"The Doctor is in"

For my second spotlight I chose one of my all time favorite characters, Dr.Tongue from George Romero's Day of the Dead film. Although only on the screen for about 5 seconds, the face of Dr.Tongue became the iconic representative of Day of the Dead. The character was also the focus of much of the press and media to promote the film before its release. The character of Dr.Tongue was a puppet which was built and operated by Tom Savini and his crew which included Greg Nicotero, who would later go on to create his own effects company called KNB Effects.

Getting back to the model. He is 1/6 scale and was composed of 6 or 7 parts and some hair as well as a miniature newspaper for the base which states "The Dead Walk" which was seen in the opening of the film. The kit itself had some weird chunks of resin all over the kit similar to the texture on his right knee. I removed all of the texture except for on the knee to suggest ripped clothing, tattered flesh and dried blood. The kit was painted mostly by airbrush unlike the Godzilla from my last review. It helps out to make the Doctor old, decaying and dirty. The corpse on the base and street were also airbrushed.

By far the most tedius part of his construction was the hair. I had never applied real hair on any of my models before, so I had to figure out a method to attach it. I decided to wet the hair and pull it out straight. I cut 1/4 inch segments of hair which stayed in formation since they were wet. I then took the cut formations with a tweezer and applied them to the Doctor's head from the back up with tackey glue. I then repeated these steps and created rows of hair up his head till I reached where I wanted to. After the glue dried, I messed it up by rubbing it with my finger so it looks wind blown and messy. The newspaper was also altered on the computer from the one that was supplied. I changed some of the readable text on it to more closely match the one from the film.

I finished up the kit with some custom made plates for the display base which is a nice wood plaque.

So there you have it. The Doctor is finished and ready to go! I love this character and I love this kit. He is one of the most memorable and original zombies ever put on film. He might be in the film for a very brief period but his presence is legendary among the George Romero Dead films. If you haven't watched Day of the Dead in awhile, pop in the videotape or DVD. It's better than you probably remember it!

Alan