Any Last Words?

Optimus Prime and Megatron fighting in the Los Altos mountains overlooking the Silicon Valley. This is my fourth picture of Optimus Prime losing to Megatron. I wonder what that says about me.

I haven't figured out a decent way of replicating believable dirt terrain for indoor shooting so just cropped out where Megatron's feet would be touching the ground. 

I composited separate shots of Maketoys Striker Manus and Rioter Despotron against a sunrise shot taken at Black Mountain in Los Altos. Two hours of hiking to get that backdrop and a few more. I used a Flourescent color temperature to change the warm orange sunrise to purple and blue. Craquelure Filter Gallery give both a battle-worn and damaged look. The smoke is drawn in with my custom brush. Some of the debris from Optimus Prime are cut-outs while others are brushed in. Megatron's fusion blast is just a normal brush with Inner/Outer layer glow styles and multiple Field Blurs applied. I also drew in Megatron's smile.

I got the inspiration from a picture that Dane Dougherty had posted.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVU1FPSWdtOWhwMEk

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Fallen Friend

The background is from a shot taken from a two hour hike at Black Mountain in Los Altos, starting at 5 am to beat the sunrise. It was amazing to watch the sun set the sky on fire as it crested over the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. I love the look of the orange glow reflecting off the clouds above and the fog layer below so just had to use it in a scene.

Planet X Jupiter is a great figure. Unfortunately, I couldn't get him into the same kneeling position as the inspiration picture for this scene. Fall of Cybertron Bumblebee isn't the greatest of figures, but he serves well enough here. I used a Craquelure Filter Gallery to give both figures their battleworn appearance and cranked up the clarity slider to reduce that plastic look. I also blended in wounds from the source picture onto both. The smoke is from my shots of candle smoke.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVNDFsRmkwY2hxYm8

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Sunset by the Lake

I figured the Autobot most likely to join you to see a sunset would be Bumblebee. Fortunately, his backside is fairly clean compared to most other figures and he could scale well next to a person without blocking out the whole sky. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to bring him along when I took the family to Shoreline Lake to get this shot. Using an off-camera flash with orange gel, I tried to replicate that natural glow that you can see on my daughter. The reflection of the sky and sun in the lake was completely unexpected. If only there had been a waterbird on that raft.

Direct link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwxl1QbH6hwVaDA1ZVptMi1LSDA

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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.

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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