"Flash Out!" - 120mm OIF figure ( COMPLETE!!! )

I'm .... not  .... AAAaaa .... break ..... BLAHBLAHBLAH .....breaking ......RRRRrrrrr .... down!

hehe.....

AHHH!!! LOUD NOISES! wait what are we yelling about back and forth now?

FINE!!! You guys are killing me ...actually, I can't stand it myself....

You're spot on with what I'm thinking ....

I think that if I do anything, I MIGHT add in just a couple of smaller rubble pieces just to "fade things out", but it's not going to be anything that I do right now. I've taken a slight ..... detour ... from my "mosul" build and it's keeping me a little busy. (I'll post it either tomorrow or Sat.)

modelchasm wrote:

I agree camo, however, if avus and hans took the time to write their crit, I should at least take half a second to entertain it.

no i agree with that. i just dont think you should "change" it if your happy with it. not everyone is going to like what you put out there and if you go and change each and every thing every time someone wants you to, then you never get anything done because your constantly changing it! personally, the focus is on the figure and building...i dont see the rocks when i look at it...their irrelevant anyway to what's going on. you see the action and they dont distract from that. whatever though, its yours to do with what u want...as i said everyone has an opinion and perfection is something only the "man upstairs" has...now i just feel like im babbling......LOL....

I agree camo, however, if avus and hans took the time to write their crit, I should at least take half a second to entertain it. Doesn't mean that I'm going to tear into it or anything. The one thing that does catch me is this.... I'm glad that I've got other eyes on this one ... just think of where I'd be, or where I wouldn't be, if you guys weren't helping me along.

After looking at the plate in photoshop, the only thing that I think I might do is put a little black paint into the lettering. All the other colors just popped way to much and screamed HERE I AM ... READ ME, READ ME! And that's not the focus I wanted. So the plate is either going to ge a touch of black or stay as is.

I'll take a look at the rocks ... rubble ...whatever and make a decision on that one. A BIG factor is going to be the fact that they're already glued down on the stained/ finish wood piece.

Thanks Avus/ Hans for that crit. I'm not sure what I can do to change the rocks now as everything has been glued down already, but I'll take a step back and look at it. I do see what you're saying though. Maybe if I just added a couple of smaller rocks it would help it fade out. As far as the wooden base being the frame, I completely agree. However, on this one the plaster base has about a 1/2" build up and looked funny sitting there by itself, so that why I ties it in a little. But, I was sure that the outer edge stayed clear. I wanted to use the routed edge to be the frame.

Thanks again guys for the crit. I'll take another look at it and decide then if there's something to change or if it's what I intended to happen.

Were it mine?  Well... I like the plate as is.. Not too much, not too little, looks "dusty", like the whole country is, and KISSes the concept...

Only thing that bugs me is the reveal, specifiacally, the rocks on it... The base and the reveal are the "frame" for your "picture" and should, IMHO, be separated from the groundwork, rather than "tied in"...  If there's anything that's a detractor, it's those...

Just my two..

First let me say it again: you made a terrific job on the figure and the scenery. (this was the carrot)

Now the stick (actually it's more my two cents) :

Personally I'm more "concerned" about the rocks you put on the base, than about the plate: the rocks look overblown (hope it the right term) to me. I understnd you placed them there to fill the "empty spaces" and in fact it would look too empty without them, but placing them that way does look artificial, like there's no connection between the scene and the rocks.
Maybe you could use more rocks, place the bigger ones close to the scenery base and "fade out" with rocks of decreasing size.

The plate looks good, all you need is to bring out the writing but not too much. What psstoff995 and camo junkie suggest sounds good to me.

Again, I like your work a lot and I just wanted to let you know my thoughts about the base.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting messing around with the model- just the plate. I was thinking you use a blue color to tie in the plate with the modeled door as the worn metal of the plate reminds me of the door already.

Again though I think it looks great as is

Hmm ... painting the lettering ... hadn't thought about that one. You don't think that the colored lettering would take away attention from the model ... it is RIGHT THERE in front.

Maybe I'll play around with that idea in Photoshop and see what it looks like. This far in the game, I'm not brave enough to experiment with the model itself.

Ok ... so, I need a little more help here as I think (I hope I didn't) screw the pooch ...

So, I got the name plate back from the throphy place today (total rip BTW ... $10 bucks for a small plate AND they didn't do the lettering right ... but they "politely" told me that's what I ordered. I "politely" told them to .....)

Anyway. The plate looked horrible on the base and was a HUGE distractor. It was too bright and shiny. (I wish I'd taken pictures before...) So, I broke out the sanding sticks and went to work. I thought that a slightly "weathered" plate would match the dio. However, I didn't realize that the brassing was just a sub-layer, of a sub-layer ... might as well not even be there-layer.

So it came out looking like this....

Overall, I don't think that it looks THAT bad ...

...but I wanted to see what you guys thought. Should I spray it with acrylic, like the base, or just leave it?

Thanks Trexx ... glad you like it.

... mini update ...

So I called the trophy place today and they FORGOT about my order ... Hmmm, guess this means I'm trying the place down the street next time .... Anyway, they're going to have it ready tomorrow, so I should be able to take my final picture sometime then. As soon as that's done, I'm going to touch them up and send them in to the reader gallery.

So, here's a question for those that have submitted before ... does FSM want just one pic, or a few ... I figured I'd send a few and let them decide!?!

Wowie!

Well done! Impressive work indeed.

Howdy stik, thanks for the compliments. (I like your avatar BTW ... I've been thinking about doing a dio just like that .... however, Verlinden is the only maker that produces something even close to it ... and it's German. Which means it would be a hella "makeover".)

Psst .... now that I think about it!?!  NOPE, but thanks for reminding me.

Thanks Jim, I'm glad that you liked it.

Psst, thanks as well. Got the email and everything looks simple enough. Maye today, but definately tomorrow I'll get this stuff touched up.

Thanks again.

When I get back to my laptop- I'll take some screen shots of some relativly simple step by step photoshoping that I did. You might notice that if you don't use in very small doses it can quicly get a little high contrast and out of control (it's kind of like subtly weathering models! haha) 

You can use either the Curves tool, the Levels tool, or a multitude of others, they all kind of do the same thing, you get over my head of photoshop knowledge and there's all kindsa individual masking and color selection and craziness...

I'll get back to you in about an hour