What can I say? I love Left 4 Dead, and the sequel’s due out this November. I’ll let the teaser speak for itself.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Those are indeed hand to hand weapons.
Archive for 2009
Dead Set – a review
May 28, 2009
Now, where would I never in my life want to be? The Big Brother house, for sure. But for one exception: in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
For those of you not familiar with the format, the idea of the Big Brother tv-show is simply this: a group of more or less ignorant and attention-hungry people are locked up in a small house and every aspect of their fairly dull everyday life is observed through video cameras. Occasionally they’re given tasks to complete, and if they succeed, they’re awarded with something, usually booze. For our viewing pleasure. Every now and then they vote someone out, and the last one remaining wins a cash prize.
I’ll just come out clean and say it: I hate Big Brother. I absolutely loathe it. The entire concept of watching stupid and dull people make fools out of themselves on television is repulsive. Even so, the setup is interesting: how will people react when they’re isolated from society and deprived of news, activities and meaningful social contacts? Against this background, when I heard of Dead Set – a horror mini-series combining Big Brother with zombies – I couldn’t help but to be more than a bit excited. Could the braindead on the inside best the undead on the outside? The idea is brilliant. The BB house is by its very nature closed off to the outside world, isolated and somewhat protected. What better place to spend the apocalypse in?
In Dead Set the zombie catastrophe happens in the UK. True to Romero’s style, the whys and hows aren’t explained. All we know is that in the outside world, society collapses and the undead reign, while in the BB house the contestants remain blissfully ignorant of the happenings. Of course it reaches them eventually, but how and why would be spoiling the story. Along with the contestants, the series also tells the parallel stories of a few members of the production staff and a few other survivors, giving us a chance to glimpse at the outside world. All the people are connected, and the parallel storylines bound together in a smooth natural way.
What in my opinion is crucial to any film and zombie movies in particular is the cast of characters and their interaction. Dead Set excels at this. The characters and their reactions to the strange conditions feel genuine enough. There are no heroes here, just regular (a relative term when talking about BB contestants) people caught up in an awful situation. When this is combined with the authentic Big Brother set and cameo appearances from real-life BB contestants and host Davina McCall, the scenario is frighteningly realistic. In a zombie movie, this is pure goodness. I also feel that this is where British zombie productions beat their modern American counterparts. The characters are more low-key and realistic, making them and the story easier to relate to.
The actors – many of them familiar faces from various British series – pull off their roles well, with especially Andy Nyman delivering a wonderful performance as the rude and obnoxious producer Patrick. Again, this adds to the feel of the story, as the viewer’s immersion is not shattered by that unfortunate companion of many zombie movies, namely frustratingly bad acting.
The story itself is balanced and the tension is upheld throughout the entire show. The structure of five separate episodes instead of a single film probably adds to this, as the story never grows boring or slows down. This is quite an accomplishment considering a combined length of almost 2½ hours. There’s no empty filler here. Dead Set also has a fair amount of humour in it, but it’s woven well into the story and dialogue. The same can be said about the critique aimed at reality-tv and its viewers.
The visuals are fairly standard fare. If you’ve seen 28 Days/Weeks Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake, you’ll know what to expect. Some shaky cam, some groovy filter work etc. This isn’t to everyone’s liking, but I personally have no problem with it.
What about the main attraction then? The zombies are of the running variety, again reminiscent of the two films mentioned in the previous paragraph. They’re well detailed and the makeup is excellent, with especially the creepy milky white contact lenses with a tiny pupil in the middle giving the zombies a truly scary look. Gore is very graphic and plentiful and well executed, with ripping skin, gallons of blood and entrails galore. Definitely not one for the squeamish or those repulsed by excessive violence.
As mentioned before, Dead Set is a mini-series consisting of five episodes, with a combined length of 141 minutes. Yes, that’s almost 2½ hours of quality zombie action. The episodes can be viewed separately, or as one movie.
Overall Dead Set is, simply put, the best zombie thing I’ve seen in years. There’s nothing here to complain about. Seriously, nothing. So if you haven’t seen it yet, get it and enjoy it. Then watch it again and like it even more.
Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer.
