Starscream's Triumph

Starscream's Triumph

It's my interpretation of the scene where Starscream and Bruticus best Megatron. Zeta Toys Armageddon stood in for Bruticus. Fortunately, Revoltech Starscream and Megatron figures work well enough scale-wise so I didn't have to muck with blending and rescaling larger figures.

The background mountains to about mid-frame desert ground is from a photo I found online. I bashed in my own photos of a dried lake bed for the foreground and sunset, and sky for the background. I briefly toyed with the idea of taking the set to the park, but at almost 20 inches, Armageddon is rather unwieldy and I didn't want to lose any pieces in the cracks.

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"You have failed me for the last time . . . again"

"You've failed me for the last time . . . again"

Starscream, the trope namer for the overly ambitious subordinate who's ready to take over for the big bad at the first sign of weakness. I've always found it hilarious how he was so quick to declare that Megatron had fallen and assume command of the Decepticons. I can't help but feel a sense of vicarious pride for the smug bastard during his crowning ceremony in The Movie, only to laugh when Galvatron finally shows up and does what Megatron should have done so long ago. I wish they had shown how Starscream managed to subdue all the Decepticons, including Devastator, after jettisoning a mortally wounded Megatron. My biggest complaint about his portrayal in the live action movies is that we never saw that traitorous aspect of this character.

I suppose I could have shot Masterpiece Starscream with his crown and cape accessories at the height of his glory, but I suffered from new toy syndrome with Maketoys Meteor. Although the mechanics of shooting Meteor and Despotron were simple, I did have to spend a bit of time finagling the figures into position because of Despotron's arm sculpt butting against Meteor's chest sculpt.

The final image is a composite of a couple of shots - one with purple gel and another with orange gel on my flash. In Photoshop, I combined them together, exposing whichever parts of each layer I felt worked against the background I had chosen. The background is a shot of some random fall evening. I also added some color overlay layers to further enhance the purplish and orange reflections. It's a subtle effect, but worth the effort I think because the figures would just be a somewhat plain off-white otherwise. The reflections of the clouds and trees on Meteor's body were done with a layer mask and a slightly transparent brush to allow the background to show through.

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Wings of Tyranny

This is a play on a picture I remember seeing as a kid. The caption for it was "The Sound of Freedom". I think it featured an F-15 Strike Eagle against a clear blue sky. Too many viewings of the Top Gun and Iron Eagle movies instilled in me a love of all things fighter jets. My poor eye-sight (and likely lack of skill, spacial awareness, and ability to handle such tense situations) would preclude me from living out any childhood dreams of becoming an ace pilot.

I used Universe Starscream for this project since it was already in jet mode. I had debated whether to put more jets into the picture, but decided against it since I don't have the other Seekers from the Universe line and would have had to resort to Hue/Saturation layers to change their colors. I didn't use the Masterpiece Seekers because I didn't want to bother transforming them.

Even as a child, I loved how the Decepticons turned the symbols of our defenders against us. Since the G1 cartoon seemed to be based in the United States, the animators could have chosen MiGs as the alt-modes for the Seekers, but even in the Bay movies, they chose our premier air superiority fighter. Maybe I'm over attributing this and the reason is as banal as easier licensing from a domestic company.

Also taking inspiration from The Force Awakens, I set Starscream against the sun rising over the Silicon Valley. It's actually a composite of a single shot taken from Black Mountain in Los Gatos. When I enlarged the picture so that the sun would be larger in frame, the clouds and mountains got pushed out of frame. I simply made a copy of that part of the picture and layered it back in.

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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.

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Starscream's Brigade

I wanted to try a technique I saw about blending feet into sand and dirt. It's such a small part of the picture, but it does help prevent the figures from looking like they are floating over the background.

I used Warbotron's set of Combaticons and iGear Star Burst. The background is a photo of one of those beaches along 17 Mile Drive in Monterey. All the fog is painted in with my custom cloud brush.

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Nothing defeats the Devastator!

One last project with TFC Hercules before I crack open the new sets. I discovered Transformers before Voltron and other Japanese giant robot cartoons, so when 6 robots formed into a giant brute that the Dinobots couldn't initially handle, my mind was blown. My childhood Devastator toy was an orange-colored knockoff my father had found at the local flea market, but I didn't care.

Would Generation Toy Gravity Builder or Toyworld Devastator look better? Probably, but Hercules still looks pretty damn good. Over the year, he's gotten a little wobbly at the hips, but he's able to maintain his stance. I had to do a little surgery to his left knee. The ratchet in Mad Blender's connector joint was really loose. I was able to fix it by opening up the housing and placing 4 pieces of post-it note paper underneath the ratchet plate. If Structor's ratchet loosens, the same fix should work as well.

