Fear The Walking Dead has helped remind fans of the AMC horror-smash what its titular corpses looked like early on, a point well contrasted with early looks at The Walking Dead Season 6's ever-increasing rot. S6 may well mark a turning point however, as producer Greg Nicotero has reached a point of requiring digital effects to continue the gruesome decay of The Walking Dead.

Initial photos of The Walking Dead Season 6 undead gave us a markedly more pronounced take on the undead’s decay, though FX guru and executive producer Greg Nicotero told The Hollywood Reporter that digital effects have upgraded certain walkers beyond points that practical effects could portray:

We’re doing a few things we haven’t done before, which is digital augmentation of couple of walkers. We’re moving noses and putting a cavity there. Taking the area underneath the ribcage and shrinking it down. Kind of Bernie Wrightson style. That stuff is what makes it more exciting because it gives us more opportunities.

Naturally, zombies have always been at least some combination of practical and digital, between hacked-off body parts, flames or digital crowd replication, though the Season 6 premiere will also notably feature the highest number of live walker extras yet, at 300. Still, even with the titular dead becoming a larger and larger threat, Nicotero insists the series will maintain at least some rules when it comes to reanimated corpses:

Every season we sort of refine [the walkers]. We refine the teeth even more and we just keep changing it up and every season it’s been different and we just keep pushing it a little bit more. It’s been really fun. We sculpted full muscle arms and then we added sagging flesh off of them as everything is about to drip off.

Scott [Gimple] has one very specific thing that he is conscious of, which is it can’t be a Ray Harryhausen. It can’t be a walking skeleton. It always has to be muscles. It always has to be something that is motivating the movement.

Elsewhere of The Walking Dead Season 6, we know that Straight Outta Compton star Corey Hawkins has joined the series in the comic role of Alexandria runner Heath, alongside new additions Ethan Embry and Merrit Wever. AMC has also released clips and a few photos, amid previews of a fleshed-out comic backstory, while we’ve broken down the Season 6 trailer in time for the October 11 premiere.

Not only that, but Season 6 will also host installments of a half-hour special set on an airplane, a character of which will go on to a role in Fear The Walking Dead Season 2. Season 6 has also been observed casting two major comic characters to play a larger role in the second half of the season.

We’ll see more of The Walking Dead Season 6 on the road to October, so check out the trailers again below, and stay tuned for the latest from cast and crew.

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