by Chris Marks

This scene was made using HO scale railroad kits. The farmhouse and barn came as a set and were built straight from the box with the exception of excluding the grain silo from the barn as it drew attention away from the main action around the house. The outbuildings and farm supplies were accessory kits purchased from Walthers. They are a combination of plastic, metal and wood kits. These were all weathered and modified to some extent to fit the scene of a farm where everything was dropped at a moments notice.

While building the farm house I cut large clear styrene panels for the windows, these were crisscrossed with strips of balsa wood. When these sheets are place over the windows it gives them the look of being hastily boarded up. A solitary survivor watches the growing zombie horde from his front window. Strips of light sheet were planted in the base of the house and the sequence set to look like the flicker of a TV screen.

The zombies were each individually made using various packages of HO scale pedestrians chopped up and modified. No two zombies are exactly the same and each has its own distinctive personality. For example, the zombie on the porch is a milkman. There is a national guardsman, an armless and legless man, a man with a hole thru his chest, and one that looks like Michael Jackson from "Moonwalker." I thought a "Thriller" Michael Jackson would be too much.

The cows scattered about are all modified in some way, their insides are sculpted with Tamiya putty and various bits from my parts bin. The cows' water trough is filled with Woodland Scenics realistic water. The base is covered in various foliage types from Woodland Scenics, a plaster wall cut from a railroad tunnel wall, sand and gravel.

The inspiration for this scene is the glimpses of the countryside during the initial helicopter flight in Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

Image: Privy

Image: Ground level

Image: Knock, knock

Image: Outbuildings