Tangkou Of The Living Dead Ooak Custom - "Creeping Stink Flesh"... [¬º-°]¬ "Grr Argh"

28th May 2014

I Just had to share my almost finished "Night of the Living Dead Tangkou Ooak Custom" - I've been working on her for the last four days...

My inspiration came from images of "Bicycle Girl" from The Walking Dead , Scott H. Reiniger as Roger and David Emge as Stephen in George A Romero's 1979 Dawn of The Dead, with a bit of  Sherman Howard as Bub the Zombie from George A Romero's 1985 Day of The Dead thrown in!

I have always (well ever since I first watched Dawn of the Dead when I was six years old), wanted a Zombie doll, but alas in the 1980's Zombie dolls just weren't available to buy for the little girl in your life, or to save up your pocket money for..

Further inspiration came when I discovered a Flickr friend of mine ( blythephotos ) had turned one of her Blythes into a Zombie, so I knew it was possible if you have enough time / vision and skill to make it work,  I carried the thought with me for a few years until I found a suitable candidate for "Zombiedom".

I actually forgot about it until I got into "The Walking Dead" series, and my desire began to resurface, strangely though it took me several more months to realise which doll I could use for the experiment...
                                                     
The base doll is the France Tangkou I bought for custom work see review post here: french-girl-arrived, I chose to use my France Tangkou as a guinea pig after trying several times to customise her and disliking the outcome every time, I'd pretty much got to the stage where I didn't like her anymore and regretted wasting my money on her, so I thought, why not?  If it works I'll fall in love and if it doesn't she'll go back in my "Box of Victims" that she's been sitting in for months an I'll recycle her parts for someone else later on, so it wouldn't really be a big loss.

Here's a recap (before) photo of her before she "turned" ...

                                                              ** Update - 6th June 2014**
                                                                 Finished Girl - Woot!

I replaced her original body with a type 2 Pullip one which I received with a partially customised Little Big Eyes doll which I bought for a separate custom; as the doll's body was very stained due to the dye in her stock outfit seeping into her "skin".

The Flickr friend I purchased her from included the Pullip body she'd been given to replace the original when she bought it for custom.

I'd tried this body on several of my dolls as I didn't like it with the Little Big Eyes head, and her body stains were easy enough for me to fix, so it stayed surplus to requirements, waiting for a head to need it for a number of years.

Anyhoo, the body had been in storage for several years now and was not in very good shape anymore due to it's yellowing with age, and is quite wobbly too, but this of course makes it ideal as a zombie body!

I removed and replaced her original eye chips and eye lashes.  The "dead" skin etc, was produced by adding layers and carving / reshaping the areas I wanted, then painting and sealing, I've added glaze in some areas to make it look as though she's recently eaten too...

After I finished her face/head plates I started the same process on her head cap - with the addition of a cracked skull complete with rotting brain!  *Grin*

                                            ** Updated Update - 25th June 2014**

We went to Bishop’s Wood  Nature Reserve, Caswell Bay, Swansea as part of my Birthday "Day Out" around Swansea's Coastline;which turned out to be the perfect place to take photo's of my Zombie Girl, who oddly found her new name during our photo' session/ dog walk in the woods and will henceforth be known by the moniker "Creeping Stink Flesh"!

Btw, is it just me or does Bishop’s Wood sound like a place name from Midsomer Murders?
Anyhoo, the place is Zombie infested as these photo's will prove, so be careful if you decide to take a stroll down that way...

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

I managed to snap these two photo's before my Son stole not only my camera but "Stink Flesh" too and wandered off into the woods to take the following photographs - that's my boy!

Disclaimer:  I have been told to make it clear that my Son is not into dolls or playing with them!
I'm also not allowed to mention his own doll collection and as I have definitely not done so I can now get on with posting his pictures... Enjoy!!

For a doll that happened as an experiment, I'm very pleased with her. I will probably be changing her body at some point as the Pullip one she has is a bit of a nuisance in terms of pose and hold, aesthetically I think it's perfect - which is why I haven't yet decided whether she's keeping it or not, in terms of a replacement, I have no idea what I could use instead, so right now it stays!

I has such a lot of fun making her, and once finished, playing with her, so I'm definitely going to be making more Zombies in future - I'll probably end up with an army of them!

Here's a "Before and After" just because...

I plan to try other types of dolls though that said I really love the "Big Eyed" look on my girl and the fact that she has the ability to change eye colour from one "dead / unseeing" colour to another, so I guess I'll be using some cheap colour change eye (clone) dolls and definitely at least one Barbie and some minis too ... see what I mean about the Army?!