Dead Set is available on dvd from Amazon UK, Play.com and eBay (especially eBay UK), among many other places.
A few of my own
May 17, 2009Way back in 2005 I got interested in sculpting miniatures. I did it for a while, and even managed to finish a few which ended up painted in my collection. I finished a couple of zombies which I saved with the intention of having them cast up mostly for my personal use. None too surprisingly nothing ever came from it, but I still saved the greens figuring that maybe I’d paint them up one day.
And now, four years later, along comes Black Orc Games. They have a program called Mini-Sculpt, which gives budding sculptors a chance to get their sculpts cast up and sold. It’s a simple deal: The sculptor grants the company full rights to the green, the company provides the sculptor with 20 casts of the model plus royalties based on the number of models sold. While this is hardly a huge money making opportunity for a sculptor, it gives people like me a great chance to see the results of their work made available to others. To be honest, it’s simply cool to paint and base a model and add it to your collection alongside those sculpted by Mark Copplestone or Kev White, and think that it was you who sculpted it. What’s even more cool is the idea that maybe someone, somewhere is doing the exact same thing, and maybe playing a game using your models.
What this all amounts to, then, is a shameless ad for my minis. It probably comes as no surprise that they are zombies, does it? They are by no means of professional quality in terms of detail or crispness, but I’m still quite pleased with them. One of them is an obese jogger, who apparently couldn’t even outrun a few zombies while the other one is a beach bum type, who was probably still going “whoa, bra” while the zombies were munching on him. The solid bases have since been replaced with tabs to enable these figures to fit into standard slottabases. They’re heroic 28mm in scale.
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- The original green from 2005
They will eventually – I’ll be sure to post details – be available through Black Orc for the fair price of $1.00 apiece. Not only is this a great chance to add some cheap lead to your undead horde, it’s also a great way to support non-pro sculptors such as me in our endeavours not to mention a way of thanking Black Orc Games for providing an opportunity like this.
As always, feedback is appreciated. Would anyone actually buy these? Or rather, will you?
Future plans
May 13, 2009Every miniature gamer dreams of a beautiful gaming board. Yes, even the ones saying that piles of books covered with cloth and sand will do. A good, permanent table with no corner cutting in its construction. With none of the mishmash collection of chunks of cardboard and insulation foam and soda cans that we use as proxy terrain, but instead all those expensive but beautiful resin pieces, plastic and cork buildings (for the latter, check out Matakishi’s teahouse) and terrain painted and flocked in a uniform style. Anyone who’s ever wargamed will know what I mean.
As a kid I used to look at model railway setups and doll houses, and was fascinated by the intricate detail. You had climbers on mountain sides, people running to catch a train and tiny vegetables on tiny plates with tiny utensils to eat them with. I absolutely wanted to build something like that, but when you’re twelve you’re on a pretty tight budget. Skip forward 15 years, and I’m still on a pretty tight budget but with a lot more determination and vision. And thus was born my Suburbia project.
Suburbia will be a detailed gaming board depicting a small modern town, to be ravaged by zombies, vampires, werewolves, supervillains, aliens and all sorts of other nasty critters I can think of. It will be composed of O scale plastic model railway buildings (especially Plasticville) and resin accessories from companies such as Armorcast and Ainsty. While this will set me back quite a few euros, it will hopefully also provide me with motivation to get the thing finished. And while I’m doing this, I want to add a whole lot of small detail: crows on the cemetery’s tombstones (a shamelessly ripped idea, thanks Sho3box!), a small altar in the church, small critters running around town, trash in alleys..you name it! As a matter of fact name it, all ideas are more than welcome.
As for inspiration, I have a few sites from which to draw with the main players being the insanely cool Zombie Town! and the almost equally cool Combat Zone Chronicles. I have to admit that I won’t be going as far as ZT! in the interior detailing. I mean, I still want to finish the project in the forseeable future.
The board will probably be built on a fairly large sheet of 2cm thick MDF. I’m thinking of using magnetic receptive paint and small sheet magnets to help keep things like street furniture in place. I will paint a street grid on the table, with each terrain piece – be it a building, a park or whatever – mounted on a separate piece of plasticard that neatly fits the grid. This should provide me with a setup that’s easily modified and solid enough not to go flying around every time someone bumps the table.
