After having cast out two known characters from the series due to the brutality of a new villain character and having left the viewers with the bad taste of an unscrupulous person who would do anything to make himself king in a world of apocalyptic survivors, the screen of "The Well" episode is inundated with a less bloodstained scenario. This time, the scenes show a new place called the Kingdom and its ruler Ezekiel accompanied by a majestic pet tiger called Shiva.

A real tiger or not?

The easiest way to introduce a tiger into the film set would have been to bring one directly from the zoo, but doing so could have posed a real danger, as these creatures are known to attack anything that moves.

The safest move to do then, is bring the dissected head of a tiger and use animatronics and computer generated imagery (CGI) to generate its facial and body movements and gestures. Atiger named Shiva won´t scare or eat anyone, but enchant with the beauty of its design.

Animated and colorful tiger

The process of creating a character with which the fans of the comic bookare accustomed was considered by the creator of "The Walking Dead," Robert Kirkman, who thought it was going to be a difficult task to achieve. Fortunately, he and his collaborators used a technique that has been implemented in the movie industry; animatronics and computer-generated imagery (CGI), which integrates anatomy, robotics and mechatronics, plus computers to replicate muscle movements and create realistic gestures and other imaging design features.

Animatronics made Shiva look real

According to the director of the episode,Shiva was all animatronics, and CGI was used to create Shiva´s facial expressions and body movements from the head to the tail, including the colors. The experience that directorGreg Nicotero had in animatronics allowed him and his staff to design the character.In Ezekiel´s Kingdom, Shiva the tiger won´t eat humans but captivate the eye of the spectator.

Stay tuned for the next episode of "The Walking Dead."