Peter König is a concept art legend. Over the past quarter of a century his creature designs, sculptures and animation work have been featured in blockbuster hits like Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers and Cloverfield.

Which is all well and good, but he's also spent the last four years working as a concept artist, modeller and texture artist at Valve, where he's lent his talents to the Left 4 Dead series, Portal 2 and DOTA 2.

While there sadly aren't any images from Portal, and only one from DOTA 2, König's Left 4 Dead stuff is a treasure trove of the walking dead, rotting flesh and rejected designs for special infected that involved shooting rats out of a zombie's stomach.

You can see a nice collection of König's body of work, both in games and cinema, at his personal site.

Last week, a very slick-looking trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan flick appeared online. It set a very sombre, serious tone.

Over the weekend, the actual short film was released. It is not what you'll have been expecting.

If you're at all interested in seeing how it was made, you can check out a behind-the-scenes clip here.

Last week, a very slick-looking trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan flick appeared online. It set a very sombre, serious tone.

Over the weekend, the actual short film was released. It is not what you'll have been expecting.

If you're at all interested in seeing how it was made, you can check out a behind-the-scenes clip here.

Valve action figures. Based on Half-life, Team Fortress, Portal and Left 4 Dead. It was amazing news back in June, but since then, all we've seen is teases. Nothing final. That changes today.

Figure maker NECA took the wraps off the first Left 4 Dead action figure, the Boomer, which isn't due until well into 2012. NECA's figures can be pretty hit-and-miss when it comes to things like proportions and joints, so it's good to see him looking spot-on.

In addition to the Boomer shots, NECA also showed off a prototype image of a Smoker zombie, which is looking just as good.

Valve's Left 4 Dead Boomer – 1st Full-Color Pic Out! [NECA, thanks John!]

Left 4 Dead isn't exactly the most romantic game. It's not romantic at all. But that doesn't mean it isn't a wonderful place to ask for a lady's hand in marriage.

That's exactly what one gamer did. In the above video, things start out normal enough, then the level is ripped apart, and then things get sweet.

The mod was created by RT Frisk for the young man who asked for Jessica's hand. And according to him, she did say "yes"—only after asking him if he was kidding.

Left 4 Dead 2 Proposal [YouTube via Dtoid]

Blood. Zombies. Despair. Cigarette smoke. Guns. They're about all the buttons that need pushing from a Left 4 Dead movie, and this fan-made trailer - for a flick shot in a weekend - gets 'em all.

Don't you go forgetting that Valve Presents: The Sacrifice And Other Steam-Powered Stories goes on sale later this month.

The book collects Left 4 Dead: the Sacrifice, Team Fortress 2: War!, Mac, Loose Canon, Bidwell's Big Plan, Meet the Director and associated materials; and Portal: Lab Rat into one easy to grasp collection with a forward by Australia's own Saxton Hale.

The 208-page hardcover book will run you $25 and, according to Hale at least, it's meant for children and simpletons.

For the past 15 years, Sweden's Yami has been cosplaying. While others might favor cool or cute characters, Yami specializes in zombies, gore, and the stuff of nightmares.

In these images, she cosplays as characters and zombies from Resident Evil, RE5, Left 4 Dead, and The Walking Dead.

"I love to cheer my love for zombies to the world," Yami told Kotaku.

Yami's currently planning a series of new cosplays that range from Left 4 Dead 2's Ellis to Mass Effect's Female Shepard.

For more photos and more zombie love, check out Yami's site in the link below.

YAMI_NO_COSMOS WEBSITE! [Official Site]

"We hang together, or we fucked." Truer words have never been spoken, in or out of a co-op trailer for Dead Island.

Whenever you see a ragtag group of survivors banding together to try and survive a zombie apocalypse, comparisons to Valve's Left 4 Dead series are inevitable. So I won't make any. You folks will get around to it, I'm sure.

The importation of original Left 4 Dead maps into Left 4 Dead 2 rolls on, with the latest update to "Dead Air" delivering a new version of the Terminal map. Valve says the update brings matters "pretty close to being complete" but "at this stage what we really need is more testing." It's found a way to get you to do that.

Play a complete game of Versus in "Dead Air" and you will get an achievement, Valve says. When 60,000 people earn that achievement, the beta version of "Blood Harvest," the next map to be released, will be unlocked the following weekday.

"60,000 is going to be hard," L4D2's team writes on the official blog. "You can't rage quit and you need to work together."

Valve asks that gamers who get the achievement help others reach it as well, and post feedback and bugs to the Steam Forums and on the game's Facebook page. Progress toward 60,000 will be announced via Twitter.

Connecting Flights [Left 4 Dead Blog]