Laura Neville: The Omega Girl, Part 1

_DSC0029_0073 -1 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Laura Neville is a post-apocalyptic survivor, somewhere in California. Laura spends her days scrounging for food, looting pharmacies and gun stores, sunbathing, exercising and hunting down mutants. In her spare time, she looks for evidence of other non-mutant survivors in her areas, takes selfies, and listens to foreign language broadcasts on her multi-band radio. She hasn't found any broadcasts in English to date and can’t understand the ones in foreign languages, but she listens to them just to reassure herself there are other survivors someplace.


Though she’s never been particularly vain or self-involved, Laura has been taking selfies and shooting photos of herself both digitally and with instant type cameras, and putting these on her laptop and writing fake articles about herself, for imaginary magazines and newspapers, which help her deal with her isolation and solitude.
Her personality is outgoing and friendly and she has a bold, self-confident nature,
 
SB32-2_0007 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr


Pre-Apocalypse Occupation: Junior aerospace engineer, NASA JPL.

Home Town:  Pasadena CA

Favourite Song: California Girls by Katy Perry

Favorite Guns. MP5, MP40, M1 carbine, Glock 17,

Favourite sports:  Beach volleyball, surfing, waterskiing, jogging, downhill skiing, women’s soccer, softball, sky diving.

Favourite movies:  Ben Hur, The Planet of The Apes (1968)  Earthquake, Airport 1975, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Major Dundee, Khartoum, The Naked Jungle, Two Minute Warning.

Favorite Car:  1961 Corvette.

Favorite TV Show:  The Walking Dead

Favorite cocktail:  Blue Lagoon, Mai Tai, Margarita

Hobbies:  Chess, building and flying ultralight aircraft.

Biggest turn-ons: Flying ultralights, auto racing, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Biggest Turn-offs: Country music, body hair, wimpy guys, wimpy girls, people who drive too slowly, mutants.



_DSC0050_0093 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Though never marijuana user before the poop hit the fan, she seems to enjoy the occasional toke now, having found plenty of grow ops and plants on her recon missions to search for food and other necessities. In her diary, she writes that MJ accentuates here awareness of her surroundings and heightens her paranoia, both of which are survival aids.
SB32-2_0003 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Laura's first weapon when the big one got dropped was this old vintage WWII era M1 carbine which last saw action with US advisors during the Vietnam war.  Grandad, who was in the Green Berets and used one just like it, bought this one surplus after being discharged from the service back in the early 70's and it's been passed down from generation to generation. Laura likes it because it is lightweight and handy and has all the killing power it needs to blow a mutant's head off, but ammo for this old war horse is getting hard to come by and so it might soon end up as a reserve weapon, to be superseded in field use by an M4.  

SB32-2_0009 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

SB32-2_0027 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

The only other human survivors Laura has encountered thus far are technology hating mutant Luddites who naturally want her dead because she represents technology and the old world order, but Laura has thus far managed to keep the location of her hideout secret having been very successful at killiing each and every mutant that has gotten anywhere near to it.

_DSC0051_0094 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

_DSC0070_0113 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Laura relaxes and takes a quick toke as she carries out a patrol.  The mutants are primarily nocturnal anyway, having learned that they'll get the brains blown out by Laura's accurate sniper fire if the move around by day.  Her first submachine gun was a WWII MP40 which had been a reserve weapon for the LAPD for some decades after the war, being supplanted by the MP5.  Now Laura hopes to find herself an MP5 also, even though she likes the old MP40 a lot and had dropped many a mutant with it.  She finds it particularly handy when clearing a building or a narrow ally.

Well, that's all for now. I will post more updates on Laura an her adventures as I make them up. I hope you enjoy them.

She looks very fresh, and the outdoor shots are as beautiful as ever. Given her clean-cut innocent looks (though looks can be deceiving), I would have guessed that she is a goodie two-shoes that is forced to do whatever it takes to survive, while at the same time not compromising her integrity (nor dulling her senses) any more than she has to.

Nice play on The Omega Man. And I like her choice of films, too! Nice outdoor shots.

If you haven’t done so, I recommend Richard Matheson’s book “I Am Legend” — and if you can manage to find it, the first screen adaptation from the mid 60s with Vincent Price (The Last Man on Earth — the closest adaptation of his book, the screenplay of which was written by Matheson himself under a pseudonym) —much better than the Heston version, and infinitely better than that garbage version with Will Smith (the only redeeming points of that film were his performance and the score by James Newton Howard).

GubernatorFan wrote:She looks very fresh, and the outdoor shots are as beautiful as ever. Given her clean-cut innocent looks (though looks can be deceiving), I would have guessed that she is a goodie two-shoes that is forced to do whatever it takes to survive, while at the same time not compromising her integrity (nor dulling her senses) any more than she has to.

Yes, I think she has always been a goodie-two shoes in a way; a top student and athlete. Also gregarious and popular, which makes the current situation very difficult and lonely. But like any good engineer, she works the problem. She has learned not to let down her guard, but as in the movie, daylight hours are generally the safest.

Stryker2011 wrote:Nice play on The Omega Man. And I like her choice of films, too! Nice outdoor shots.

