While speaking with Daryl as he was on webcam, I was inspired to make a zombie puppet. The first wasn't coming out how I wanted and I was going to throw it aside to use later. But others made me decide to make it into a zombie anyway. It's more or less a standard foam and fleece puppet.



When I restarted to make the puppet I was more wanting, I was going to make a paper mache skull. Due to high humidity and low temperatures last week, I decided to make a skull out of some more rigid foam than I normally use and then cover it with the foam I normally use as muscles, tendons, etc. The teeth are made using paper clips and polymer clay. The skin is latex and something else (sorry, have to have some secrets). And the hair is cheap synthetic hair that I'm hand punching.

Great job.................. It is zombiedelicious ! Very realistic.

Billy D.

those teeth and a gum look very realistic.
can't wait to see it finished.

It has come along very well since I saw it the other night.........Nice job can't wait to see it on blogtv when you are finished.....great job and glad you kept the first one it does work in the end......Keep it up!

Daryl H

Awesome job I love Zombies !

Cool! Zombies are cool! Try using latex for that decaying skin look. It works great. I made one for a cable show and its a fan favorite.

Thank you for all of your comments. This puppet is a test of techniques. I've learned a lot from it. Unfortunately, mostly what I learned is that I'd be better off just sculpting the face in clay and then casting it in latex.
Didn't get much done since my last picture, but still have done some.


Sonny - I plan to make it look a bit more decayed, yeah. I don't suppose you have any pictures of that zombie you could share?

Great teeth! Hey look for Daryl blogtv archives on realistic eyes (also with polymer clay, obviously you're pretty comfortable with it). Great project for experimenting, the haphazard method means you'll find lots of different things that safer approaches won't teach you (or us!)Sometimes it's hard to move away from the techniques we know, I know my first attempts are usually disappointing at best, if not disastrous! A zombie is great license to disfigure!
Hmmmmm brains!
Scoob

I'm a little confused about why I should look for the thing on realistic eyes when I'm the one who did it. lol. But that's alright. I did use the method for making the eyes seen in the pictures. In fact, I used a bolt twice as long to make it easier to move the eyes around from inside.
Thanks for the further encouragement. And yeah, a zombie was better for experimenting with since there's no real way to mess one up.

Sonny - I plan to make it look a bit more decayed, yeah. I don't suppose you have any pictures of that zombie you could share?

Heres Zed the Zombie. He's a member of the ICWXP show.

The pics are big so you can see the detail better

website: www.icwxp.com





I even made scabs with latex and red string (veins) then just latexed them to the head.
Just remember to add colors to the latex while mixing. It will dry dark so remember that when adding color.

Hope this helps.

Zonny