex dries it is next to impossible to remove from clothing, rugs etc. So take care.


I've got to give credit where credit is due. The technique I'm going to be using was inspired by an article by make up legend Dick Smith in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

First I stuffed the fingers of the gloves with paper towel to fill them out. I then began mixing a small amount of liquid latex in a disposable cup with some green acrylic paint. You want to use just enough to tint the latex.

I dipped my brush in liquid dish detergent and blotted the excess off on a paper towel. The detergent prevents the latex from ruining the brush. By the way when washing liquid latex from a brush never use hot water! It causes the latex to coagulate in the brush.

Wetting my brush in the latex/paint mixture I dabbled a heavy coat on the locations I had marked on the glove earlier.

Cotton was then added to the wet latex. Another coat of the mixture was then lightly brushed over the cotton. A second coat of cotton and latex was added and I hung the glove up to dry overnight.

While the gloves were drying I began work on the fingernails. I folded over some scrap oak tag I had and secured it with duct tape.

Using a touch of black acrylic paint mixed with latex I brushed a light coat over the oak tag.

After adding a bit of cotton to the nails I brushed a second coat of my black/latex mixture over the nails. I clamped the nails in bulldog clips to dry overnight.

The following day I brushed a light coat of my green/latex mixture over the entire glove. When it was dry I took some baby powder on a cotton swab and dusted the area between the fingers. When dry liquid latex adheres to itself like crazy. Without the dusting of powder the fingers of the glove might well stick together!

For adding the nails onto the gloves I brushed some pure liquid latex ( no paint added ) on the nail area of the glove and to the rear side of the nails. When dry I pressed the nails in to place.

I then painted a bit of my tinted green/latex rubber mixture around the nails. I added some cotton and another coat of the green latex over it.

Using the end of my brush I pushed the wet cotton back a bit to create a proper looking monstrous cuticle.

Now comes the fun part! I added bread crumbs to my green/latex mixture and painted it over the topside of the hand and fingers of the gloves. The bread crumbs gives a gnarly looking texture to the finished latex gloves!

Go easy on the bread crumbs. Too much makes the latex mixture difficult to apply.

The final step was adding a dash of blue and med. tan acrylic paint to my green latex mixture and stippling some hi lites here and there on my gloves.

Here are the finished gloves.

I hope you'll give making your own gloves a shot. I found it to be a lot of fun. If you have any questions about this tutorial shoot me an email at: Bronk1126@aol.com