Silent Hill Corpse Cage

Silent Hill is one of my favorite video game franchises. After playing through the third installment I was inspired to create a piece of terrain. The stark look of the rusty and blood-stained chain- link that covers many areas is very creepy and would make a great horror gaming board. As a test piece I decided to make a cage similar to those found in the amusement park area of the game. Click images for a larger view.

The basic frame of the cage is made of bamboo skewers. There are 8 short 2" pieces and 4 3" pieces. The short pieces will form the top and bottom of the cage and the long pieces will connect them together. To make sure the box was square I used Legos to form a 90 degree form and used this when glueing the pieces together. This technique was found on the Hirst Arts website.

Once the basic shape was assembled with Tacky Glue, wire screen was cut to size and glued over two of the sides and the top. A window was cut into the two other sides before they were superglued into place. I made sure to cut the screen so the squares would form a diamond pattern like a normal chain-link fence.

Thin card was used to cover the edges of the cage as well as to frame the windows. This was done to clean up the edges as well as add some detail.

The barbed support wires are made from wire fencing just like on the Modular Board.

The base is thin foamcore with a hole the size of the cage cut in the center. Cross- stitch fabric was cut to shape and glued to the foamcore. This was done to give the effect that the cage and base are suspended over a dark abyss, like in the game.

The corpse was sculpted from Sculpy. A rough human shape was made with the arms folded across the chest. It was then baked in the oven.

Four barbed wire sections were made and glued to the corpse. Medical gause was then cut into strips, soaked in glue and wrapped around the corpse.

The corpse was not glued in place yet to make painting possible.

After everything was assembled and dry the pieces were spray primed black.

The cage, base and barbed wire were painted using this technique from Brush Thralls. The Boltgun Metal step was omitted and replaced with Burnt Sienna to give the piece a very crusty and rusty look.

The body was painted tan, then given a brown ink wash. Touches of flesh was and chestnut ink were added to give the bandages a filthy, bloodsoaked appearance.

Once the painting was completed the corpse was glued in place with superglue.