Scenic Twilight

Scenic Twilight

It's been a while since I've worked on a photo project. Three stymied attempts to go to Mexico and Hawaii to collect more sunset photos and my illness really combined to suck the creative spirit right out of me. Had to dig through my photo library to find an old one from Waikiki just as the sun went down over the horizon.

I positioned X-Transbots Flipout on a paving tile in front of my laptop screen. Although I took a bunch of photos with different colored gels on my flash, I wound up only using a single photo from when the flash didn't fire. The reflection from the monitor and the ambient room lights provided enough color variations.

The Ferrari emblem is from a photo of a Ferrari that is more or less oriented in the same position.

I haven't gotten around to transforming Flipout yet. I expect it will be as easy as Crackup was.

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Bug Spray

Sometimes the accessories included with the figures lend themselves to fun ideas.

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Moo!

Figured I should join in the fun of putting my spin on the UFO-abducting-cows pictures people are doing with the third-party Cosmos figures. I used X-Transbots Klaatu for Cosmos and Mastermind Creations Bovis for Tantrum.

The background is a Hawaiian sunset, with Color Lookup, Curves, and Photo Filter layers applied to adjust the tone of the picture. I added the moon from a photo and the stars from noise layers. I also added several layers of fluffy clouds, which had an accidental effect of creating the moonlight reflecting in the water. The glare of the moon in the clouds, the exhaust trail, and the tractor beam were created from polygons, distorted and Field Blurred.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVSjdpdzk2NmhaUDQ

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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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Fall! Fall!

This was one of the first scenes I had attempted when I got interested in toy photography. I've learned a little since then, mostly by experimenting and watching what others do. Still have a long way to go in terms of proper lighting technique and believable Photoshop tricks.

This was shot with X-Transbots Apollyon who seems to not be long for this world considering how great DX9 Mightron and Maketoys Despotron look in previews, and Masterpiece Hot Rod who despite some flaws is still a nice figure. The background is composed of separate shots of the foothills at Alum Rock Park, a cloudy sky, and a large rock from my garden.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVaFZfaHpGMTNMUEU

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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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I would have waited an eternity for this. It's over, Prime.

The figures don't have the articulation to pull off the poses from the screen capture. Optimus Prime doesn't have the hips to kneel nor enough upwards head tilt. His shoulders also don't butterfly forward. As usual, Apollyon's arms were always on the verge of falling off entirely. The gun barrel over his shoulder simply does not rest right next to his head from this angle.

My shooting space is somewhat limited so I had to shoot each figure individually. It was quite a bit of trial and error to get Apollyon to aim correctly, even with some Photoshop transformations.

I had to cover up a few screws on Apollyon, but from this angle Optimus Prime didn't need that treatment. The cracks were lifted directly from the source picture and blended onto the figure.

The sky is yet another cloudy summer day, shot with a Hoya FLW filter. The background is a field blur of a rock formation at Coyote Hills, using clone stamping to stretch it across the width of the picture.

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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.

Hi-res image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVTnRpRlpmY29NdU0/view?usp=sharing

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