Q: What are the best new weapons in Season 3?
A: We have introduced a lot of machine guns this year; there have never been any on the show before. It all ramps up to episode 16 where everybody is fighting everybody. They start out with bows and arrows and silenced weapons and once the war begins between everybody they move to machine guns and arming the civilians in the town (Woodbury), so we have really expanded the weapons this year. I would look for the Governor to show up with something later down the line that is very interesting. (Editor: Merle Dixon resurfaces in Season 3 with a knife fashioned from tools he found at the prison, ala Captain Hook!).

Q: There’re also the knives as well as the guns.
A: We have a lot of knives. Almost every character has a knife or a machete, a poking instrument that they have used this year, and some last year. I say ‘poking weapon’ because it’s for poking through the head of a zombie. If you know the comic book, one of the characters has a hammer this year. We made a spongehead, and in between a rubber piece and then a solid piece at the back. We can load it (the sponge) with blood, so when you hit a zombie on the head, it’ll actually splatter. So it gives an effect right away without having to add a digital effect – then they add the rest of the splattering digitally. It’s kind of cool to have something that actually physically looks like you are mortally wounding somebody. That’s kind of fun.

Q: How do you address the issue of safety?
A: We’ve never had anybody hurt, so safety’s an important thing with so many weapons. All the knives, poking weapons, hammers, axes, shovels – everything that any actor carries has a rubber or plastic (equivalent) including every gun we have, so that when actors are doing something that has the potential to hurt themselves, or someone else, we replace them with the rubber or plastic (equivalent). They look very good; our painters are very good with painting them.

Q: Is the most crucial new weapon this season Michonne’s sword?
A: By far, yes. It’s really become a very big prop for this season. I built Michonne’s sword. All the designs on the sword, I came up with approved by the studio and Glen Mazzara (showrunner). I have the triple goddess symbol that is on there and then we also used the mind, body, soul – the trinity, which looks kind of like a propeller.

Q: What other props do you handle?
A: They (the cast) carry bags, a lot of bags. When they moved into the prison they had probably 50 bags. Since then they probably got another 30 or 40. You’re moving around. In this world, everything you own needs to be portable because you never know when a big zombie attack is going to come. So we have bags for everything!