Zombie Cliché Lookout:
Before a big action set-piece heroes need to prepare themselves both mentally and physically. While mental preparation can be pulled of in prose with some good writing, it’s a lot harder to do in other mediums. Getting ready physically, however, is both simple to do and tends to look very, very cool. We tend to see a lot of that sort of thing in zombie movies (and a lot of other kinds of movies, for that matter).
Narrowed vision, slower movement, decent bludgeoning and possible penetrating weapon, self motivation to get this right to impress and make redemption. He’ll make it if he doesn’t stop, but if he does then I can only giggle in glee as hes ripped apart and consumed as a nom nom breakfast for the dead heads.
Harsh but fair.
Don’t blame Sam! He was pushed into his actions by Stewart’s mouth. Stewart is a tempermental asshat IMO.
Sam should crack that crowbar over the head of Stewart “the asshat” and shove him out the window as a distraction. I will not stop reading this comic until the death of Stewart is played out before me.
Also harsh but fair. I’m sensing a pattern here.
There’s even the remote possibility he might learn something important about the zombies. And he probably won’t even realize it if he does happen to survive and get back to his group.
He’ll probably be too busy pissing himself to take detailed notes. Shame.
Dave do you think we could have episodes with zombies now? I mean this is bricks of the DEAD.
Don’t worry, guy. Zombies are coming.
But you can’t have zombies all the time; you need some actual story in there too.
Zombies are coming. Is that a good or bad thing?
I guess that depends on your perspective. For survivors, it’s probably a bad thing. For readers, it’s probably good (I’ve noticed my traffic tends to go up whenever the zombies show up).
Haha Dave, that’s what I have to keep telling people too! I think in the greatest of zombie films, the main focus is not zombies, but an underlying message or story told through the use of zombies. The same should be true of comics.
Oh absolutely. Still, the peoples want their zombies so at some point we must oblige.
The best Post Apocalyptic stories are about the people not the zombies IMO. Too many zombies or any other creatures and you’re just left with a slasher blood fest which is forgettable and doesn’t’ captivate anyone…..meh…..
I know that. Or the the walking dead would have been horrible.
Tales of the Zombiepocolypse are built on such pauses in action as character development needs to play out as a group. The story is pretty wide open here but the foreseeable future is one clearly filled with shuffling action.
Something about the photography or placement or something makes me love the last panel. It just looks amazing. Great job, I usually don’t get affected by things like that, but I’m getting chills for some reason.
Thanks Thade! I think it’s because people are leaving and Sam is getting a taste of being on his own, even if Stewart and Cheryl are still in the room. Or maybe it’s something else, I dunno.
I agree with Thade…Dave has gotten really good at creating body language with mini-figs. If you look at the first and last 5 or so comics you can see a difference.
Much obliged!
Yay, Stewart without a hat… He looks kinda cool with the blond hair.
Hah, I was hoping it would make him look douchey.
I’M BLOND!
Yeah, but you’re not a douche, so that’s okay (full disclosure: back when I had hair it was blond; if I let it grow out now it would probably be dark brown).
You should get a sweet jacket like Stewart.
oh dear
I always thought the helmet was black. Sam is gonna have to channel that freak out energy to his crowbar if he does happen to stop. Murphy should keep his rifle and use it like a bat. Just grab the barrel and BAM! *imatates the whistle of a baseball in a home run*
It’s dark blue. I actually really like the shade.
Murphy is totally keeping the rifle. I don’t know about using it as a bludgeon though. I can’t imagine that’d be terribly good for the rifle.
Well, it’ll be better than him running out of ammo for it! 😀
Well, using it like a bat wouldn’t exactly be good for it, no. There are much better ways to hit someone with a rifle butt though. However, I don’t think the cops get trained in these like soldiers do.
The lighting on this seems a little… funky, or something. It seems more blue than usual.
Is this intentional, or is it a side-effect of shooting under different lighting/camera conditions? Come to think of it, it looks a little more like Zombie Outbrick now… 😉
Anyway, I’m anxious to see how the hockey pads hold up against a zombie horde. (It will be a horde, right?)
I’m playing around with my white balance option. I’m trying out sampling and I think it looks better now than before. But then I’m also colorblind, so maybe what looks good to me is a bit off. Drat.
