Peter Slight is making a three dimensional ‘Killer Gingerbread Zombie’ to help in the promotion of my Hansel & Gretel from Random Spectacular when the time comes. I love Peter’s delightful figures, hand-carved in mixed-medium, though with all the gleaming perfection of plastic toys. He made a wonderful blue Krampus for me (illustrated below) after seeing a collage I’d produced of the demon that comes at Christmas to spirit away naughty children.
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Here is our conversation about living dead gingerbread.
- Peter S: I’ve attached my favoured sketch of the zombie gingerbread man. It’s pretty close to my original sketch of him, but incorporates the tump and stray Allsorts, which I think do make for a stronger design. I tried out some more ‘dynamic’ poses but they all looked like he was diving to save a football! My models usually take on a life of their own and tend to evolve as I’m making them, so it may not end up looking exactly like the sketch, and is therefore more of a guide than a rigid template. What do you think??
- Clive H-J: Those eyes might be smaller and set higher in the brow, to give a more sinister expression. And he’ll need a texture to suggest gingerbread, or he could look like an evil jellybaby! But I think it’s all looking most promising. I do like the Allsorts, which somehow contextualise everything better.
- Peter S: Yes, I see what you mean I will change the eyes and send you a revised sketch. Do you imagine them as concave, inset dots or as small convex ‘mounds’?
- Clive H-J: In my drawings I’d imagined them as holes, so that when standing against the light the zombie’s eyes would evilly glitter. Could that work? If not, then tiny currants probably, pressed in like you sometimes get on gingerbread.
- Peter S: He does look a bit like a jelly baby in my picture, ha ha!
- Clive H-J: Nothing wrong with Zombie Jellybabies!
- Peter S: The shading lines make him look more rounded and ‘doughy’ than he will be, and give no impression of his actual depth. (I’m intending to make him quite flat with rounded off edges like a regular non-meat eating gingerbread man) I didn’t put any texture in the sketch because i didn’t think I could show it accurately or without it looking visually confusing. The texture will be created using the rough scouring side of a sponge impressed into the clay whilst still wet. I’ve tried it before and it gives a very good biscuity effect, which can be lessened or added too depending on the number of ‘dabs’ applied with the sponge.
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Here’s the delightful Krampus demon Peter made for me last year. It stands 13 cm high.
Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
sideline merchandise… bags of headless jellybabies – I volunteer to sit very quietly in the corner and bite the heads off all the sweeties nom nom nom 🙂
I’m so pleased that while I flounder about trying to retrieve the vestiges of a once serious career as a painter, that the rest of you are finding so much to celebrate and enjoy in the debacle of me being reduced to a straight-to-dvd schlockmeister movie director with a dodgy franchise. If eating the heads off jellybabies is to be your contribution to my future endeavours, then I suppose I must accept that with a degree of grace. I hereby appoint you ‘Head Consumer’. Please sign the enclosed contract and return.
chuckle. 🙂 Yesterday I discovered a bag of jelly babies in the car!!!!!! Weird noone is admmitting to buying them.
They are now headless
mwahahahahaa
I love all the talk of franchises, movies and evil sweets that this post has prompted. What a creative bunch you and your Artloggers are Clive!!
Would it be rather forward of me to suggest that our friend Gretel, from what I have seen of her today at your Facebook page, has all the makings of a formidable witch? I know the Gretel, in your recent Random Spectacular version of the story, ended up an evil little minx.
I am imagining a sequel to “Get Lost!” with Gretel wreaking her own brand of witchy havoc, backed up by her henchmen, the Headless Jelly Babies, seeking vengeance against all those who have ever done them wrong.
Clive the schlockmeister director is a role I can see you relishing and it is time somebody gave The Wicked Witch of the West a run for her money in the evil stakes. And Killer Gingerbread Zombies and Vengeful Headless Jelly Babies are definitely a whole new take on witch’s familiars…
Drat, now you’ve done it. Those scamps Phil Cooper and Peter Slight will give me no peace once they’ve read this. They have always been the main trouble-makers in terms of leading me astray, and here you are with your careless talk of ‘Headless Jellybaby Familiars’ to stir their already overheated imaginations to further summits of mischief!
