Iconic 'Last of Us' props were made in Fort Saskatchewan

A local EFX artist had some of his work featured on the most recent episodes of the HBO show 'The Last of Us'. 

Travis Shewchuk of Ravenous EFX was hard at work while the show was filming in Edmonton a few years ago, working on props to be featured in a few of the episodes. 

While he had to keep his cards close to his chest while the episodes were still coming out. Shewchuk is free to discuss the work that has already been featured. 

The first major piece of Shewchuk's work that hit TV screens occurred in episode six of the series. 

"At the start of the episode, it opens up with someone walking while holding some rabbits," said Shewchuk. "We ended up making those rabbits. We've made rabbits for numerous productions." 

"They have Ellie, one of the lead characters carrying them." 

The rabbits were just the start of the cool things that Shewchuk and his team got the chance to work on. 

In episode seven, they were tasked with recreating an iconic piece of the video game series the show is based on. 

"There are these scenes of Ellie and Riley, they go into a Halloween store in an abandoned mall," said Shewchuk. "Within that Halloween store, they have a talk and they put on some Halloween masks." 

"We ended up creating those [masks]." 

Shewchuk, who is a big fan of the video game, says it was a unique challenge trying to recreate something in the game for a live-action show. 

"We had to match the ones that were in the game that they had," said Shewchuk. "The same look and style. We had to adapt them to be worn for these actors specifically." 

"We ended up making a handful of different versions of these masks." 

As is with any direct adaptation, fans of 'The Last of Us' took to social media to point out Shewchuk's great work. 

"I GASPED that the masks looked the EXACT same," said one user on Twitter in reaction to the episode. 

Even Shewchuk wasn't able to avoid noticing fan reactions. 

"I saw it popping up all over the internet for a while there," said Shewchuk. "It was really exciting cause we got to translate something directly from the game that even I played." 

"Any time you get to make anything even sort of iconic it adds to the pressure of living up to it but at the same point it makes it a lot more exciting to get to bring that to life on-screen." 

Some other minor props from Shewchuk that were used in earlier episodes included spike stripes and syringes. 

As for if any more of his work is expected to show up in the season finale next weekend, not even Shewchuk knows. 

"We made other things that I'm not sure if they cut or used as well," said Shewchuk. "That happens pretty commonly, they either shoot scenes and it doesn't make the cut or they end up changing it for pacing." 

"Sometimes we don't even know what makes the cut or what is featured heavily." 

The season one finale of the Last of Us is set to air on HBO Max this Sunday (Mar. 12).