Its amazing how the lighting for these things is by far, IMO, the most challenging thing. You can only filter so much with picasa to adobe before your shiny lil plastic creation look is distorted. Seems too easy to go from over yellow to over blue. This weekend I was messing with something with black sand and I just slumped over my desk as my life-force drained out of me when I realized that my black sand somehow came out effing brown in all the pics.
I bought parts for my own light box this weekend since I didn’t want to be locked into sizes or how the light comes through with what I found on amazon so hopefully that helps once I put it together.
A lightbox helps a ton, although I’m still tweaking mine for good results. I’ve changed the type of bulbs in the lights, the depth the lights are inset in the box,the angle of the bounce, multiple white-balance changes, et cetera. It’s definitely a challenge.
What are you using for material? I highly recommend foam core. It’s so much easier to work with than cardboard or anything like that.
Bear with me here…my terminology may be off. I probably need to shoot you an email with a pic of it when I am done so you can tell me if I am doing something wrong anywhere.
The number one thing I wanted was flexibility so I got one of those tall tri-fold foam core displays like people use in school for a science project. I did that so I could widen it (to use light diffusers on the sides) or narrow it (to bounce light off the white walls)…and I have a light diffuser on top.
The sides will have 80- watt bulbs with that have covers over the coils to further help diffuse light and a LED lamp aimed over the top. I also bought a small LED light to be able to drop between an object and the wall. It won’t look pretty but if I do this right I will have great flexibility. Only spent $100 so I am happy.
That sounds pretty nice. Mine is just four pieces of foam core taped together with two work lights bounced off the top. I’ve been experimenting with a third work light diffused with some parchment paper as a spotlight, but I haven’t been happy with the results quite yet.
I remember you telling me about parchment paper but I may have found something thinner that might do the trick in the paint section at LOWES Home Improvement.
Would you mind shooting me a pic of your set up?
Absolutely. I took a couple this weekend while working on my behind the scenes page, but I wasn’t terrible happy with any of them. I’ll give it another go soon.
Very cool thank you. No rush of course.
Im surprised stew gave that helment up
It was very mature of him, wasn’t it?
Maybe it’s finally sunk into the little punk how serious the situation is?
Murphy opens door *Whumph!* ZOMBIE!
Hah
if a zombie falls off the top floor of a 3-story building is the fall enough to kill him if he doesn’t land on his head? 🙂
And anyway, if a zombie does try to attack Murphy the zombie will be the one going *Wumph!* alright, as he hits the wall Murphy will smash him against! 😀
I suppose if it didn’t kill him it would likely render him immobile since his legs and probably back would be broken. Still a threat, of course.
WAIT! i just got an idea, what if there is a zombie in the closet!
I hope not. I never bothered to build a closet.
HA
That’s an interesting idea… but do zombies even have coming out parties? 😉
Zombiepocolypse DANCE PARTY!
Hah! This sounds like an idea worth exploring.
i hope sam lives GO SAM WHOO!
I still love that the boom box is, essentially, a weapon as they gear up.
Oh most definitely.
DAVE EMERGENCY!!!!
3 neucleuar plants are threatened by natrual disasters know what happens when neucleuar things go wrong…zombies i really hope this does’nt mean a zombiepocalypse becuase you know that would hurt and suck but just in case grab your machete dave.
My machete is always ready.
This may sound kind of mean but i kind of want sam to die. I like stew! i most of the time side with the bad guy
I second that 😀
I like Stew and don’t like Sam *evil grin*
i reject that i like sam’s charecter he has good taste in shirts GO PLAD!!!!!
but stew does have a cool looking jacket so keep them both alive!
They’re both very fashion forward, yet divisive characters.
Who ever lived in that apartment had a cool TV. And why don’t they go upstairs?
I mean really? Leave no stone unturned! Keep searching the building! And will some one please close
The window? I don’t like the smell of decay. Or the moans and groans of the hungry beasts!
1. I know; I’ll get a photo of that TV before I break down the set for parts.
2. Murphy was upstairs. This took place off camera before we met the character
3. The convicts show out the window when they took pot shots at Murphy.