When Bad Things Happen to Good Zombies
by BONZO, HSM Editor
Heavy Water is one of the edgier developers in Home. They bring us the tattoos, the pop culture inspired Peeps, the vintage style pin-up girls; all through several brands like Heavy Pets, Heavy Inked, and Heavy Strike. But they have also brought us something we wouldn’t expect from them to begin with in Avalon Keep. Now, they’ve experimented into something off the norm for them yet again by getting into the spirit of Halloween and bringing us some really cool spooky stuff.
Now understand, what I have learned in my time with HSM is that there is a difference between simply having an opinion and understanding why you have that opinion. And while this publication endeavors to be a Sony positive journalistic venture, you may note there has been a lot of criticism in the past, albeit delivered in a very constructive manner. While I love much of what Heavy Water has produced, particularly with Heavy Pets, I have criticized their design choices with x7. And now I am going to deliver a heavy critique of their zombie costumes.
Flesh doesn’t stay red for long
In all fairness to Heavy Water, I have to confess that I am a zombie snob. I have probably watched one in two of every zombie movie which has been made, and I am a huge George Romero and Robert Kirkman fan. Walking Dead is currently one of my favorite series, and Tom Savini is a master who has spoiled me in the art of the zombie. While I am trying my best to remain objective, it is difficult to get a fan of a genre to not be a little biased. If you don’t get Star Wars right, the fans will rip you apart — and the same goes for fans of any genre or well-known franchise.
Is it fair for a fan to be so critical? Well, who else but a fan will want to walk around in an outfit that makes you look like you have a perpetual case of necrosis?
Let me begin with what Heavy Water got right. They are gruesome. Particularly the female “broken jaw.” This is a character with a back story. A female marathon runner unfortunate enough to be number thirteen and ending up an accursed walking dead. The jaw does look like it is broken and barely hanging on, and there is plenty of torn off skin to expose muscle tissue. The most gruesome part is the torso, with the intestinal organs completely exposed. The male is just as disgusting, with half the face ripped off, and a gaping bullet wound on the back of the head. The exposed tissue, and missing flesh, and even some missing parts like the toes on the male outfit are gory and macabre.
So if they are gruesome and nasty, what did they get wrong?
For starters, they are way too clean. Even the hints of violence are too cleaned up, and they look more like anatomy dolls than zombie victims. The dirtiest texture is on the female runner’s chest, so whatever zombie was gnawing on those things had one thing in mind, because those exposed mammaries are cringe-worthy. But as far as the torn flesh and the rest of the skin, everything looks like it was surgically done. The lines are sharp, and the exposed flesh is too red.
I can forgive the color — there’s nothing saying it doesn’t have to be a fresh kill — but skin doesn’t rip so cleanly. So they look less like zombie victims, and more like some alien mutilation performed with the surgical precision of a laser. There’s little to no bleeding, and need I remind you that these largely exposed, half naked zombies are stumbling around half naked. They just aren’t plain dirty enough; the skin looks freshly washed. The textures need to be richer, dirtier, blood dried to a dark brown, and dirt stains.
Not to mention that the skin looks surprisingly healthy, considering the gruesome state of the rest of the body. Why isn’t it pale, sallow, and sickly gray? This victim would have lost a lot of blood considering the extent of the wounds, and yet they still have a healthy pink hue. Then there is the hair; just because it is a zombie it doesn’t absolve it from the necessity of hair. Did the female victim shave her head before she was attacked? There should be clumps of hair, barely hanging on, and clotted into bloody clusters of hair. The male can be a little more forgivable, but would have looked more interesting to see hair clumps on the edge of the hairline not ripped away by the bullet wound.
Lastly, there is no locomotion for this outfit. Granted, you can buy individual pieces, but it is also sold as a bundle. I wish they had looked at the practice of the Raver Neon Man from Konami; they sold a full-body outfit with custom emotes, and individual pieces which had no custom emote. The custom locomotion could have been an incentive for buying the full body suit over individual pieces. So that’s more of an ideal addition to the outfit, and not a deal-breaking flaw of the outfit overall. There are other zombie outfits which have no custom locomotion; the free outfit from the Zombie Deadquarters personal space, for example. But the major flaw of these otherwise gruesome outfits is the lack of texture on the all-too-clean bodies.
Zombies are dirty, heavily textured, and although it may seem like a zombie outfit is easy to do by just mangling a body up in an ungodly manner, the devil is in the details — and the details of the textures are what can make or break the effect. We have been seeing zombies for over five decades now, and the evolution of the zombie is an interesting one, but we are spoiled by a large variation of effects, and thus the zombie is heavily judged by its execution.
Heavy Water didn’t completely drop the ball — these zombies are stomach turning and horrid — but they look more like a reanimated autopsy patient than a zombie victim.
October 12th, 2012 by BONZO | 2 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Couldn’t have put it better myself. I made the silly mistake of buying my Halloween stuff too early last year. Even though I got the new Rack and Iron Maiden, oh, and that pumpkin tree-stump thing that glows this year already, I’m holding off costume parts till the very end this year. Saying that I did impress myself with my Vamp costume I made myself last year. I think the costumes that can look the best are those made from other clothing items and some imagination.
I agree with you Krazy I have fun doing that for Halloween. Nice read Bonzo