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  • The walking dead

  • Innocent blood

The context

The walking dead

The Walking Dead is an horror TV series, adapted by Franck Darabont and Robert kirkman, the comics’ creator. It’s broadcast since October, the 31st, 2010 on AMC.

The story is about rick Grimes (performed by Andrew lincoln) who wakes up from a several weeks coma to find out that the population has been devastated by an unknown disease which turns humans to zombies called “walkers”. After he finds his family, he quickly becomes the leader of a survivors group from Atlanta. They’ll have to survive in post-apo world, facing the walkers and other survivors groups, some of them even more dangerous than the walkers themselves.

The three little grils this article is about are emblematic characters of the show :

  • The Teddy girl is the very first zombie seen on screen during the season 1. Rick shoots her right in the head.
  • Sophia is Carol’s daughter. After a zombie attack, she is lost in the woods, alone. The all plot of the season 2 is about finding her until we find out that Hershell kept zombies in his barn (hoping for a cure) and found her first but not before she turned. Rick (again) shoots her in the head (again).
  • Penny is the Governor’s daughter. He had hope to cure her, like Hershel so he keeps her tied up and feeds her with very icky stuff. During a fight against the Governor, Rick… , Michonne hits and kills her with her katana (through the back of the neck, so funny). Throwing an eye on the scene, the Governor precisely lost one.

The artwork

waling dead jeunes walkers

I made this artwork for a few collectors. They wanted to get a range of 1:6 dioramas from the Walking Dead TV series showing cult characters and/or scenes. Second work of this range named “the walkers”, I offered them the chilhood topic with three important zombified characters in the show :

  • the little girl Rick shoots in the first season, the “Teddy Girl”
  • Sophia, the lost Carol’s daughter in season 2
  • Penny, the Governor’s daughter in season 3

A mouthwatering diorama

The walking dead diorama

Six dioramas and a single Teddy girl will be made. The project was to make a removable base in three parts. Each one of them featured an element of the scenery where the “walker”… is walking :

  • a road with an old newspaper, a canister and an Atlanta sign for the teddy girl
  • an earthy, grassy and straw ground next to a smashed zombie head for Sophia
  • a carpet with a guts bucket and a family picture for Penny

beuaarrghh… Rrfghht rrrrhââ

Penny

The likeness

The main difficulty was to make the diorama with not too much gore. The childhood innocence had to be seen under the undead. A huge challenge because every little girl had to look exactly like the series character. That’s what we call “the likeness” in sculpting.

Each character has been made independently with supersulpey in several parts to facilitate the moulding made by my friend Cinémodèles créations.

Small flower, huge painting time

Once the copies received, I removed the grease coat, assembled them and then sprayed a primer coat beofre really painting them. Several paint pots were made for each color to maintain a unity between every copy of the character.

The paint job was very long because of the small flowers of the Teddy’s pyjama and the rainbow on Sophia T-shirt.

Your garden is your friend

Once the paint job done, I had to make the three parts oval base. Solution ? Jigsaw and router (definitely NOT a Petersteven nick name in weird backrooms).

  • The teddy girl’s asphalt base is amde from grey sandpaper, perfect for this scale. A few drybrushed tire marks, an aerograph burst through a stencil for the ground markings, an old cannister and a crumpled newspaper and that’s it.
  • The earthy ground in front of Hershel’s barn is made from real earth sprinckled directly on the glued base.
  • Penny’s base is made from the print of an old carpet image found ont he net.

The decor elements are not attached so everyone can display his diorama as he wants.

walking dead trois jeunes filles walkers

by philigore

Photos