Nemesis

Nemesis

I still love Planet X Apocalypse. It is definitely a conversation piece. How could any guest not acknowledge a large robot standing guard on the coffee table? Unfortunately with no space to display large pieces in the living room, I have dispersed the larger figures to the bedrooms, much to my family's annoyance.

Apocalypse is too big for my light tent and my acrylic sheets so I had to shoot him on a piece of white poster board, then painstakingly cut him out. I'm a bit out of practice so hopefully I didn't leave too much of an outline. I added the purple glows in Photoshop because I ran out of those little batteries to make use of his light-up feature. 

The star field is from a couple of Noise layers. The nebulas are from a cloud photo I had taken somewhere and colored with a Color Dodge layer using my custom smoke brush. Both suns and the small planet are created from Sphere Distortions of marble textures I found online, then color graded with Layer Styles and Photo Filters. Using Color Dodge as the Outer Glow Blend Mode causes them to interact with the cloud layer underneath, giving them their asymmetrical halo. The foreground is a NASA photo of our own atmosphere. And of course, I wrapped it all up with a lens flare.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-ZQN9mcTUHsog4nsslT6jc7rv5QNYrCy

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Jurassic Battle

Giant robot dinosaurs! Why are they fighting on some moon in some distant solar system? Who cares. I justed wanted to use Planet X Apocalypse in a space scene.

Apocalypse, Vulcun, and Caelus were shot together because they are interacting with each other. Quirinus, Summanus, and Neptune were shot separately and dropped into the picture. I had to cut and paste Summanus' and Neptune's heads in from different shots because they can't look up like that. Blemishes and screw holes were covered up. Glowie bits are Inner and Outer layer styles. Quirinus fire breath was created from my custom smoke brush. I added a dust cloud by overlaying one of my cloud photos.

The stars are a couple of noise layers. The swirling galaxy in the background is from a NASA photo of a hurricane that I distorted. The foreground surface is a NASA photo of the moon's surface. The planets are from marble texture images I found online and Spherized. The sun is from a lens flare.

It's pretty fun and simple to create these kind of space backgrounds. Just another option until I get a chance to photograph some more sunsets.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVeTlZaUtFanlNUE0

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Fallen Friend

The background is from a shot taken from a two hour hike at Black Mountain in Los Altos, starting at 5 am to beat the sunrise. It was amazing to watch the sun set the sky on fire as it crested over the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. I love the look of the orange glow reflecting off the clouds above and the fog layer below so just had to use it in a scene.

Planet X Jupiter is a great figure. Unfortunately, I couldn't get him into the same kneeling position as the inspiration picture for this scene. Fall of Cybertron Bumblebee isn't the greatest of figures, but he serves well enough here. I used a Craquelure Filter Gallery to give both figures their battleworn appearance and cranked up the clarity slider to reduce that plastic look. I also blended in wounds from the source picture onto both. The smoke is from my shots of candle smoke.

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Suborbital Transit

Despite a somewhat wonky vehicle mode, Planet X Mors worked out better than the official figure for this scene. From this angle, I just had to add some glowie bits and the thrusters.

I found the background, uncredited, on a wallpaper site. I necessarily need to hunt down appealing wallpapers instead of using my own photos for these more fantastical ideas. I suppose it's incentive for me to learn how to create such backdrops by hand.

I put a path blur on the planet to make the background under Mors a little less busy and to try and convey a sense of motion. Although it doesn't make any sense, I added a cloud and fog layer to make the picture more moody.

Drats. I should have had the path blur follow the direction of his flight path. Oh, well. Live and learn. Fixed in the direct link.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVcDE1dGdrdHZSelk

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Planet X Dinobots

It's been a while since I've had time to work on a project. Couldn't remember how I did some of the glowie bits and shadows so Triton might be a little different than the rest. All in all, a bunch of great figures with some flaws spread across the line. Still, I absolutely love the set. It's one of my favorite groups. It's so hard to choose just one.

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Planet X Vulcun with Rage Over Cybertron Optimus Prime

I was debating whether or not to replace every element in the source picture, but quickly realized I'm not yet skilled enough to reproduce everything on my own. Instead, I opted to add what I could with my own photos, and let interesting bits show through so that the final picture would be more dynamic.

I started with a Render Clouds layer and masks to give the picture more atmosphere. It also helps to hide the feet of some of the figures. Without it, Vulcun would look like he was floating over the ground.

Starscream required a little work to hide the hollow gap behind the cockpit, but otherwise just needed a little fiddling with saturation levels to not appear overly bright. His contrails are photos of a candle flame stretched out.

