Our jet judo needs a little more work

This was a simple project to try out my new camera. I've been using a Panasonic FZ-200 bridge camera previously. Now I'm using a Canon 70D. My workflow needs some modifying. Although I haven't figured out how to do the white background easily with the Canon, the figures are still very easy to extract because the edges are so much sharper.

Masterpiece Sideswipe, Badcube Sunsurge, and the parachute accessory from Mastermind Creations Sphinx were all shot separately. I used layer masks to place the parachute ropes in the figures' hands. The parachute itself was the most difficult thing to photograph because it kept wanting to return to a flat shape. The sky was shot on a cloudy summer evening, using a Hoya FLW filter. A final Warming Photo Filter was used to tie all the colors together.

Got Masterpiece Hot Rod incoming. That can only mean trying to recreate a couple of iconic scenes with him as I try to learn how to shoot with the Canon.

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More Than Meets the Eye - Hound vs Rumble

Although this multi-part episode has two scenes where Hound tosses Rumble, I wanted to try some new techniques so chose the underwater scene.

I shot Maketoys Gundog on some Toyhax desert tile stages. The rocks in the foreground and background were cut and pasted in from some shots I had taken at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Masterpiece Rumble was added in using layer masks so I could get one leg in front and one leg in back of Gundog. He's a bit on the small side so I had to scale him up a bit. There were a lot of plastic flash and paint blemishes to cover up.

The Filter Gallery actually has an Ocean Ripple filter, but I found the Canvas Glass filter to provide the effect I wanted. It's not quite perfect, but close enough. This resulted in a lot cleaning up around the edges of the figures though. I also added a dark blue overlay to darken the scene.

Unfortunately, Photoshop hiccuped or something. Although I was saving constantly, after I did an export and closed down the app, I couldn't find my project file. I searched the entire disc for it, and it's not in the Recently Opened list. I'll just have to recreate it. More practice I guess.

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So much for your resurrection!

I must admit that my recollection of Seasons 3 and 4 are spotty at best. Thank goodness for DVDs. Now I can go through all the episodes for scenes to recreate.

I photographed Masterpiece Optimus Prime and DX9 Tyrant separately. This made it easier to scale them with each other in the scene. There wasn't much needed doing except to clean up some screw holes on both figures. Posing Tyrant was a compromise between getting the angle that I wanted while keeping his face from being blocked by his shoulder pylons.

The purple background is a photo of my Mechanical Chain Base panels after running it through a Sprayed Strokes Filter Gallery. I don't have a pile of junk to photograph so I used a castle piece from a board game. The little item in the foreground is the Immobilizer accessory that comes with Masterpiece Exhaust. All were run through a Blur Filter and had Saturation Layers applied to change their colors.

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Auto Beserk

This turned out to be a lot more involved than I had originally thought. I took separate shots of Masterpiece Optimus Prime and Red Alert, Maketoys Hellfire, and Generations Hoist. This was necessary because Hellfire's arms aren't long enough to hold Red Alert in that position.

Red Alert's legs were pasted into position from two separate shots, one for each leg, because he can't actually bend into the position that I needed and to prevent a robot up-skirt shot. I used those odd brushes to apply the scorch marks. I had mispositioned Optimus Prime's arm for the shot so had to resort to cutting and pasting it into a new angle.

The sky is a shot of cloudy summer evening.

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The Golden Lagoon

The little birds that come with X-Transbots Arkose are not really that detailed and don't match the ones in this particular scene, but they are close enough. I took a shot of him with the white bird balanced on his hand. The other two birds were taken from a different shot of them pegged into his shoulders. I simply cut them out and dropped them into the final scene. The sky was from a cloudy summer day. I applied a cooling filter to the whole scene to unify the color scheme.

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Such Heroic Nonsense

For me, this scene removed any doubt that four of our favorite Autobots would be rejoining the fight later in the movie.

To get the source picture, I had to stitch together a couple of screen captures because it was a pan up from Ironhide to Megatron. There are a few floating around the Internet, but I wanted a higher resolution capture of it.

Ironhide was a simple shot of him kneeling. I drew on the cracks in his back and used one of those dotted brushes to simulate electrical sparks in the hole in his back.

Megatron was a little trickier. X-Transbots Apollyon, as much as I enjoy the figure for all its G1 likeness, is a pain to pose and shoot. His arms are constantly falling off. I really should take the time to apply some floor polish to those shoulder joints. He was shot in a lying position, using Haywire from Unique Toys Buzzing to help prop up his cannon arm. The angles are not exact, but I'm satisfied with it.

Once again, the ceiling is my trusty set of Mechanical Chain Base panels. I applied a Hue/Saturation layer to get the orange color. The darker area was achieved by applying a second Hue/Saturation layer. The lights and Apollyon's cannon glow are an Inner/Outer Glow layer style with the shapes painted on with a brush. I created the blue screen by running a blue square through a Grain Texture filter, then drawing on some lines.

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We're in for trouble ... big trouble

I suppose I could have done this shot previously with TFC Ironwill, but I just wasn't feeling it with that figure. Masterpiece Ironhide, with his crying face, is a much better fit for this scene. Ironhide's quick release button for his face should be a new standard feature. I could have waited for Masterpiece Ratchet as well. I can always drop him in when the figure comes out.

Ironhide, Wheeljack, and Gundog were shot together. Medic was shot separately since I wanted to maintain that weird animation error of this scene. I had to scoot Gundog to the left more to avoid hiding his face behind Ironhide's arm.

The background is just a set of Mechanical Chain Base panels with a Hue/Saturation layer applied to make it orange. The monitors were created by just painting on a blue square and then running it through a Grain Texture filter. The rock is a shot of a boulder at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve with a Hue/Saturation layer applied to remove the moss color.

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The Battle of Autobot City

Ever since the pilot episode, I think this was the large scale battle we've all been waiting for. Too bad they didn't show more robot-on-robot carnage. Why does Optimus Prime always station Omega Supreme in the middle of no where?

This turned out to be a fairly simple project. Maketoys Wrestle can't double-fist his rifle because his chest gets in the way. Fans Toys Tesla is simply bending over at the hips. I don't have a pile of scrap metal to photograph so I made do with a large boulder.

The sky was shot on a cloudy summer evening with a Hoya Orange HMC filter. The explosion was painted on with my custom smoke brush. The ground is an enlargement of a boulder at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, with a hue saturation applied to remove most of the moss colors. I added a graduated field blur to the boulder to simulate some depth of field. I also placed a spotlight in the middle of the shot to give a subtle lighting effect to Tesla's side and the ground. The blaster bolts are just layers with Inner and Outer glow turned on.

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