This is from the episode, "Heavy Metal War." Because of the small size of my light tent, I shot Apollyon, Soundwave, Starscream, and Thundercracker individually. Yes, Thundercracker. I'm anxiously awaiting finally getting my hands on MP11 Skywarp. I used some Hue Saturation layers to recolor Thundercracker. It still doesn't look quite right, but it will do for now. I did the same to the green barrel on Mad Blender. The smoke is drawn with my custom smoke bush. The background is a composite of an evening sky, a large boulder formation at Alum Rock Park, the foothills at the same, and a dried out lake bed at Penitencia Creek Trails.

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Die, Autobots!

I have a morbid fascination with this scene, from when the Decepticons blasted their way onto the shuttle to when Megatron blew off Iron Hide's head. I couldn't believe how easily the Autobots went down. These weren't Red Shirts nor the weaker members of the team. I wonder what Brawn was thinking, charging in like that, without even a gun.

Bad Cube Brawny was shot from above. I'm still getting used to the depth of field on my new camera, which is why his feet aren't in focus. I ran his windshield through a Craquelure Filter Gallery and used Clone Stamps and Hue/Saturation Layers to draw in the debris. His mouth is brushed on. There is a Drop Shadow Layer to give him a sense of being elevated from the ground.

Masterpiece Starscream is holding the mini Megatron accessory that I've long forgotten came with which figure. The smoke coming from the barrel is a shot of an extinguished candle flame. It's a subtle effect, but I think worth the effort spent capturing some smoke pictures.

Generation Toy Navvy is serving double duty as Scavenger and Bonecrusher. I used a Hue Saturation Layer to recolor his legs for Bonecrusher and the smoke to hide his body.

Generation Toy Mixer may have provided for a more consistent look, but I'd already spent some time cleaning up Toy World Concrete.

Sadly, Long Haul didn't make it into the shot since I don't have one.

Since I couldn't think of a decent way of replicating the shuttle interior, I spent a little time transforming and clone stamping the screen capture. I had to hide where the drawn characters were still peaking through and extend the light running along the ceiling.

I may have gone a little overboard with the smoke effects, but I needed a way to hide not-even-not-Bonecrusher and the far end of the shuttle. Both sets of smoke were drawn with my custom Smoke brush.

I may redo Scavenger and Bonecrusher and add in Long Haul once I get a hold of the Toy World figures.

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Astrotrain, transform and get us out of here!

Transportation Captain is standing in for Astrotrain. The back of his train mode doesn’t actually open. I did that in Photoshop by cutting out a small section and rotating it. I didn’t use DX9 Chigurh because of convenience. I already had a side shot of Transportation Captain when I had him in train mode recently. I really didn’t want to transform Toyworld Evila Star again because he has a clear plastic hinge in his backpack that I don’t want to stress.

I couldn’t figure out how to get Rumble to hold Apollyon’s fusion cannon, which is quite a bit larger than Rumble himself. I also tried with Toyworld Hegemon’s fusion cannon, but I couldn’t get him to hold that either. In the end, I just took a separate shot and layered it on Rumble using a layer mask. The final shot is with Hegemon’s fusion cannon.

Apollyon was similarly layered on Soundwave with a layer mask because Soundwave’s arms are not long enough nor strong enough to hold Apollyon in that fashion. It was just a matter of trying different camera angles until I found a shot that I was satisfied with. Unfortunately, Apollyon’s head doesn’t have enough upward articulation to match the source material.

Since Generation Toys has yet to release their version of Scavenger, I used Scraper instead. He, Mixer, and Starscream were simply individual shots that were added to the scene.

The immediate foreground elements include a rock from my garden and stairs from my home. Both had a field blur and an orange overlay applied. The stairs had additional Hue/Saturation layers applied to the left edge to simulate the broken edge.

The stray blaster bolt, because the Autobots seem to have worse aim than Stormtroopers, was created from a deformed Marquee fill-in, with Inner and Outer glow layer styles in effect.

The ground is a shot of the desert ground tile from Toy Stages. I applied a Render Cloud layer to simulate mist and dust. It also helps to keep the figures from looking like they are simply floating over the ground.

The background is a shot of the Mechanical Chain Base panels. I used Layer Masks and colored layers to make it look like sections had been blasted away and scorched. The sky is a shot of some random summer day. The smoke plume was created with my custom smoke brush.

Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVeEt3cGMtM1ExVGc/view?usp=sharing

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X Transbots Apollyon and Masterpiece Starscream and Soundwave

I wanted to see what else I could do with the shots I had taken for my collages. Here are the big three. I applied some Color Balance and Hue adjustments to get them to go with the sky.

The sky is from a cloudy summer evening, using a magenta filter on my lens. The ground is a close-up of the rock formation at Natural Bridges Santa Cruz, with the birds removed.

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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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