Walking Dead stories?

[willc453]

Anyone watching the Walking Dead tv series and interested in the new series that takes place on the West Coast? Been thinking about writing such a story, but with a twist due to a guys story at the Survivalist Boards web site called What Does Hollywood Know About Zombies? His zombies DON"T shuffle along and are NOT easily out run. They can actually do brief bursts of speed as in almost like an Olympic runner.   Got to reading the guys story and unfortunately, the only way you can read the entire story is to order it via Amazon for either a Kindle read, though he says there is the option of down loading it to pdf format so you can read it on your computer or print it out. And don't know if a pistol/rifle/baseball shot at a zombies head kills it. Thought some might enjoy looking at a diorama a guy made and of course, a poster I found online.

 

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[freshwaterpearl]

His zombies sound more like vampires. I think the zombie shuffle is because these guys were dead, buried, and decomposing. You just can’t expect the muscles and skeleton to be working together like a fine tuned fiddle.

I’m sure one could give the zombies a secret energy drink or put a real good battery on them. But, c’mon. Let zombies be zombies and the super running zombies be something else. Maybe if they could have a burst of super speed, then drop dead.

So, surprise me. Write a story about zombies who are dead but healthier than they were before.

[willc453]

Sorry for the late entry, but kind of busy writing/thinking of other stories. Have The Layover and some of The Affected stories here. Newest Affected story is called Brainiac (smartest man in the world) which is posted at Kaijafon's Chatter web site, though it will be posted here in a few more days. Ready to go is V's story, who is Brainiacs wife but it's not being entered until I have entered all of Brainiacs chapters AND finished Tale of Two Brothers. There are chapters in Brainiacs story that won't be entered until I'm done with Tale Of Two Brothers as I have a couple of sneaky plot twists in Brainiacs and V's stories that have them dealing/interacting with Ben. Started another Affected story about 1-2 pages long so far, sending it to Kaijafon for a quick review. She seems to like it. Working on 1 of 3 other Affected stories where the Affected know each other. They're young MALE college students suddenly given Affected abilities with me having them as geeks/nerds with no social lives other than with other male college geeks/nerds.

On The Layover story, she's (and some other women) repeatedly showed me I don't know jack sh*t about women and jack aint here. And yes, I have been working a little bit on The Layover, as in 4-5 pages worth. Which is why Brainiac got posted there first in order to help build up her readership. As Andy would say, what goes around, comes around.

Been mulling over the origins of zombies appearing, but it's going be like The Layover, realistic as possible, though haven't figured/thought out how long it's going to be. Haven't decided if it's going to start in Sacramento (where there are 2 Hooter restaurants) or better yet, north of Portola and Quincy which are in Calif. You're right about slow/shuffling zombies, if it aint broke, don't fix it. Looking at where the zombies MUST devour a certain amount of living flesh in order to move, other wise they slow down even more, maybe even being hardly able to move. And what happens if a pig, chicken, crow or vulture (for examples) eats one of these barely moving zombies....do they turn into zombies? Can you imagine being attacked by a zombie pig/crow/chicken/vulture...with the birds being able to fly if they eat enough living flesh? Also thinking maybe zombies can smell the living? Why not? After all, how many zombie movies show them shuffling towards a sound being made?

Adding to all of this, is 1/2 page of a story about MIB's (Men In Black) and it is NOT like those 3 movies. Deals with suppression by the govt. by ANY means necessary that alien ships have landed/crashed on earth. Only got half a page on that one as I find myself addicted to mnn2300's mind crack about the affected.

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[kaijafon]

I don't have tv anymore. so can't watch anymore

[willc453]

This is why children should be watched at all times and not allowed free rein on the computer/internet. Started off with finding a free newspaper generating program, then thought why not create my own newspaper w/photos. It's a rough draft and will have to be reduced to 1/35th scale size, but think it has potential to put in some dioramas I'm working on and hopefully, get others to thinking about doing a zombie story or three. First one is mine, others are via Google. And for some reason, my photos aren't in color. 

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fake nv newspaper.jpg.pdf (359.48 KB)

[willc453]

Anyone watching Fear The Walking Dead tv series? Happened to catch a few advertisement on YouTube and checked Ebay to see what the first season was going for. How about a new, 2 disc set for $10 w/free shipping? Bought it and it's not bad....actually, in some ways it's better than The Walking Dead series because those people NEVER seem to have their act together and of course, what few episodes I did catch while in the Frisco VA hospital, they seem to run a villain of the week...so what happened to all the zombies? How would you write a story based on the Fear, etc. series AND being locked up in a "safe zone"? Gee, what happened to all those FEMA camps I see/hear about on YouTube? We're from the govt. and here to help you....and by the way, you can't leave this safe zone and if you do, we'll shoot you?

Of course, I'm NOT impressed with the family....they should of died real quick. Heroin using son with mommy running to help him all the time, saying she'll make it better. S.O.B. should of croaked, especially when I saw him using the morphine for a man dying while telling mommy he was weaning himself off the heroin. No wonder her first husband left her. As to her 2nd, he reminds me of Tom Cruise as the father in War of the Worlds....father in name only. The one character I really liked was the fat kid that mommy met at the high school....that boy was a scrounger/ ready to be prepper. Reminded me of the fat kid in the Japanese animation series High School Of The Dead. Which was a great series and I didn't even mind the bouncing boobies and panty shots.  And I checked to make sure it was all natural fleshy boobies and not some silicone job either. 

