The Making Of A Zombie - Step by Step

In addition to spending quality time with family and friends this holiday season, I've been making ZOMBIES. Oh yes, that is one of my favourite new Christmas things to do, hehehe!

Here's how to make one if you fancy making some of your own.

You will need:

1. cardstock
2. pencil crayons
3. mini brads
4. pin
5. flat eraser or styrofoam block
6. sharpie marker
7. ink pens

First, get a nice, Zombie-coloured piece of cardstock. Draw all the main shapes with the sharpie marker and use the thinner markers to draw in smaller details. You will need a main body attached to the head, 2 upper arms, and 2 lower arms. If you have room on your paper, draw the legs now too. I didn't have any room so my zombie legs will come a little later.
Roughly cut out the general area where your drawing is. Don't cut right up to the edges until later.
Flip it over and add glue all over it evenly. I like to use the purple glue sticks so that I can see where glue has already been added.
Paste it on top of more cardstock. This makes the cardstock double the thickness so that your jointed zombie paper doll won't bend easily. For my earlier paper dolls, I left the thickness at one layer, but I found that they couldn't stand as well. Sometimes I leave the arms at one layer of thickness.
Now you can colour your zombie. Mine has a candy-corn coloured shirt :)
If you haven't drawn the legs yet, do that now. I placed the zombie body on the paper before I began drawing so that I would have it as a reference for size.
You need 2 thighs and 2 calves with feet. Don't forget to double the thickness of this cardstock paper too.
Once it is all coloured, you can cut out all the pieces. The thick sharpie border makes it easy to cut out because you don't have to be as exact.
Place the different parts onto an eraser or styrofoam block and poke holes for all the joints. The eraser block helps you keep the paper flat while you're poking the hole.
Here is Zombie Hank with all the holes made at the correct joint places.
Now take your mini brads and join all the limbs to the body and each other. Experiment to see whether it looks better to place arms and legs on top or underneath the body.
Ta da! Here's Zombie Hank all finished up. I even gave him a bucketful of popcorn! Zombie Hank says that the popcorn is good, but that it needs more brain.
Here he is with his girlfriend, the lovely Zombie Thelma. Don't they make a sweet couple? *snicker* They're off to the movies.

Don't forget to post photos of your finished work on the Flickr page here.

Enjoy making your own jointed paper zombies! You can also find Hank and Thelma in the shop.