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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Sunrise Overwatch

Besides coming up with an idea, the next hardest part is getting a realistic looking base. I prefer that to trying to blend their feet/tires into the background photo. In this case, it was as simple as taking Badcube Speedbump to the park and placing him on various boulders. The setting sun provided the lighting and shadows.

I used various Photo Filters to color match Speedbump and the boulder to the background I had chosen. Although there are plenty of other ways to accomplish this, I found the Refine Edge settings of Feather and Shift Edge to be the most useful in cutting out objects.


The background is not mine; it's a photo I found on a wallpaper site that didn't credit the original artist.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVMmlrbWpsYXB4bVk

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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.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVWllhMXdJOTFKcVE

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Fire Bird

The evening sky hasn't been cooperating so I had to resort to cutting Unique Toys Allen out of a white background. I added the laser beam and tracer rounds to try and make him look more dynamic. As usual, I spent a little time covering up screw holes and paint blemishes.

The trickiest part was the rotor. I really wanted to capture that sense of motion instead of having a static blade. I tried spinning it and using a long shutter speed, but the effect wasn't convincing and I couldn't cut it out of the white background. Fortunately, I stumbled across a different technique. By cutting the propellor out of the static image, I was able to apply a Spin Blur. I repeated the process with another static shot of the propeller at a different angle.

The background is a shot of an autumn evening sky with a FL+W Magenta filter on my lens. The explosions are painted on with my custom smoke brush. The foreground clouds are also painted on with a custom brush.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVbGd1aVM5U20zcW8

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Sunset Drive

This is a actually my second attempt at this picture after spending a whole day working with a different one that just wouldn't come together.

I placed Generation Toy J4ZZ on a Toyhax dark ground tile with an aquarium rock deco. The sunset is a shot I took during a vacation in Waikiki Hawaii. The smoke is from a picture of clouds. Unfortunately, I had to find a forest picture online; there's nowhere nearby for me to get a shot like that. The road strip and skid marks are drawn in. I also added headlights and a motion blur for the tires and rims.

I'm not quite satisfied with how the road and rock edges blend in with the background. Still a lot to learn about how to do blending in Photoshop.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVdl9xVElTM0dhbGc

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Snowy Drive

Some flour, a sifter, and my garage floor served as the backdrop for this shot. Maybe I should have sprinkled some flour on the car, but I really didn't want to get that stuff into the joints. I finished it off with some overlays of my cloud pictures and a couple of artificially created headlights.

Direct link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVTF93ZjNaaHRwYU0

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Blue Moon

The figure is Skyward Sword Link by Figma. This is inspired by a picture I saw online.

Although I would like the entire shot to happen within the camera, sometimes that's just not possible. I do find that a happy medium is to at least put the subject on a real base. In this case, I used a roll of artificial grass. Fortunately, Link easily stood without the display base. The fairies are shots of a Majora Mask Fairy pendant. The moon and sky are from a cloudy evening some time ago. The fog is an overlay of a shot of fluffy white clouds. The stars are artificially created in Photoshop.

I probably won't get the Twilight Princess Link figure, but am looking forward to the Princess Zelda figure.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVa1VTQ2FoV2JZeDg

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