The Importance Of Not Being A Zombie

So the vibe for last month was zombies. Some would say its always zombies for me. I've just seen some Star Wars Legion zombies. Zomtober has been a mini painting challenge that I have been aware for about a decade and when I have had the time and motivation, participated in. My friends all know that I have a penchant for zombies in table top games and just about every other media. I should probably remove the word penchant and replace it with reputation. An not the good kind of reputation.

I was going to get my entire collection of zombie minis out of their respective cases so I could take a picture for the blog. I decided that I didn't have enough energy or the thirty minutes it would take to do this. So you will have to cope with this.

I watched the original Dawn of the Dead with mates when I was about seventeen. I've kinda been stuck on the idea ever since. Not that I want it to happen or think it is scientifically realistic (well maybe The Last of Us has some science behind it). When I first saw the film it was supposed to be an allegory (no really it wasn't just a low budget horror film) for the eventual end of the world brought in by excessive consumption and societal complacency.

The Last of Us is perhaps a little more pertinent to our world. Environmental change will sadly bring about a lot of changes but hopefully not too much brain eating fungus. There are some that would question if these are zombies but by any way I look at it, they are. Here you don't just have the ruin but the rot as well. On the tabletop I like this look of the mushroom growths as terrain.

I was recently taken by The Last Signal by Black Site Studios. This involves zombies, and other much weirder stuff, caused by a "mysterious technology catastrophe." Here it is not a virus or a fungus causing the zombies, its an addiction to technology which eventually takes over the brain. If you have read the Simon Stålenhag books or watched Tales From the Loop o/ The Electric State, you have an idea about the early stages but things get much worse. This feels closer to what is going on in the real world. Again more my metaphor or allegory. 

Clearly none of that could never happen. I mean look how far we have come? Oh. Well now that you come to mention it. It's almost prophetic.

Zombies have become very much the metaphor for what is going on in the world around. Hopefully, not a metaphor for my own life. The world is a better place without literal or metaphorical zombies. I don't think that is the world we are going to get. 

Back in the real world. As close as I get to it apparently. I wanted to make some space on the bench so I figured I could get some of the hexes finished.

These are for the hexagonal edge strop I am working on. The white stuff is covered in tiny hexes with the eye on a sci-fi city-scape. I am calling this set Paradise City with a nod to Guns n Roses. I have a heavily damaged set in progress already although not as far along. This is being called Paradise City Lost with a nod to Milton.