It’s clearly all going to end badly in a tasteless gore-fest of unbridled confectionary carnage. Unscrupulous manufacturers will treble their outputs to meet the demands for fake Get Lost! sweetie-merchandise. My lovely little book will end up available only in boot-leg copies acquired in shady deals down disreputable back-alleys, because Waterstones will have banned it from their shelves after an incident involving enraged parents storming a store in Croydon to torch all found copies on a pyre topped by a ‘Guy’ with a board slung round its neck scrawled with my name in red! Outraged dental hygienists and child-welfare officers will come gunning for me, labelling me the worst influence on popular culture since John Walters drew the wrath of the righteous with that notorious incident in Pink Flamingos when Divine did the very bad thing with the dog’s turd!
Do you people have nothing better to do than to keep bothering me?
Don’t fight it Clive – you know that resistance is useless!
Phil, I think that ‘Krampus vs Gingerbread zombies’ is an EXCELLENT idea! This film is just crying out to be made! (The ticket sales from my own multiple viewings alone would make it a guaranteed box office success!)
And Sarah, I love your idea for a sequel. Might some of the headless jelly baby henchmen be carrying their chewed up and hideously distorted and detached noggins under their arms?. Maybe some could have heads just barely hanging on by a thread – to up the sticky-sweet gore factor a bit!
‘Confectionery Carnage!!!!’ is the PERFECT title for your movie. And Peter’s idea of jelly babies, with their heads barely hanging on by a thread, is totally inspired.
I am now imagining a gang of jelly babies with jagged lines of stitches at their necks. This is where the evil genius Gretel has done a hasty repair job in re-attaching their mangled and chewed heads. Why has she done this? Well, as we have already established, in her budding career as the baddest witch in fairy tale land, she needs her own kickass familiar to end all other familiars.
However, I also have a sneaking suspicion that those Killer Gingerbread Zombies will not remain permanently vanquished by Gretel’s shovel-wielding attacks and, like Arnie, they will be back. And this time they will be REALLY, REALLY angry!!
What have you started here Clive?!!
That is such a great title!
much better than my own, I was thinking of either:
‘Hansel and Gretel 2: Gretel gone bad’ or ‘Hansel and Gretel 2: the sweet smell of death’
In my premise, set a few years after the original story, Gretal has opened a sweet shop purveying decidedly deadly sweets and treats to unsuspecting children. The sweets turn the children into zombies and perhaps Hansel has become a health inspector determined to shut his evil sister’s business down once and for all, and kick some gingerbread and jelly butt at the same time!
Peter: The title belongs to Clive – I just paraphrased the master from his reply to my post.
Gretel, as the evil proprietress of a deadly sweet shop, is an idea I absolutely love. I believe that Hansel ended up being eaten by his sister in Clive’s interpretation of the story for Random Spectacular. However, perhaps Hansel can negotiate with his author if there is the chance of a bigger part, as the hero who potentially saves the day, in the sequel?!!
As the man currently bringing the genius gingerbread villain of Clive’s vivid imagination to life, you do know that I am currently picturing you in a Hammer House of Horror style workshop wearing a slightly dishevelled white lab coat, with your hair sticking up on end?!!
Going even further with your idea, I am also imagining Gretel’s jelly baby henchmen with their heads not matching their jelly baby bodies, à la Frankenstein’s Monster. Does that one work for you?!!
I wonder if Clive will be cross,when he gets back, that I am now filling in my application to join the gang of Artlog provocateurs, as a new member?
I am going to say nothing, other than to confirm that Peter Slight’s hair does indeed stand up on end like a mad laboratory assistant’s, and he has a small arachnid that lives in it that occasionally descends on a thread and goes by the name of ‘Spidey’!
I daresay none of this will surprise anyone!
Yay, I’m loving the mayhem on the Artlog today. Just what blogging was invented for. :-))
And after the box office smash of Confectionary Carnage, it’ll become the vehicle to reboot the troubled Alien franchise – god, knows after Promethius it needs something to save it – so Alien v Gingerbread Zombie it is. We know who’s going to win that one; it’ll end with the Gingerbread Zombie bursting out of the Alien’s stomach going ‘There, see how you like it!’.
