Jazz

Jazz was one of my favorites. Fortunately, he survived the great toy purge of the '86 movie, but he seems to have lost some prominence in the third and fourth seasons of the cartoon. For some reason, I always thought of him as Optimus Prime's second in command, and was disappointed that the mantle of leadership was passed onto Ultra Magnus and then Hot Rod instead.

Unlike my previous two portrait subjects, Jazz is definitely lacking in viable options. Generation Toys J4zz is more IDW-inspired; so is Reveal the Shield Jazz from so long ago. There is still no official Masterpiece version of this character. Is this a case of official car licenses getting in the way of toy releases?

I shot Maketoys Downbeat in my light tent, with a magenta gel on my key light to try and match the background I had chosen. Besides the usual time spent cleaning up blemishes, I also added some eye and headlight glows. Too bad the figure's hand doesn't retract to match the shot from the cartoon.

The background is a shot of some random summer evening when the setting sun was leaving visible light streaks in the sky, even to the naked eye.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVOGpnWC1mNjJLc1U

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Megatron

I haven't yet decided if I will do a full review of Megatron 2.0 because of advisory warnings about paint chipping during transformation. My copy of Apollyon has never been transformed because of the same issue. In the meantime, I decided to try another portrait.

For some reason, Megatron never instilled in me the same amount of fear and awe as Optimus Prime inspired confidence and respect. Maybe it was because just about every episode ended with his schemes being foiled and very often he was the one to sound the retreat.

This is another character not lacking in choices. I went with Takara Megatron 2.0 mostly because of new toy syndrome. I covered up some visible screws and a few out-of-the-box blemishes. Inner and Outer glow layer styles were used to add some pop to the eyes. His Decepticon symbol also has Inner and Outer glow layer styles enabled, with some experimentation with a Gradient overlay to achieve a subtle shimmering effect. I shot him in front of orange construction paper, which imparted an orange hue to the highlights.

The background is a sun I created from first doing some rendering Difference Clouds, cutting out a circle, Spherize distorting, and applying an orange Hue/Saturation layer. The streaks around the sun are from a Radial Zoom Blur. The stars are from a couple of Noise layers.

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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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"I am all that is or ever was or ever will be."

Of course I would want to do a space scene with Toyworld Spaceracer. Instead of doing a simple star field or reusing the wallpaper I had found for Planet X Mors, I decided to follow some tutorials and create one from scratch.

The star field is made of two noise layers. The planet and moons are Spherize distorted circular cutouts from marble textures I found online. The nebula are created from a photo of wispy clouds taken on a summer day and one I found online. Finally, I threw in a lens flare to simulate a sun and because I'm apparently being influenced by JJ Abrams school of cinematography.

I purposely left his head sticking up a little bit. Floating up there all by himself all the time, he's probably a little bored and addle-brained.

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Optimus Prime

In addition to my usual write-ups and scene recreations, I've been thinking of trying out a portrait series to highlight each character. This was inspired by a drawing I found while browsing for ideas. 

Optimus Prime has got to be one of my favorite sci-fi characters of all time. I'm really only familiar with his depiction from the G1 cartoons, High Moon video games, and Michael Bay movies. His characterization as a noble protector and self-sacrificing leader seems to be constant across various sources. I readily admit that my eight-year-old self shed a tear when he died in The Movie. I hope the upcoming film doesn't go too far off the rails.

Although I have no shortage of choices with which to highlight this character, I ultimately chose MP-10 Optimus Prime. I covered up some visible screws and the inevitable nicks and scratches. Next time, I need to pay better attention and control my lighting so I won't have to paint over highlights that don't make sense for the scene. The glowing eyes are from Inner and Outer Glow layer styles. The smoke is from one of my shots of a blown out candle.

The background was taken at Hollow Bean State Beach. It was of an odd, mushroom shaped rock I saw amongst the tide pools. I enlarged the small rock to serve as a mountain backdrop. The sky is from a random summer evening because the skies over northern California beaches are, more often than not, overcast and a boring gray. Various photo filters were used to color grade the different parts of the picture. Finally, I added a lens flare, just because.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVcmxGZGdKMjBQems

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Not today, Galvatron!

I tried to keep it simple today. No painstaking cut-outs this time. The background is just a blue poster board. There was a lot of fiddling with the figures and trial and error to get the composition that I wanted though. FansToys Sovereign stood in for Galvatron. His angry face works so well for this kind of scene. DX9 Carry stood in for Hot Rod's arm. I could have used Masterpiece Hot Rod, but I didn't want to deal with the height disparity between the two figures. The trickiest part was dealing with the Matrix. At first I tried to suspend it from string, but then realized I'd have to clean it in Photoshop so I simply resorted to balancing it on Sovereign's chest. The glow effect is from Inner and Outer Layer Style effects along with a Lens Flare render.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVSjRQRzhfRFFBVGs

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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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