I will post regular updates once the project starts. At the moment I’m still designing the whole thing, and waiting for the 7 Plasticville buildings that I got for cheap off eBay. Do I really need to say I’m really excited about this whole thing?
On the topic of populating my new town, I’m also running out of zombies to paint. As I can’t seem to decide whether to buy new ones from Studio Miniatures, Griffin Miniatures or King Zombie, I’m settling on a compromise of getting them all. Sweetness.
Upcoming zombie goodness
May 5, 2009I’m always on the lookout for new zombie movies, especially those with good production values. I’m not saying that production values make a movie, but sadly they can often break it. Anyway, two of the movies I’m currently waiting for are [REC] 2 and Zone of the Dead. Neither are American or British productions, which is always a joy – in the sense that it’s nice seeing that zombie culture is being created all over the world.
The Spanish movie [REC] is one of my favourite zombie movies ever. I like its documentary handycam style and the fairly realistic approach, not to mention that it’s creepy as hell. The movie had me and a couple of my friends – all of us used to horror movies – watching it hugging our knees and going “arghhh, ihatethisihatethisihatethis” , so if you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely check it out. There’s a Hollywood remake of the same film called Quarantine, but I suggest you go for the original. The foreign language, Spanish in this case, makes it somehow seem more real. Maybe it’s because I’m used to most movies being in English?
Anyhoo, they’re making [REC] 2, due for release this October according to IMDb. The teaser trailer doesn’t really tell us a lot – it’s probably why they call it a teaser, duh – but I’m still psyched!
Zone of the Dead is already out. This Serbian film is apparently a nice old school zombie flick, and judging by the trailer it looks like mighty good fun. And it stars Ken Foree of original Dawn of the Dead fame. I just hope it eventually gets released outside Serbia, too.
And as a final note a friend passed me a link about real life zombies. While it certainly is interesting and creepy, I couldn’t be bothered to write it an entry of its own, so I’ll just attach it to this one. It’s a small article about parasites that take over and control several different host animals. Just imagine the fun of something like this happening to humans! Is it just me, or does stuff like this really make you think about the whole evolution/intelligent design thing?
Dead Simple – A quick zombie painting tutorial
May 3, 2009The coolest thing about zombies for the wargamer? There are lots, so they look lovely on the table.
The worst thing about zombies for the wargamer? There are lots, which equates to a lot of work.
This tutorial will provide a quick and easy way to paint zombies to a good gaming standard. It leaves the painter room to embellish, too, while being easy enough for even a budding painter to produce fine results. So there’s a bit of something there for everyone. This style of painting is especially useful for some of the cheaper and rougher zombie miniatures on the market, but with a bit more attention works just as well for the classier ones too.
The principle? Zombies – whether you’re painting modern or fantasy models – are just regular people, with the notable exception of being dead. Hence, their clothing and equipment will paint up just like it would on any other model. Where the whole zombie-thing kicks in, is the whole ”dead” part.
For this tutorial I picked one of the Mega Miniatures zombies, a true flower child who has found himself a juicy leg and is now literally one of the Grateful Dead.
Unpainted model
Step 1: Pick up your favourite zombie model. Or, if you’re just starting on your zombies using a tutorial, one that you don’t really like that much. Clean the model as usual, and prime it black. We are looking for a finished zombie that’s dark and menacing, and a bit dirty. A black basecoat will help you with that.
Step 1: Basecoat the model black
Step 2: Paint the zombie’s clothing and equipment just like you would on any other model. Don’t touch the skin yet. I like to experiment on zombies’ clothing and other details, using different techniques. If something looks awful, you can just slap some blood on it. The mini will be lost amidst your horde, anyway.
Step 2: Paint clothing etc.
Step 3: Paint the skin with the palest skin tone you have. You can go as far as ivory (a yellowish, natural white). Don’t worry about the paint not covering the black basecoat all that well, and don’t paint too thick layers on. In fact, the black basecoat shining through will add to the skin’s blotchy, dead appearance. Doing this also saves you time, which is lovely when you have dozens of zombies lined up for painting.