Would it be mischievous to suggest another Artlog online themed exhibition – fairy tales with a twist? No pressure Clive, just saying. ;-))
Sighs deeply.
Soooo many great ideas flying about in this post!
it would be such a shame to waste any of them…. 😉
I agree with Phil and Peter. Is that a cue for an even deeper sigh Clive? 🙂
Right now my sighs are deeper than an ocean, though much good it does for all the notice anyone takes. I know sighs are all in vain against the tide of enthusiasm for this ungodly project. I guess I must just gird my loins and attempt to please you all. After all, I am known to be a slave to a relentless Artlogging elite who persistently lobby me in all matters dear to them until I crumble! (You know who you are, damn you all!)
I adore Peter’s Krampus figure, the attention to detail is just stunning – that unhappy little child in the basket is perfect!
Krampus v Gingerbread Zombie spin-off movie? It would make Alien v Predator look like a pic-nic 🙂
I see that you have this latter part of my career already mapped out in your mind’s eye. Clive the schlockmeister director of a straight-to-dvd series destined for cult-status on the late-night-festival circuit. The weird thing is that I find the whole thing worryingly appealing! But who will my target audience be?
Oh it’s all so marvellous! I love all the comments and can’t wait to see the next stage. What have you started Clive!!
Ummm… the beginning of a franchise?
Er… Killer Gingerbread Zombies R Us?? What a munchingly good post! xx
You just know they have to be evil as they are consorting with Liquorice, which is the devil’s spawn. I think there may be scope for evil jelly babies in there too, always felt they have been plotting revenge on all those who bite off the head first.
You sound like a woman with a guilty conscience. Do I sense that you’ll be glancing nervously over your shoulder should I unleash the hoards of Zombie Jellybabies seeking vengeance for their decapitated brothers and sisters? Mmmmm?
Ahhh yes. I thought as much. Your silence is an eloquent testimony of your past crimes!
l couldn’t possibly comment. She says, hiding the bags of Basset’s behind the cushion.
I feel like a child waiting for Christmas morning, knowing that in a mysterious workshop the evil, but also strangely loveable, Killer Gingerbread Zombie is currently (that’s a cue for a bad pun if I ever I saw one!!) coming to life.
My mother used to plan an activity a day in the build up to Christmas, just to keep the excitement at a containable level. I definitely need to go and occupy myself with a suitably calming activity now. There really is wickedness on the loose at the Artlog and I must resist…
There have been some rumours flying around that Killer Gingerbread Zombies can best be vanquished by being eaten. This is a fatal misunderstanding of their unnatural history. The truth is terrifying. If you munch on one, it will simply reconstitute itself in your lower intestine and then head south to your nether regions, GNAWING ITS WAY OUT.
Send out the message. Do not eat them! Do NOT eat them! DO NOT EAT THEM!!!
Every Christmas we make about 120 Gingerbread beings and paint them with colored royal icings–some are quite monstrous, but ours can be eaten with no ill effects. Greed can be a problem. Soldiers of indeterminate sex with drums or crossed bandoliers are always quite popular, and infants, and Robin Hood and Link and green men and wild women in frolicsome dresses. Adam and Eve for the lazy painters. But eventually the monsters erupt…
I am coming for Christmas to yours! (Wish!)
But Clive, that rumour can’t possibly be true. They look completely scrumptious and those Allsorts too delicious to resist. My curious nature is the demon on my shoulder whispering: “Don’t be afraid…”
Oh for goodness sake! You KNOW what happens when the girl in the film hears a noise upstairs, and even though the electricity has been cut off and the corpse count is high and still climbing, and despite the fact that the masked chain-saw-murderer is still on the loose and there’s a distinct whiff of gasoline drifting down from the landing, still, STILL she thinks it a good idea to go up and take a look around! And you damn well know it’s not going to be a baby bird fluttering about in the shadows. Oh no. No no no. Will she never learn?