In this inscrutable I am going to show you how to create your own zombie survival weapon inspired by The Walking Dead's Lucille bat.

Things you will need:

A Bat

Barbed Wire

Gloves

Protective Glasses (if you have them)

Wire Cutters

Patience

Imagination

Optional:

Fake Blood

Coal Dust or any other substitute

Step 1: Finding Your Bat

Before you do anything you're going to want to decide what size you want your bat to be and then buy it. I bought mine off Amazon and decided to get a relatively cheap 30 inch one.

Step 2: Sanding Your Bat (optional)

Looking back now the one thing I would have done differently is sand the bat. This is completely up to you and depends what you want to do with it. However I wanted to try and make mine look a bit bloody using fake blood; which as it turns out is very difficult to do with a bat coated in a water resistant varnish.

Sanding the bat is pretty straight forward as all you need is some sand paper and a bit of elbow grease.

Step 3: Barbed Wire

I wanted my bat to be as realistic as possible, more of a genuine emergency zombie weapon than a prop; so I used real barbed wire. As it is quite hard to get hold of where I live, I bought 15M x 1.7mm Galvanised Steel Barbed Wire from Amazon.

Step 4: Wrapping the Bat

If you are going to use genuine barbed wire then please be very careful as it is very dangerous! Use all the correct PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) such as gloves and glasses if you have them, and if you are under the age of 18 then let an adult help.

First you want to make sure you're wearing your protective gloves and then remove the barbed wire from its tub. Try to unravel the barbed wire as much as you can until you have your desired length, then cut with some wire cutters.

Being very cautious, wrap the barbed wire around the bat in any way you wish. Warning - this can be very challenging as barbed wire can be very hard to work with. Wrap it in a way that it will not come undone; for example try to catch one of the spikes under an other so that it becomes stuck. This will help to stabilise the wire.

Step 5: Making You Weapon Look Apocalyptic!

This step is of course optional as you may want a pristine weapon. However I wanted mine to look as if it is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

To do this I used fake blood and coal/charcoal dust. First thing I did was put down a lot of newspapers to help avoid mess, and then used my store bought fake blood to help make it look used. If you want to make your own fake blood then there are plenty of tutorials out there, you could even use paint; get creative! As I mentioned in an earlier step my bat was of course varnished which made it very difficult for the blood to stay on, so if I were to re do it I would definitely sand the bat down and remove the varnish.

To make the bat look more aged and dirty, I used coal dust. As I happen to own a coal fire, I simply went into my coal shed and smothered my bat with coal dust.

And voila! By following these short steps you too could create your very own custom Lucille! Have fun out there and don't forget to prepare for the zombie apocalypse!

Step 6: UPDATE

After some thought I decided that I wanted the barbed wire to be wrapped a lot tighter around the bat. This is pretty much impossible to do by hand so you'll want to get yourself some galvanised steel staples. I can't remember what size mine were but just get an appropriate size, not too small but not too big.

You'll want to take your barbed wire (I had to take all of mine off to start over) and hold it against the bat where you want to start wrapping. Hammer in a staple after the first barb to hold it in place, be careful not to split the wood, if it does split it isn't the end of the world, just try to keep the splitting to a minimal or it will wreck the bat.

Try your best to wrap the barbed wire as tight as you can around the bat, hammering in staples where you feel necessary. I only used two, one at the top and one at the bottom, but this was because I had a friend to help me wrap it.

After I had done this I mixed up some black and red paint and painted the bat using a sponge. Just to make it look like it had just been used to bash up some heads!

Once finished you should have a nice tidy looking bat, the staples are hardly noticeable. Remember to be very careful and always use gloves!

Step 7: Taking It a Little Further (hair and Flesh)

First you will want to get all your stuff together.

You will need:

Suitable Surface Protector (e.g Newspaper)
Red Food Colouring
Chewing Gum
Disposable Gloves
Wig (optional)
A small container (not as important if you have a surface protector, it's just so you can put the gum in it if you need to put it down so it doesn't stick to the paper)

Step 8: Adding the Hair and Flesh Part 2

To start you will want to chew up some of your gum. Judge how much you need by the size that you want and the size of the gum. Add a few drops of food colouring and stretch and mix with your chewing gum using your fingers, don't forget to wear gloves! Add more food colouring if needed.

If you want hair (you might not want to be as gross) simply cut up a wig, small and long hairs, add this into your gum.

You can make as many pieces as you want as big as you want. All you need to do next is add these pieces onto the bat, at least cover one barb to make it look a little realistic, play around with it and use your imagination.

This step might be a bit too much for some people which is fine! I just wanted my bat to be a little different and take it that step further. Anyway thank you for reading and happy making!