Step 3: Paint the skin
Step 4: Give the zombie’s skin a light blue wash, using either a very thinned down blue paint or ink wash (I use GW’s old blue glaze). Don’t overdo it, you want a zombie instead of a blue-skinned alien. You can also experiment with different shades of blue and green for different end results. Make sure the wash ends up all over the skin, especially on places you want to accentuate, such as the eyesockets.
Step 4: Give the skin a light blue wash
Step 5: Use a very thinned down black ink (again, I use GW’s) to accentuate some shadows (as in step 4, the eyesockets are important, as are cheekbones) even further and generally ”dirty up” the zombie. The deeper shadows give the zombie a more menacing, gaunt and even deader look. If you want to use the black ink to add some splotches of dirt to the zombie’s clothing, now’s a great time.
Step 5: Use black wash to accentuate shadows
Step 6: The blood. Yes, there’s always blood. I like my zombies bloody and gruesome, death by undead should never be too pretty. Take some brownish red paint (GW’s Mechrite red for me), and add loving splashes of it on the model. Use your imagination! How did he die? Throat torn out? Paint a lot of blood on the throat and down the front of his shirt. Has he eaten someone? Some blood around the mouth and chin. The zombie carries a weapon, did he defend himself before he died? And so on, you get the point. Again, don’t overdo it. You don’t want to end up with a walking clot of blood. Actually, if you do then feel free to overdo.
Step 6: Add blood
Step 7: Simple red paint won’t do. It just looks fake and too clean, doesn’t it? Paint liberally over it with dark brown ink (GW, surprisingly). Let the ink overlap the paint’s borders for a more natural and dirty look. You’re gunning for the gross-factor here. Messy, dirty, icky. Let your imagination run free. A lot of blood seeping into the zombie’s clothing? Paint a lot of brown ink on it for a darker overall effect.
Step 7: Paint over the blood with brown ink
Step 8: Dot in some black ink to represent coagulated and dried blood. By now your zombie should look fairly awful, in a good way. I also added some black ink to the eye sockets at this point, since that will make the eyes stand out more.
Step 8: Dot in some black ink
Step 9: Paint the eyes. I simply use a drop of very light grey, white’s fine too. Don’t bother with pupils, the full-grey eyes will look creepier and more dead. You can also pick out other detail, such as teeth. For once, don’t stress too much if the eyes end up a bit lopsided. They’re zombies, they don’t mind.
Step 9: Paint the eyes
Step 10: Base the model to your liking, and you’re done!
Step 10: Base the model
And next? Just repeat this procedure a hundred times or so, and you’ll have a miniature zombocalypse on your hands. Oh, and if someone actually tries this tutorial out, I’d love to see the results!
From the painting desk #2
May 2, 2009As time goes by, I find myself painting less and less for gaming purposes and more for painting’s sake. For me the best aspect of the hobby is probably the part where I get all excited about some new genre or line of miniatures (which will take years to paint), start a modeling project (that never gets finished) or buy a new rule set (that gets played a few times). Of course I still buy miniatures with the idea that they’ll be used in one game or the other, but I always seem to skip the whole gaming part. Hence, I have a ton of unpainted SWAT for those eventual massive zombie apocalypse games, a fair amount of near future troopers and Horrorclix Aliens for gaming the whole Aliens vs. Colonial Marines scenario, not to mention cops, bikers, terrorists, bank robbers, werewolves, vampires, dragons and whatnot. The fact that I have all these unfinished projects naturally doesn’t stop me from adding to them whenever some new models catch my fancy. Happily, though, I find that I’m not really alone with this situation. Seems that at least every other miniature enthusiast shares the problem(?) of a massive backlog of unpainted lead. Oh well, at least I’ll have something to do when I retire in 40 years or so.
With this introduction, here are the lates minis I’ve painted. You can click on the pictures for a closer view, but in all honesty my level of painting doesn’t really encourage such a thing. You have been warned.
The first is a lieutenant from em4 miniatures for my unit of modern/near-future troopers. These guys serve a double duty as both Colonial Marines dying at the claws of xenomorphs and generic military for trying to contain zombie outbreaks and ending up as nom. They’re clothed in simple urban camouflage gear to suit either of these settings.
