I hope you are all keeping well in the run up to Christmas. I've long been a fan of George A Romero's groundbreaking Zombie trilogy, Night, Dawn and then 'Day of the Dead' being my favourite.
I realised it was the 40th anniversary of this film this year, can you believe it, 1985 when it first came out! The effects and make up are amazing and still hold up today, no CGI, just good old fashioned latex and pig intestines!
The opening scene with Tom Savini's legendary make up for the first Zombie that staggers into view, named 'Dr Tongue' by Savini and the fans, is a classic in its own right. There have been a couple of full figure kits of him
I'm aware of, most notable the classic from KDM and then Alternative Images, sculpted by the legendary William Paquet nearly 20 years ago, plus a few busts in various sizes. Sadly lacking any kits from this film in my collection,
I had a fit of madness and delusion a few months ago and decided to try sculpting something myself!!
Don't all laugh at once, this has been a steep learning curve to say the least, from making an armature and getting a feel for how Super Sculpey Firm works, to creating a base and nameplate from balsa foam, plastic card,
sand and milliput. I've included elements from that opening scene on the base, mainly the manhole cover, fallen palm leaves and a pile of debris. I will eventually do a newspaper with the headline 'THE DEAD WALK!' to print out and go with it.
Given that we only see his head and shoulders in the film for about 3 seconds, the rest of him is very much open to imagination. I've tipped my hat to the Paquet version by having
one shoe missing (mainly as I couldn't sculpt a matching one!) and also took the idea of the severed foot he's snacking on from William's equally awesome sculpt of BUB that he originally did for KDM, chained up in the lab.
A few months of messing around and nearly giving up on several occasions, I've finally got something I'm reasonably happy with. I was just going to paint the sculpture, but it's quite fragile,
so I'm now considering getting him moulded and cast. He breaks down into 6 parts at the moment, the head, 2 hands (one holding his lunch!) and the main body, the base and base accessories.
So, here are a few pics to get some feedback, good or bad!!
Cheers,
Paul
