Zombie Cliche Lookout: Following the Leader
Exfiltrating a building that has been surrounded by zombies is quite an undertaking. You certainly cannot just walk out the door and hope for the best. If you want to stand any chance at surviving, you have to thin the herd of zeds outside first. In order to do so, you have a few different options available to you. In this comic, for instance, our survivors have chosen the option of pulling the horde of zombies away from the building by creating a distraction to get their attention, and then gradually pulling them away. If you want a more aggressive approach, the other option is to kill off the zombies.
Both of these plans have pros and cons. Distracting and diverting the zombies will generally be safer at the outset, with the offside being that zombies can easily wander back, or more zombies be brought in. Taking out the zombies carries much more up front risk, but once the zombies have been destroyed, they’re not going to come back.
About this Episode:
Motion is always tricky to pull off in these comics.Part of that is the small amount of movement available to minifigs. I have a pretty good handle on that, but the minifigs aren’t the only things that move. In this case, the truck is also moving. I tried adding a blur effect to the tires to show that they are spinning, but thought it looked stupid and removed it. I’m hoping the truck’s placement change between panels conveys this movement well enough.
Discussion Question: Fight or Distract
You’ve sheltered for the night in an abandoned home. In the morning, you find that you’ve been surrounded by a sizable horde of the walking dead. Staying put isn’t an option, so what do you do? Try to distract the zeds to make your escape, or destroy them all?
For the Question:
As much as I’d like to think that I’d be a great zombie warrior, I think I’d take the safer option (aka. Chicken out 🙂 )
And try to make some sort of Molotov cocktail to throw across the street.
But, it all depends on where you are, who you’re with, and what you can get your hands onto.
In the group’s situation, here in the comic, I think they made the right decision! I just hope Vicky and the kids are ready to move!
Haha!
I can see Clark yelling at them to get going! Not even thinking about how traumatized they must be.
Oh man, trying to force scared kids to move has got to be a frustrating experience. I’ve got two kids myself, and I know how stubborn they can be when they’re nervous or annoyed. Scared out of their minds? That’s going to be a challenge.
Well, motion to me generally is conveyed either with a blur effect on something or by the fact that the truck would gradually move whilst the surrounding scenery doesn’t, or, if in the truck, the scenery seems to blur past or at least change positions sequentially.
I’d like to see what blur effect Dave came up with, if he can post a pic of it somewhere and link to it I can tell right away if I’d like it or not.
Another way is to simply use white lines that are biggest at the truck’s rear, and parallel to it. and fade away and grow shorter the further away they are from the truck. This is a comic writer’s method of displaying movement, but could work well if not overdone.
I’d strongly suggest Dave research available options and see what he likes best visually. He could also do up some sample blur effects and we could judge for ourselves what looks best.
Some LEGO scene builders quite literally photograph an object moving, not sure if that’d work for the truck, as it is on a rough studded baseplate. Could work well if it was on a smooth roadway plate. That would also take a bit of timing to make the truck move and to determine the correct camera shutter speed and exposure for capturing the blur instead of it standing still.
I don’t have the photography chops to shoot it actually moving. I mean, I could drop the shutter speed to get some nice blur, but getting everything framed and in focus would be really, really tough for me.
I didn’t save a copy of the effect I made. I just tried a few different things in Photoshop, but wasn’t satisfied with any of them. One was a blue effect on the tires, the other was a blur that got “blurrier” the toward the tail-end of the truck. Both looked terrible.
There is one simple trick you might want to exploit, and it’s an easy one: perspective. Take an angled shot from the side of the truck and simply move it along a path at certain intervals. As the truck goes past it will get closer and eventually disappear off screen to either end of the perspective you’re focusing on.
You could use partial perspective in this way to make the truck appear to move off-set, and relatively easily, at that. Try it and see! 😀
That’s a pretty slick idea. I might try that the next time I do some strips with vehicles.
Dave! I’m surprised you did not bring up the prime example of Shaun of the Dead. Shaun runs off to drag the Zombies away from the Winchester and sneaks back.. thinking he lost them… and, well, we know how it ends, lol.
More on that story here: https://youtu.be/nRLI4te2WTc
Oh my god, that’s an embarrassing omission. Absolutely fantastic example from one of my favorite films!
For motion on a studded plate, use the flat X by 1 long bricks in four strips; suitable to your road; (to make a tire path) slowly raise the full platform by one thin brick on one side until “rolling object” (truck) barely moves under it’s own weight. Adjust camera as you see fit. Let object roll on either a time elapsed setting or 1, pic every so often. Rinse and repeat a few. Edit out chunks you don’t need, fade and overlap the remaining images and check results. On line they have all this stuff about how to do a udb (ultimate dad built) pinewood derby car and a few about Lego derby cars. One test is seeing if the cars’ back wheels’ will roll from being not level on a single sheet of paper. It got me thinking of the above.
As for going out “in a swarm” I’m inclined to agree: location, location, locations.
Although this is more humorous than practical:
A) a country setting setting, just walk out.
B) suburban throw out old tape player/DVD player, etc blasting least favorite, most loudest thing you can get. Walk or repel from other side, dispatching and leaving quickly.
C) city, push sturdy metal ladder from one neighbor housetops’ roof to next.
D) military places any buildings, but the fast food joints and the shopping areas. Look for areas that have the least amount of connecting tunnels (counter intuitive) Two easily over looked places are the gyms and piers (modern ones have an underside). If your at either locations I’ve said not to go to, dead heads aren’t the only brain damaged goods you’ll face, but you won’t have to worry about hordes in the short run.
E) Las Vegas, don’t gamble your last bullet.
F) Fixed kayak – Johnny Depp it mr. Sparrow.
G) Mexico – laugh behind Trump’s wall
H) ghetto that even ghetto’s find ghetto – find dumpster, start burning house down, jump into dumpster, wait for gratuitous explosion. Run!
I) Zoloft/ anti-vaci rally – you’re doom
Sorry for the rants and if no one finds the list funny, a little apologizing music.
🎼🎤Hello Legos my Old friend, I’ve stepped on another piece again, very low vision, everyone’s sleeping. Tore the skin I was bleeding. Blurred vision and pain poured through my head. Still remains within the screams of silence. To the kitchen I walked alone. Bare feet on Legos’ bones. ‘Neath the skin, bloody damp…
I’d kill them or at least try to reduce their number like they did in TWD at the prison. One by one, a sharp stick to the head, and repeat, and repeat,… Kill 15. Rest. Repeat.
Simple, huh?
Well, if I had survived long enough into the zombie apocalypse to find an abondoned house (aka, more than 1 day) then I can assure you it wasnt by my zombie fighting prowess.
I think the motto, stealth before swords applies, or blades before bullets or how ever the people I ripped it off from say it. Point is, be sneaky before being shooty.
Yeah, sure, perhaps you have the skills to Die Hard it through the zombie horde, or the gear guns and ammo to level them and the entire block behind them…but then what about the next time? Weapons and ammution not to mention the physical toll to continue to battle the legions upon legions of unalived murder monster brain eaters isnt exactly limitless. Saving your special toys for an emergancy might help more in the long run that He-Manning it through every fight you encounter.
Then again…maybe thats what all those people in video games thought. You know the ones, the nameless corpses along the way to safty that just so happen to have guns, ammo, health packs and everything else laying next to them, unused because they were presumably saving them for an energancy…
Awesome
I really like that one z bringing up the rear.
“REEH” = “Wait for me guys”
I guess he is calling the others “Hey wait! more are inside the house! Well never mind…”