Click for a larger version
The second model is a female from Foundry. She could be used for a lot of things. A corporate bodyguard, a businesswoman-turned-survivor, an assassin, a bank robber? I like how the model turned out, especially the face and the red of the clothing.
Click for a larger version
I’m happy with both models, and they were a joy to paint. Both were simple, clean and crisp sculpts with well defined detail. Regardless of whether they’ll ever see any gaming use, they’ve already justified me buying them.
Dead Rising 2
April 29, 2009There aren’t too many games about zombies. Sure, they appear in every other first person shooter as generic enemies, but actual genre games are in short supply, especially if you don’t take into account little Flash games such as Last Stand. Disappointingly the excellent game of zombie mall mayhem, Dead Rising, only appeared on Xbox 360, despite all the rumours about a PC version. Apparently Capcom listened to gamers – the PC game market probably had nothing to do with it – and the appropriately named sequel Dead Rising 2 will appear on the PC as well. The sequel is set in a very Las Vegasy setting called Fortune City, with the zombie epidemic running wild throughout the US. The last thing to combine Las Vegas and zombies was the movie Resident Evil Extinction, so the bar really isn’t set very high.
Viva Las Vegas!
Check out the over-the-top trailer with the world’s most hilarious zombie-killing headgear here.
I can hardly wait. This just might be the most zombie fun on the PC since Left 4 Dead.
From the painting desk #1
April 28, 2009Lately I’ve been painting zombies by Mega Miniatures. The Screaming Alpha has posted an excellent review of these, which I completely agree with, so instead of typing all that again I advise you to pop over to TSA and read the review. And while you’re there, subscribe to the feed, it’s an excellent blog!
The Mega Miniatures zombies are a joy to paint. While they aren’t the most detailed or crisp of sculpts, they can be brought to life (awful pun, sorry) by relatively simple painting. In fact, the upcoming zombie tutorial got started while I worked on these fellows. I hope the few pictures below serve to illustrate on one hand the roughish sculpting but on the other hand the way the characterful models start to look a lot lovelier with a suitable paint job. Click on the images for larger pics.
And a final shot with all of my so far painted MM zombies, including a few lovely zombie kids and the delightful zombie hooker. Don’t let her nom on your junk.
Swine influenza
April 26, 2009Just as I’ve confessed my interest in catastrophes and end of the world scenarios, news reports start piling in about a new potential global pandemic. The H1N1 influenza (aka swine flu) has by some estimates infected 1300+ people in Mexico, with possible infections also spotted in the USA and New Zealand.
While on a rational level I can clearly see the dangers of this infection, it still fascinates me. Will it spread over the entire world? Reach Finland? Will it slip through international safety measures? What if it truly reaches the developing countries of Africa and Asia? Will the deceased get up and devour the living? I swear, when the zombie apocalypse hits, I’ll still be going ohboyohboyohboy (and playing Pandemic 2) when the first zombies are nomming on my flesh.
For a genre aficionado the news articles read like something out of a zombie film:
Following the situation here in Finland, Professor Petri Ruutu of the National Institute for Health and Welfare told YLE that with faster and more common overseas travel, all it takes is for one traveller to become infected.
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The World Health Organisation has said it hasn’t got enough information on the epidemic, and does not yet know if it has spread beyond Mexico and the United States.
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Experts at WHO and elsewhere believe that the world is now closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century’s three pandemics occurred.
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Mexican soldiers and health workers patrolled airports and bus stations as they tried to corral people who may be infected with the swine flu, as it became clearer that the government may have been slow to respond to the outbreak in March and early April.
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CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing it was likely too late to try to contain the outbreak, by vaccinating, treating or isolating people.
And so on. One of the interesting aspects of today’s world is that with all the communication tools available, one can literally observe history being written in real-time. I’m sure to keep watch on this to see how it develops.
Still, something to bear in mind: This is neither a film nor a game, 81 people are dead. There is nothing, and I mean nothing cool and fascinating about that.
Dawn of the Lead 