Optimus Prime has quite a bit of hollowness and holes on his arms and legs, that I filled in. Most of that work didn't make it into the final composition so next time I'll have to remember to compose then fix. It's very subtle, but without Layer Effects enabled for the panel lines and Autobot symbol, he would look very dull. The eyes and weapon glows have a more obvious impact. Unfortunately, his head articulation doesn't really allow the figure to match the dynamic pose of the source material.

I don't like putting batteries in my figures so it is no big loss that Planet X Vulcun's red bits don't glow. It's an easy enough effect to add in Photoshop, and it helps to cover up some of the screws. Being a great figure, there are no gaps to fill in.

I left in parts of the picture of Optimus Prime and Grimlock because they resemble buildings and structures. Maketoys Nemesis is taking the place of the structure in the top right. Maketoys Utopia and Fall of Cybertron Shockwave are there to add interest to otherwise empty sections of the picture.

In the skies above Cybertron, I added a few more Seekers and a moon. The smoke cloud and meteors were added by creating a custom brush out of a Render Clouds layer.

The building on the left is the same set of Mechanical Chain Base panels from my previous picture, with bits masked out to let the background picture show through.

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Planet X Vulcan with Fall of Cybertron Starscream

Thanks to Erik Rosenquist for this idea of recreating this scene from the game. It's not exact. I changed the angles of the characters because their shoulder pylons would block out their faces.

Planet X Vulcun is an amazing figure. I can't stop messing around with him. I am so glad this Planet X set is complete. I only had to cover up a couple of screws and add in some glow effects.

I never noticed how hollow Starscream is. There is a huge gap along his left side and a bunch of small holes in his right thigh. I also had to mask out his club fist and stitch in an articulated hand from Perfect Effect. It's a subtle effect, but I changed the color of his cockpit canopy to more closely match the scene and added a pink glow to his chest/shoulder panels. The thrusters are from a set of picnic torches, with Hue/Saturation adjustments.

The background is a set of four mechanical chain bases. The shot was taken with a purple gel on my flash, with color temperatures further tweaked in Photoshop. I also applied a Spherize distortion filter. Unfortunately, I don't yet know how to do a cable coming out of the background and into the foreground so I just upped the fog effect.

This was pretty fun to do. I'm going to have to comb through scenes from the cartoon, games, and other materials to get more ideas.

Be sure to download the hi-res file at:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVSEgyc2M0RE9nZVk/view

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Planet X Dinobots

Planet X Caelus - Fall of Cybertron Swoop
This was my first third party purchase. I'm so glad I took the plunge because there are just so many great figures out there that fill gaps in Hasbro's line or simply improve upon what is available.

I started with a photo of an overcast day and enhanced it with some more drawn in clouds. That custom smoke brush is sure coming in handy.

The star streaks are Motion blurred, Guassian blurred, Noise layers. 

Caelus doesn't have as many obvious places to add in glowing bits. I still need to work on making a more convincing afterburner.

These are my favorite collection of Transformers, but a third party company needs to get working on articulated neck and tail extensions.

Planet X Neptune - Fall of Cybertron Sludge

I kept the same background as Quirinus so I could focus on touching up the figure. Since the upcoming Paddles is just a remold of Neptune, it's probably too much to hope that he will have the articulated neck and tail as well as replacement parts for Neptune.

Even without them, this is still a great figure. I love the size in comparison to the rest of his team. His hammer weapons are a nice change of pace from the usually included swords.

Planet X Quirinus - Fall of Cybertron Slug

I hadn't noticed until now that Slag was renamed to Slug in the game.

Compared to the previous project, this was a piece of a cake. I intend to do the same for the rest of the figures.

Unfortunately, there are no caves nearby so I had to make do with a photo I took of a nearby park to serve as my background.

Planet X Summanus - Fall of Cybertron Snarl
This is an absolutely beautiful figure, with all the transparent plastic plates and spikes. Unfortunately, transparent plastic was also used in joints and mount points so you have to handle this figure with some care. I still love it though. Makes me wish that the Autobots, or Shockwave in this case, didn't just stop at five Dinobots. At least Paddles is in the works.

I probably shouldn't hold my breath for an articulated neck and tail add-on pack.

Planet X Vulcun - Fall of Cybertron Grimlock
Although I already did Grimlock, I wanted to complete this picture set. This is an amazing figure that corrects all the faults of the Hasbro version. It feels so great to finally complete this line of Dinobots.

Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVNHFHa3JqekJabVE/view?usp=sharing
Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVT3FvUXpSdHZGdmc/view?usp=sharing
Hi-res image at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVeEtFU3NqSzNCT2s/view?usp=sharing
Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVVlI2RUJqTF9FbXc/view?usp=sharing
Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVN29EWHJxdU9aM0U/view?usp=sharing

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