Saturday, June 13, 2015

Dark Alliance Zombies


Zombies depicted in early zombie films like White Zombie, and I Walked with a Zombie followed the traditional Haitian model of zombies as reanimated corpses under the control of a bokor.

The modern zombie as a sort of devolved ghoul originated from the cinema, starting with Night of the Living Dead. Their hunger for brains came from Return of the Living Dead, and the zombie "rager" came from 28 Days Later.


The Walking Dead started its run as a comic series about a year after 28 Days Later was released. The comic book was adapted into a successful TV series which has been running for five seasons.


Based on the box art for the Dark Alliance Zombies, I'm guessing that at least some of the zombies in these sets may have been inspired by the show (I can't say for sure, since I have yet to read the comics or watch the show).


Set 1 consists of 48 zombies in 12 poses. The first picture is of adult zombies. The final three figures include a nurse, a doctor, and a police officer.


The second picture consists of a teen zombie, and 4 child zombies.


There was a bit of flash on one of the figures, but otherwise, this set did not require much clean-up.


Set 2 also consists of 48 zombies in 12 poses. The first picture is of adult zombies, several of which would pass nicely for traditional Haitian zombies. The kneeling zombies at the end consist of a female zombie gnawing on an arm, and a zombie maid that would be at least 7' tall if she were standing upright.


The second picture consists of 4 child zombies, and one adult crawler. Three of the child zombies are creepy baby zombies.


The figures in the second set required a lot more clean-up in comparison to the first set, but after getting rid of all the flash, the sculpts are just as nice. The problem with the set however, is that there too many novelty figures. With four duplicate sprues, I could create a zombie daycare staffed by giant maids.

The final pictures are comparisons of Caesar (light gray; left) and Dark Alliance (dark gray; right) zombies.



The details of the Caesar zombies are not as soft as those of the Dark Alliance zombies, but there should be no issues with using zombies from both manufacturers together.


3 comments:

Scale72World said...

Very nice article ! It makes me want to start a diorama Walking Dead.

Scale72World said...

As you are a figurine's specialist, wich is your method to clean-up figures ? Especialy with soft plastic please ?

EY said...

Hi Quepwik,

I usually use a hot-knife, but I don't recommend it for everyone, since it's easy to damage figures that way. My other preferred method is to use a new scalpel (#11 and #15 blades), but I usually have to go thru a lot of blades for best results.