Land of the Dead Zombie Puppet Restoration
Land of the Dead Zombie Special FX Puppet Restoration
This original Land of the Dead Zombie was used in George A. Romero’s 2005 film. The original prop for this female zombie was a puppet rather than a human in makeup, allowing the director to capture a more extreme look in terms of proportions and gauntness.
When the puppet came to our studio, it had experienced a bit of damage to the foam latex facial features. The mouth area, nose and eyelids, in particular, would require some extensive rebuilding. Armed with some great behind the scenes photos from friends who worked on the film, we were able to bring this puppet back to (after) life and get her looking as creep-tastic!
Even with rebuilding ahead, our first step is always conservation. It’s important to stabilize any exposed foam and be sure that new material isn’t “building on sand.” We always want to help these pieces fight the hands of time. With the foam preserved, lead restoration artist for this project, Samantha Martino, carefully resculpted the missing areas to match the film stills and sculpt images. She made sure to maintain a suitably horrific expression!
Once the foam latex puppet was fully rebuilt, Sam began the careful process of in-painting. This conservator’s process is crucial to maintaining as much of the original paint as possible. For any cracks or repairs, we only paint the patched areas and the original material is left untouched.
As final step, all exposed foam on the puppet was generously sealed several times, to help slow the hands of time and give the prop’s foam latex skin some additional longevity.
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