Awesome Toy Blog

This is one of my earlier photos with some photoshoppery processing.  Thought the image came out pretty interesting.

Two images taken in Sedona, AZ, one with the TARDIS, one without.  The camera was held by a tripod.  I layered the TARDIS image over the non-TARDIS one in photoshop and adjusted the opacity of the TARDIS layer creating the materialization effect.  Finally, I added a lens flare where the TARDIS lamp would be.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a new photography post, largely because I haven’t been doing a lot of photography.  However, I did get a new toy…a 25 mm extender tube for my camera.  That cuts down the minimum focal distance dramatically, letting me take fantastic close-up images.  I’m really thrilled with the perspective these shots give, as its almost a new way to experience action figures.  Looking at this Iron Man Mark II figure, you can see how the jaw-line was completely mispainted; maybe using a mask from another figure.  In the future, you’ll see more shots like this.  Post your thoughts below in the comments section.

The final photo in my Flagstaff snow series.   No post-processing at all.  Loved taking this pictures and hope you enjoyed them!

Since it is a holiday today, I figured I’d take a break from the snow pictures (only one left). Happy Valentine’s Day!

One of my final two ‘snow’ photos taken during my trip to Flagstaff, a Dalek is on ‘arctic’ patrol. For this photo I did minimal editing. I photoshopped out a ‘seam’ from the Dalek and corrected the color.
One of the things that went right with this shoot was that there was so much snow, that the banks were quite high. It made it very easy to shoot the figures from eye level (or below). Shooting at these angles really helps hide that fact that you’re shooting something so small and when against just a relatively blank landscape, the idea of scale is lost a bit making the subject appear much larger.

Today’s snow photo is the last of the Star Wars series I took, and also has the most photoshoppery involved. The translucent Obi-Wan was created by making Obi-Wan his own layer and having him be mostly translucent. I also faked the background using the clone stamp tool. Finally I removed the spirit’s shadow, since a ghost shouldn’t have one. And then there was some color correction. This is far more work editing than I typically do on a photo, but I’m pleased with the results.

This continues my photos from Flagstaff, AZ. The picture was fairly straightforward, once I was able to get both the Wampa and the Taun-taun to stand for enough time to snap the photos. I have several angles, but I think this one is the most effective. Minimal photoshop work was done after the fact, just some color adjustment.

My second photo from my Flagstaff photo trip. I was really surprised at how well the Wampa photos came out, it’s unfortunate that it is a very dated sculpt and has the giant joint at his midsection. I could have done some photoshop on that, but I opted to keep it looking like a picture of an action figure, versus attempting to make it look like a real Wampa

Taken in Flagstaff, AZ – on the campus of NAU.  This is the first in a series of snow photos I took on the trip.  I was surprised at how well these photos came out and I decided to spread them across a week (or so) making daily posts.  Hope you enjoy!