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

So, I've been toying with the idea and just wanted to see what you guys thought ... I've been thinking about sending this one in to the Reader Gallery, but I wasn't really sure if my "photo skills" were up to par.

Has anyone else submitted anything before? Are my pictures good as is, or should I take some others? And if so .... what should I do for it?

Thanks in advance.....

Hey- go for it. Take a few digital shots with natural sunlight, use a white background (I'd usually say "or blue", but as the door is blue, I wouldn't want it to compete).

How versed are you with photoshop? I can show you a few tricks as far as color corection and airbrushing out background noise goes if you want.

This would have to make it in, I've seen stuff make the readers gallery that wasn't half as nice as this, and your step by step photos were of better quality, I honestly think this project could have made the cover! Maybe write up a piece on ACU or even heavily modifying figures. That'd be cool

psstoff995 wrote:

Maybe write up a piece on ACU or even heavily modifying figures. That'd be cool

there you go model! write up a step by step on how to paint a better figure using acylics! i aso think p.o.'s right about using a picture backdrop....i'm sure you have a few laying around that would really make it look great!

psstoff995 wrote:

Maybe write up a piece on ACU or even heavily modifying figures.

Mmmmm .... maybe .... I don't know if I'm writer material. I'd just be happy to see it in the Read Gallery .... I pee myself (along with camo in his adult diapers!!! HAHAHA) if I saw it on the cover. I'd have to have autograph sessions at Barnes & Nobles! HA!!!

All the photos that I've take thus far have been photoshop touched in some form or fashion. Mostly cropping as my dig. camera is pretty decent with the lighting. I do fairly well with PS, but I'm no professional.

As far as taking pics in natural light ... isn't that too harsh? All I did for my final pics, was to take a piece of butcher paper to the wall, taped some tissue paper over a couple of mag-lights to diffuse the light, and away I snapped. I don't think that the pictures came out all that great, but what else am I going to do without going to a studio or buying other equipment?

I too thought about the blue paper, but I think that the white background turning "grey" was more suitable. I don't think that I could really incorporate a background picture, but maybe I could try it.

Any further help on this would be appreciated as I'd like to take some more photos if I'm going to submit this one.

Thanks guys for the help!

Yeah I supose daylight can be a little harsh compared to controlled spotlights- cool idea with the maglights, I'll have to try that. As long as you're not shooting with a flash you should be fine indoors. Is your camera on automatic white balance? If it is that's fine, but you could also try switching it to either a tungsten or fluorescent filter depending on the lighting. I'd have to guess tungsten..

Your pictures look fine and I guess it's not a big issue, I stole one of your pictures and ran it through photoshop- not much of a difference and I didn't do any kind of clolor correction (because I think your original pictures look fine) but just messed around a little with the white balance, just to lighten the background a bit and it took off the redish hue (from the incadesent lights most likely) that was over everything. It makes the figure and the wall pop a little bit more, the rest of the base looks similar- however I really like whatever you did- your background isn't just a plain color- it almost has the same dusty iraq dirt build up from the ground up, I don't know how you pulled that off with the lighting, but I think it's an awesome tie in regardless of it being unintentional

Yours

Minor white balance work to filter out the redish orange tungsten hue

Hey yeah! That works!

How do you mess with the background colors? Yes, the lighting was caused by the incadescent can lighting in the house. However the painting of the wall, and door is no lighting effect ... THAT'S called talent! (hehe).

Let me know so that can fix the rest of them.

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

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.

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.

Wowie!

Well done! Impressive work indeed.

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!?!

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?

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.

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

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.

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..

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.