Let's see how he likes my new shock blast cannon!

This was a simple set of shots from a scene in Heavy Metal War where Wheeljack's weapon explodes in his face. Sad as it may have been, I would have preferred something like this for The Movie than his offscreen demise.

Unfortunately, Wheeljack's arm can't butterfly over to reach the handle of the weapon. His shadow is created from a Drop Shadow Layer Style. I used my custom smoke brush to draw the explosion for the second picture. Ironhide's lasers are created from Inner and Outer Glow Layer Styles.

The mountain background is a shot of some cliffs at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve that were run through a Cutout Filter Gallery. The ground in the third picture is just several panels of the desert tiles from ToxHax.

Direct links
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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.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVRHFfblIyN1hsaTg/view?usp=sharing

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Decepticons!

Hot Rod gets a lot of flack for getting in the way of Optimus Prime and Megatron's duel, but I've always liked the character. I always liked how this scene demonstrates his willingness to jump into the fray. Although you could argue, "What the hell hero", for starting a fire fight with a little kid right next to him.

Not without its flaws, Masterpiece Hot Rod is a great and fun figure. There wasn't much to be cleaned up in terms of paint blemishes and screw holes. Thanks to his ab crunch, I was able to get a pretty decent pose. Maybe I could have posed the arms a little straighter, but I have a bad habit of diving right into the Photoshop phase before realizing things could be a little better.

I drew in his mouth with a soft brush. His goggles and the laser beams were created with Overlay and Outerglow Layer Styles. I'm not sure what that yellow dot atop his head is so I just left it out. His shadow is a Drop Shadow Layer Style.

The platform is one of my Mechanical Chain Base panels with a Hue Saturation Layer for color and run thru a Fresco Filter Gallery for texture. There is a Drop Shadow Layer falling onto the cliffs too. The cliffs are a shot of rock formations at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, with a Cutout Filter Gallery applied.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxl1QbH6hwVTnoyRDZQVnBBX2s/view?usp=sharing

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'Til all are one

I'll admit it. My eight-year-old self shed a tear in the theater when Optimus Prime died. Despite having seen death in action movies and Japanese anime, I don't think any onscreen death had impacted me before.

I've been working on this project for a while and only needed Hot Rod to complete the shot. I suppose I could have used Masterpiece Rodimus Prime, but figured it would be worth it to wait. Mastermind Creations Azalea is standing in for Arcee, but everyone else is a Masterpiece figure. I think I may have mistakenly used Spike instead of Daniel.

The ground is a shot of my Mechanical Chain Base Panels, with a Cutout Filter Gallery applied and then a blue to grey gradient overlayed.

The table is an accessory from one of the Mechanical Chain Base sets. I applied a Saturation Layer to change its color and transformed it to increase its size.

Optimus Prime was shot standing up, but from a low angle. After doing a lot of work to him, I realized I had not closed his Matrix chamber. Oh well. Besides covering up screws and applying a dim eye glow, I used a Craquelure Filter Gallery to give him that battle damaged look. I also brushed on some smudges to his abdomen.

The Matrix, Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus, Azalea, and Daniel were all shot separately and dropped into the scene. Daniel required the most cleaning up because of sloppy paint work and seams at his joints. I used a Dry Brush Filter Gallery to further hide his imperfections, which had been further accentuate by the Canon 500D Close-up lens I had used.

Hot Rod was shot with my Canon 70D. I still haven't figured out how to get clean white backgrounds with that camera. Despite that, he was easy to cut out because of the much sharper edges afforded by the better camera. I did have to cut out his left leg and transform it because the original perspective would have interfered with Ultra Magnus.

Because of the angle of the ground to the figures, all the shadows were easily created using Drop Shadows Layer Styles. I pushed the shadows to their own layers because I needed some to change directions, like where Optimus shadow goes from the table to the ground to Hot Rod.

Now I just need someone to make a Masterpiece Kup so I can do the next shot from this scene.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVT3R5WDZkOGFZSms

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Our jet judo needs a little more work

This was a simple project to try out my new camera. I've been using a Panasonic FZ-200 bridge camera previously. Now I'm using a Canon 70D. My workflow needs some modifying. Although I haven't figured out how to do the white background easily with the Canon, the figures are still very easy to extract because the edges are so much sharper.

Masterpiece Sideswipe, Badcube Sunsurge, and the parachute accessory from Mastermind Creations Sphinx were all shot separately. I used layer masks to place the parachute ropes in the figures' hands. The parachute itself was the most difficult thing to photograph because it kept wanting to return to a flat shape. The sky was shot on a cloudy summer evening, using a Hoya FLW filter. A final Warming Photo Filter was used to tie all the colors together.

Got Masterpiece Hot Rod incoming. That can only mean trying to recreate a couple of iconic scenes with him as I try to learn how to shoot with the Canon.

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More Than Meets the Eye - Hound vs Rumble

Although this multi-part episode has two scenes where Hound tosses Rumble, I wanted to try some new techniques so chose the underwater scene.

I shot Maketoys Gundog on some Toyhax desert tile stages. The rocks in the foreground and background were cut and pasted in from some shots I had taken at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Masterpiece Rumble was added in using layer masks so I could get one leg in front and one leg in back of Gundog. He's a bit on the small side so I had to scale him up a bit. There were a lot of plastic flash and paint blemishes to cover up.

The Filter Gallery actually has an Ocean Ripple filter, but I found the Canvas Glass filter to provide the effect I wanted. It's not quite perfect, but close enough. This resulted in a lot cleaning up around the edges of the figures though. I also added a dark blue overlay to darken the scene.

Unfortunately, Photoshop hiccuped or something. Although I was saving constantly, after I did an export and closed down the app, I couldn't find my project file. I searched the entire disc for it, and it's not in the Recently Opened list. I'll just have to recreate it. More practice I guess.

Direct link -
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So much for your resurrection!

I must admit that my recollection of Seasons 3 and 4 are spotty at best. Thank goodness for DVDs. Now I can go through all the episodes for scenes to recreate.

I photographed Masterpiece Optimus Prime and DX9 Tyrant separately. This made it easier to scale them with each other in the scene. There wasn't much needed doing except to clean up some screw holes on both figures. Posing Tyrant was a compromise between getting the angle that I wanted while keeping his face from being blocked by his shoulder pylons.

The purple background is a photo of my Mechanical Chain Base panels after running it through a Sprayed Strokes Filter Gallery. I don't have a pile of junk to photograph so I used a castle piece from a board game. The little item in the foreground is the Immobilizer accessory that comes with Masterpiece Exhaust. All were run through a Blur Filter and had Saturation Layers applied to change their colors.

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