“The amount of work and care put in the models was just immense.”

Piñata produced and directed series of ads for The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land, a mobile game based on the hugely popular The Walking Dead TV-series.

The brief from Next Games, the developer of the game, was to introduce three new game characters based on the heroes of the TV series and show how fans of both the game and TV series all root for their favorite character – and now can play with them!

The challenge was to create a short 15 second spot with a simple striking story and message. Piñata director Mika came up with the concept of building suspense by transforming from a thrilling game session to the world of Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead actors and walkers were all rendered in 3D. We had 3D scanned versions of the models of the actors as a reference. Piñata artists Oula and Ville did an amazing job and a huge effort in working in all the super fine details on posing and sculpting the characters and their expressions, materials on their clothes, skin, hair… The amount of work and care put in the models was just immense. Actors playing the actual game with mobile devices were shot in studio using computer controlled Technodolly camera crane.

“Working with Next Games was really smooth on all aspects. Based on their amazing game and deal with AMC they have audience of millions. This is a great example of how two Finnish partners working in adjacent blocks just down the street can find a huge million viewer audience just in North America”, director Mika Rantala tells.