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[willc453]

Need some zombie/apocalypse story muse? Getting back into modeling, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be because of lack of figures. All of mine are male, military. The other is lack of wimmen?! There are resin figures available, but they run $10 to $30 EACH?! Bought 2 figures and 2 sets of injection molded women, but going to change/modify/mold/re-cast these figures. In the mean time, got these Google images to keep my modeling mojo built up:

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[papaof2]

Sounds like a place for a 3D printer. There are free (and paid) designs for all sorts of figures - human and otherwise - plus vehicles, buildings and trees. The ready-made 3D printers start under $300 - divide that by the cost of a single figure and see how many pieces you'd need to create to break even. If you're a little bit handy (and a lot patient) you can get a kit (Anet A8) that can print things up to 8 x 8 x 8 inches for under $200 delivered. 3D printing is both art and science, as the quality of the print can be affected by room temperature and drafts (it is just melted plastic ;-) As jack did in "Jack's War", I see a 3D printer as a source of otherwise unavailable parts.

My A8 kit is waiting for me to finish the solar power project - think BIG UPS that can run selected items for 8 to 10 hours so I'm not outside setting up a generator at night or during a thunderstorm (or both). Most of the piece-parts are here and the 4 gauge battery cables (for interconnecting the 6 batteries of the 540AH battery bank) were in the mailbox when I slogged out there in the rain a few minutes ago. Today, this project has high priority as most of the state is under thunderstorm, tornado and flash flood watches and the northern part of our county is currently under a severe thunderstorm warning. Across the state, there are more than 3,000 customers without power, some being as-yet unrepaired damage from Monday's storms.

The good people on this forum have contributed to my projects, as most of the royalties from the Kindle version of "Accidental Family" have gone into preps. Thank you.

[willc453]

A few weeks ago, spent some time on YouTube checking out 3D printers, prices and printing quality along with 3D scanners. Biggest problem I see with a lot of them is ridges (?), where the plastic is built up. Just may go the route of a 3D scanner, use it on a figure and then modify it on the computer such as changing it's position, clothing, etc. Just as long as the printer figure doesn't have ridges, other wise sticking with making molds and casting resin parts.

[papaof2]

3D printers work by laying down a stream of melted plastic. The size of the nozzle. the type of filament, the temperature of the print bed and the speed of the print head all affect the thickness of each layer. That's something you must work out for each type filament you use - keep written notes ;-)

There are also solutions that will provide smoothing for some of the filaments - think very thin layer of melting. You lose a little detail to gain smoothness.

Those tidbits are from a LOT of research (and gigabytes of saved info). In another month or so, I'll have my Anet printer together and will have some real world experience. I do have parts to build an enclosure for the printer to help maintain a constant temperature.

[pbbrown0]

My Dad was a mechanical engineer and spent almost his entire career designing equipment and machinery used to manufacture "cutting edge" aircraft. He said the 3D printing technology is being refined now to use metal alloys and composites. That will make it possible to do things in manufacturing that have never before been possible with "tooling". With the 3D build up process parts with hollow spaces, even with strength enhancing designs like honeycomb shapes or ribs within a hollow outer shell, can be created out of uniform and integrated materials. Previously these types of structures had to be build in multiple stages and then the various layers had to be attached or bonded through expensive and complicated processes. (He actually pioneered a lot of those processes, so he knows just how complicated and expensive they are.)

This technology is only in it's infancy right now. The big question is how long does it have to continue developing before the 'reset'?

[papaof2]

I see the practical aspects of 3D printing even with its current limitations.

You can print a honeycomb structure that is light, strong and can support appreciable weight. The biggest limit is the size of the print area. As the area gets larger, the printer structure requires more rigidity to prevent flexing and loss of accuracy. The Anet A8 is popular because it's print area is 8 inches on a side and 8 inches high. If it helps with visualizing the size of the space, the lower 2/3 of a gallon milk jug would fit in that 8x8x8 space with at least an inch of clearance in all dimensions.

Jack produced a distributor rotor for an old tractor in "Jack's War". Other than the speed of the printer, all that I mentioned is available for a few hundred dollars (if you use your smartphone as the camera for the 3D scanner). Multiply the price by 5 or 10 and you get the speed (the production line model that was mentioned). A number of 3D printer parts are themselves produced on 3D printers. You can download the design/print files and print your own. We are in the age of the (partially) self-reproducing machine - the large mechanicals (the metal rods the motors move on), the electronics (microprocessor) and the electrics (heating elements, stepper motors) are not (yet) printable and are produced by traditional processes.

Go to thingiverse.com and search for a vehicle brand. There are designs for replacement knobs for dash-mounted controls and many other things. Sometimes not as pretty as the original, but available TODAY. For older vehicles, the original parts might not be available at all. The tractor I had in mind was the Ford 8N, of which Ford built more than half a million in the years 1947 to 1952.
www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/2/2/223-ford-8n.html

Some of those tractors are still around and the initial rotor material would most likely have been Bakelite - as was the rotor for the flathead V8 in my '49 Ford.