If you haven’t done so, I recommend Richard Matheson’s book “I Am Legend” — and if you can manage to find it, the first screen adaptation from the mid 60s with Vincent Price (The Last Man on Earth — the closest adaptation of his book, the screenplay of which was written by Matheson himself under a pseudonym) —much better than the Heston version, and infinitely better than that garbage version with Will Smith (the only redeeming points of that film were his performance and the score by James Newton Howard).

I'll see what I can do to find them. As for her choice of films, I wonder how many are old enough to get the implied joke in the selection.

She looks great, TPB! I was curious what you would do with this girl [aside from the artistic nudes, which were also very nice], and I like the results. That dark green tank looks gorgeous with her pale hair and colouring. And your photoshoot is lovely as always, great lighting and poses! Glad to see you were able to get outside for a bit.

skywalkersaga wrote:She looks great, TPB! I was curious what you would do with this girl [aside from the artistic nudes, which were also very nice], and I like the results. That dark green tank looks gorgeous with her pale hair and colouring. And your photoshoot is lovely as always, great lighting and poses! Glad to see you were able to get outside for a bit.

Thanks much. Given the model's slender shoulders, the tank was the only thing I had that wouldn't look completely outsize on her. Unlike the characters in the movies, she is an engineer as apposed to a doctor, albeit a junior one. Notwithstanding, she uses her engineering and technical knowledge to solve problems. She powers her hideout using solar panels and has a gasifier-generator for backup. Speaking of back-ups, much like the spacecraft she helped design at JPL, she has back-ups for everything, including her hideout. In addition to the main, she has several alternates with hidden supplies, weapon and ammo pre-placed. She is very methodical and plans each and every day's activity in advance.

Nice idea with the profile, adding to her social media personality  character. That cigarette pic in natural sunlight is very classy.

Ovy wrote:Nice idea with the profile, adding to her social media personality  character. That cigarette pic in natural sunlight is very classy.

Yeah, I was thinking the profile format would be an amusing thing to do with all of my figures. I like that photo also. Except for the weapon, it could almost pass for a 1960's or 70's cigarette ad from a magazine.

Looks nice, sometimes I wish I had some nature nearby, all I have is a barren parking lot lol.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Looks nice, sometimes I wish I had some nature nearby, all I have is a barren parking lot lol.

Thanks.  I don't have that much nature nearby myself actually.  The first shot is in a sandbox in a park across the street and the shots on the rocks are a couple of meters away where a retaining wall was made of boulders from different types of rock. The trick is to keep the shot narrow and use selective focus, both to eliminate detail in a way that allows the camera to fool the eye.

 For what it's worth, shooting outdoors can be very rewarding if you are able to deal with the discrepancies in scale, but at the same time, a pain in the butt as bring everything you want to use with you, have to deal with wind knocking over your figures, well-meaning passers-by who want to ask you a thousand irritating questions as you work, and of course, young kids who naturally want to reach for your figures the instant they see them.  This being said, the quality of natural light, particularly when the sun is lower in the sky is one of my favorite reasons for shooting outdoors when I can.

Love her background story, and the photos are gorgeous. Judging from her choice of films, she must have quite the thing for Charlton Heston . Perfect choice of head for her, and very fitting for the character. Dig her a lot!

ReverendSpooky wrote:Love her background story, and the photos are gorgeous.  Judging from her choice of films, she must have quite the thing for Charlton Heston .  Perfect choice of head for her, and very fitting for the character.  Dig her a lot!

The Charlton Heston thing is an inside joke to for those who are old enough to remember "The Omega Man," since she has the same last name and obviously, her character is in a similar situation. It seemed fitting to make all her fave films Charlton Heston ones.

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:

ReverendSpooky wrote:Love her background story, and the photos are gorgeous.  Judging from her choice of films, she must have quite the thing for Charlton Heston .  Perfect choice of head for her, and very fitting for the character.  Dig her a lot!

The Charlton Heston thing is an inside joke to for those who are old enough to remember "The Omega Man," since she has the same last name and obviously, her character is in a similar situation.  It seemed fitting to make all her fave films Charlton Heston ones.

Had a feeling that was the case, but couldn't help but think she might also have a bit of a Heston crush. No judgement! lol. And I second Stryker's recommendation of Matheson’s I Am Legend. It's really solid.

ReverendSpooky wrote:

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:

ReverendSpooky wrote:Love her background story, and the photos are gorgeous.  Judging from her choice of films, she must have quite the thing for Charlton Heston .  Perfect choice of head for her, and very fitting for the character.  Dig her a lot!

The Charlton Heston thing is an inside joke to for those who are old enough to remember "The Omega Man," since she has the same last name and obviously, her character is in a similar situation.  It seemed fitting to make all her fave films Charlton Heston ones.

Had a feeling that was the case, but couldn't help but think she might also have a bit of a Heston crush.  No judgement! lol.  And I second Stryker's recommendation of Matheson’s I Am Legend.  It's really solid.  

She might also have a Heston Crush, just as Kamiko, for all her insolence has a Sean Connery / Early James Bond crush and which is hinted at slightly in "Kamiko to the Rescue."