Deadpool In The Void Video

 My latest video is up on my YouTube channel.  This one is all about how I created this image:

The video is here:

A Fantastical Frame Of Mind

Last weekend I came across this magical scene of light filtering through the trees on a misty morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

 I have a fantastical mind so I immediately thought of Lord Of The Rings...   It is likely not a surprise to know that almost everything, especially woodlands in the mountains, reminds me of Middle Earth.

This evening I decided to make my vision a reality. All it took was setting up an action figure in front of my camera with some lights.

Once I had this image, it was just a matter of spending some quality time in Photoshop. About an hour later I had turned my vision into reality.

So now you know a little bit more about how I see the world.

Back to my roots - Toy Photographer Mandalorian

 Over the past couple of years I have been on a make-custom-dioramas-and-figures kick.  It is a lot of fun, but it can take figuratively forever to make an image.   Tonight I wanted to sit down and make an entire image from scratch, so I went back to my toy photography roots and set about making an image with just an action figure, some lights, a camera, and my imagination... Oh, and a steady supply of Photoshop magic.

In just a couple hours, this is the image I created.

Gotta love near-instant art creation, eh?

Spartan

 Done. Well, sorta... need to finish the base, but thats a simple paint job, and likely not going to make it into any photos I make with this figure. The Spartan is done tho, and thats the important detail you should take from this post.

This Is Sparta (almost)

 My next project  comes in the form of a Spartan warrior.  I for it 3D printed and primed before I went on vacation, then the project went on hold for 3 weeks.  As a result this project feels like it is taking forever... however I'm back from the fun-in-the-sun and project-ing again. 

The process for painting any model is to start with a good base layer of paint that covers everything - then the details and weathering can happen. I tend to do pretty simple painting techniques, and as a result the base layer takes a majority of the paint time for a model. Tonight I got that critical base layer finished.

The base layer is looking pretty good.  Its a basic paint jobs as Spartans are mostly fabric and metallic armor, which helps.

I am going to let this dry over night, and then hit up the detail work later. 

Maximum effort!

Gun'Dam Relaxation

Not sure why - likely cause my summer vacation is approaching, but I wanted to create a relaxed scene for my next project.   Since I am freshly armed with an RX-78-2 High Grade Gundam model, I decided to send that model to sit under a nice old tree, and ponder its existence (contemplating robots are the best robots).

Since I lacked such a scene, I needed to make one.   I started by using an old branch that I 3D printed but didn't use from my recent Treebeard model builld, and then made a scene that the Gundam robot could sit and ponder under.

Fairly simple built so far.   This is the work in progress.  I need to let it dry before I can continue. As Tom Petty once crooned, the waiting is, indeed, the hardest part.

 

God Damn Gundam

Let's talk Gundam.

I must confess, other than a bunch of cool robots (which I think are more mechanical suits than autonomous beings), I am not entirely sure what Gundam is, aside from a fictional universe that comes from the incredibly creative minds of the Japanese. 

I've never seen a Gundam themed show, movie, comic, novel, role playing game, or anything of the sort (Tho Google insists they exist, so they are out there... somewhere). However every single model shop I have ever been in has a large selection of Gundam models to choose from, so clearly somewhere out there is a very strong fandom for Gundam.

For me its just a bunch of cool robots.  As such, and being a kid at heart, I have bought many sets over the past few years, and last week I decided to built one of them.  Naturally it ended up in front of my camera.  So I give you:  The RX-87 model from the Gundam Universe... whatever that is.

(It just goes to show you don't have to be a major fan of a genre to appreciate the parts that interest you... go explore new things today.) 

While we're at it, here is a behind the scenes shot, just to prove this was made in my studio and not yours.