There’s a lot of zombie stuff out there, and most of it is crap. People like to jump on bandwagons and produce quick tie-ins rather than investing love and effort into their creations. Luckily for you, I’m here to help separate the wheat from the chaff. Check back every Friday, when I’m going to share the coolest zombie-related creation I can find out there on the web.
This week’s creation, “Zombie Warning (Too Late!)” by powerpig, is just incredible. It’s a simple scene of a sizable mob of zombies taking down on unlucky pedestrian:
There’s a lot to like here, starting with the excellent warning sign (available as a t-shirt) in the foreground, which somehow manages to draw your eye away from the violent attack in the background with nicely used focus and contrast. Of course, the background scene is the real meat and potatoes here. A couple dozen collectible minifig zombies (which must have set this guy back a few bucks, yeesh) are mobbing around one unlucky fellow. On the ground is his pistol, which is presumably out of ammo. Behind them is a building that is both beautifully built but unassuming. I’m also quite fond of the lighting effect used on the street lamp.
One of the comments laments the lack of gore in this creation, but I really like that. The scene just wouldn’t have worked as well with buckets of viscera.
Have you seen a great zombie-related creation out on the web? Are you working on the next great zombie MOC as we speak? Well you had better let us know right away, otherwise we’ll never be able to include it here.
And don’t forget: ZombieMutts and I are hosting a contest. You’re basically building a zombie creation of some sort to try to win a custom zombie and a hazmat figure. Check out the full rules here.
I think that some of the zombies should have been wearing different clothes. I mean, it’s not like they all died/got infected in the same clothes!
IDK, they could have been from the off-screen office block next door. People like those are usually unimaginative or have a uniform.
It’s the same for the video game L4D (I make a lot of referencesto it even though I have never actually played it) , the zombies are all the same models yet in the promotional comic they were all in different clothes. And that’s why I find it unrealistic.
Well, in videogames (especially not-so-recent ones), it can be surprisingly difficult to have a variety of seemingly individual enemies.
It used to be that you had to make a character model, and that’s what you’d use for one type of zombie (or any character, really.) If you wanted a zombie with different clothes, you’d have to make a whole new 3D model, just for it. Either that, or change the colors of the texture (the “skin,” or picture that is wrapped around the 3D model to give it more detail.)
Creating new textures for the same zombie model wouldn’t look very good, and would still be harder to keep track of and handle for the game developers.
But creating a ton of different zombies (ie making a ton of different 3D models) is actually incredibly difficult and time consuming, and would also not be very cost-effective compared to just using the same zombies multiple times.
I’ve played around in the world of 3D graphics and game design, and trust me, it is NOT easy to model a zombie. Nor texture it. Nor model and texture 100 different zombies.(And that’s assuming that all the zombies can use the same animations, which are also very difficult to create.)
Nowadays, they can do things like have 3 body models, with 3 different body textures, and 3 different head models with 3 different head textures. 6 models, 6 textures, 3x3x3x3= 81 “different” zombies.
But that’s been done very recently, and to my knowledge, Left for Dead came out a while ago.
that’s why in my lego story I play out in my city, the zombies are called “Stock Zombeis” – to save time and effort, every time a zombie is killed in a scene, they’re undead and kicking the next. The characters have picked up on it now. >_<
Well, in some zombie stories, the zombies have risen from their graves. This means they were wearing the funeral attire in which they were buried.
Who knows, maybe the grey burial suit store was having a sale?
hah! Thats a brilliant way to look at it!
I really like the sameness of all the zombies. I think it gives them a really creepy, impersonal feel.
With all due respect to the greatness that is PowerPig…IMO…I don’t think it works here since it looks so much like one of his other sets that blew me away so much and got me started back with Legos. “The Outbreak” MOC.
However with that in mind I also need to recognize I hold this guy to an unfair standard against everyone else due to his unparalleled quality of work.
Its a political statement maaaaaannn.
Hah, it just may be.
Powerpig does good stuff. Ironically my favorite stuff of his there is nary a zombie to be found. He does these minimalists creations that are simply jaw dropping and more expression than I can do with unlimited bricks. But hey..all good skills in life through practice.
Overall he does the best MOCS I have seen on flickr. MOCpages has some amazing folks too but I can’t stand using that site.
Power to the Pig!
His photostream is a hell of a thing. Everyone should check it out.
That really is an incredibly shot. This is photography and LEGO combined into a perfect artform, creating a masterpiece.
It’s so simple, yet so incredible… Simply amazing.
And geez, those are a lot of collectable minifig zombies!
It’s amazing how good or bad photography can turn a good creation great, or a great creation merely good.
if i had that many i would definitely make an MOC for this site. and have them with red silly putty on their bodies. makes for a better zombie. and graphics. would also be used for pools of blood from the recently deceased. you should do that Dave. have Murphy notice a poll of blood that’s still warm. than you bust out the horde. P.S. goblin heads could be used for special zombies that can actually hunt. not wander around for food.
That’s not a bad idea, actually. I’ll toss that in the ol’ idea pile.
man, everyone thinks that signs are just there because they look cool (mostly because the red sign is the only one that i cant read) signs are a bunch oh shit, what ever happened to guys flipping them off to where ever they need to go, doesnt the economy suck? anyway, what point was i trying to prove?