Full Circle Moment

 A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (in time, the galaxy is my own, but the time was several years ago), I photoshopped my face onto the Mona Lisa:

Recently I took a trip to Paris with my family.  I wanted to show my kids some art so we headed to the Louvre. When I got there I realized I had a very special opportunity for some awesome artistic interaction.

So, I present to you this  photo of Yours Truly holding a photo of Yours Truly as Mona Lisa, in front of the actual Mona Lisa.

Yep. This is a thing that actually happened.

Snow Day: Caught in the action

 Snow day!

It's rare around these parts, so I like to take full advantage. Here is a pic I accidentally took of Yours Truly in action getting some action figure photos.   I have my camera on shutter burst mode, controlled by my phone.  Tossing fresh powdery snow at Iron Man with an old pool strainer (so it spreads out).  

I don't know if any of these shots will come out, cause I'll need to mix several frames together later in Photoshop to get all the right snow in all the right places, but at least I had fun tossing some white stuff around. 

When it comes down to it, isn't having fun making art the most important part?

2026 Ice Storm Birds

 2026 - Ice Storm Birds

Before the storm hit we loaded up the bird feeders outside by our cherry tree in the front yard.   Today around lunch time I took out my camera and got some shots.   Some are not the best, but they are fun.  Most of the "dust" is falling sleet, or kicked up seeds.

Enjoy.

TIE Advanced

Wanted something to clear mind so I dug into my (annoyingly small) stash of models and pulled out this TIE Advanced (aka Vaders fighter from A New Hope).   

It only took an hour or so to build, but it went together smoothly.   Didn't bother painting as Empirical ships are notoriously kept clean (aka no weathering required).

Anyhoo.  Here it is.

 

Between Christmas and New Years - the lazy times.

 The days between Christmas and New Years are the laziest days of the year, aren't they?

This is the inspiration for my latest work (actually I made this before the break and subsequent laziness set in, but I am backfilling my inspiration - back-spiration? - for this one).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Holding Stuff Extravaganza

I have finished my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Holding Stuff series.

This all started a couple months ago when I was looking for more storage opportunities, and I pulled out an old bin from a shelf in my studio, and found the collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures I bought a bunch of years ago - I forget when I got them, but it was well before the pandemic, so its been a minute.

I have not shot these figures very much.  For a while there my action figure acquisition rate vastly exceeded my ability to photograph them artistically, so I have a bunch of figures that have not graced my camera. This set of 4 7" turtles from NECA being one of them.  When I saw the figures sitting in that forgotten box, I got a mental image of a shot that was selectively lit, with Raphael holding up his weapon of choice, a Sai, with a very shallow depth of field, so Raph would fade into the background.

It was time to play! A couple hours later I had this shot.

I really liked the photo, and it turned out exactly how I envisioned it would in my minds eye.   Since there are 4 turtles, and I had the whole set, I decided to let all of them grace my lens, and my artistic eye. All shot with the same style.

I like some more than others, but over the next couple of months I managed to capture a photo of each turtle.  These are the images I came up with:

That completed the set of turtles. Sometime around the 3rd and 4th turtle I was cleaning another part of my studio and I realized I had actually purchased the turtles sensei, Splinter, in a post-COVID trip to a second hand toy store, so I shot his portrait as well.

Splinter was a nice way to finish off this series.  

Most of my work is singletons - I rarely think in terms of series, so it was kinda of nice to revisit the same processing style over and over.  It was nice having that restriction.

I figure I'd end this post with a few behind-the-scenes shots of what these figures look like when I take their photos.   

Thus ends the post about these heroes on the half-shell. Turtle power!

One Million Views

 Somewhere along the line in the last few days my little ol' blog crested the one million views mark.  I suspect most of those are bots - after all its called "Only Googlebot Reads This Blog", so thanks bots!

A Room For The Kid(pool)

 I put the finishing touches on a room for the Kid(pool).

Tiny Arm Energy Pt. 4

 The T-Rex escape sequence in Jurassic Park is one of my favourite cinematic moments. So I decided to recreate it.

I started by 3D printing and painting the T-Rex, and creating the diorama out of foam and 3D printed fence posts. The man is an Indiana Jones figure. The rest is the magic of camera lenses, lights, photoshop,textures, grunge, all that good stuff.

I made a video showing the whole process here:

Tiny Arm Energy Pt. 3

 Put the finishing touches on the large diorama for the T-Rex.  This is now camera ready!

Tiny Arm Energy pt.2

 I have finished the T-Rex model.  I need to build a bigger base for photography purposes, but this will do for the long term shelf display.

Tiny Arm Energy

 My next project is going to involve this guy...

He's old, and so am I, so it may take a bit.  Either way, he's coming off the 3D printer now...

Raphael

Raphael.

Did a little playing around this evening, trying to get out of a creative funk.  I grabbed some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures I've had in my collection for years, but never really shoot very much.  Played with some lights and depth of fields in camera, then tossed it into Photoshop for some polishing.

I kinda dig it.  I am thinking of doing a series with each of the 4 turtles.

 

Two Paths

 Two paths diverge in a meadow

But I took the one clearly marked

cause I was going to anyway

and it seemed easier.

(Personally I think Robert Frosts version is better)

F-14A Tomcat in progress

My current project is this 1:48 scale F-14A Tomcat fighter jet...yep, the one from Top Gun.   This is a rare model for me as it is not a) sci-fi and b) snap together.   This sucker requires glue!

I don't have a photo planned for this model....which is odd for me.  Most of the time I make models to fulfil an idea.  This time I just wanted to build something without an agenda.

I am at the point where it's ready for paint, which brings me to the decision of whether to go with an existing look(the model comes with decals for two different Naval groups, as well as the Iraqi air force), or create my own imaginary unit.   

Time will tell.   For now it's time to get this primed and ready for the initial light grey base coat.

Onwards!

 

X-Man...trainee

Results of playing with lights in my light box, and some textures and flares in post.

Bbb

Mando and Luxo Jr.

 WTF is this? 

This is a shot I took during a work offsite.  We are a remote team, so we all got together and built LEGO from our various office over Video Chat- cause why not?   Team building, fun, blah blah - yeah, its cool we can do that. I used my home studio to build it, cause thats where I have the space...

Anyhoo, I finished my built of the Luxo Jr LEGO model a bit early... cause I'm a good LEGOer thats why... so to fill in some time I grabbed my most recent model, Mando, and played with some lights, and came up with this shot in about an hour.

It is a bit, completely, poorly shot (used my cell phone), and the Photoshop is really rough in many spots, but it helped give life to an awesome LEGO model. Anyway, thats what this is.

I made it from these two shots.

I Cracked the Secret for a Portable Miniature Photography Studio!

 Dudes... I think I finally cracked a portable studio I can use for toy photography that gives me all the tools my home studio does, but will easily fit  into my existing photo bag.

That recent Mando photo helped me crack it.  Video is here:

The parts you need from Platypod are:

• Two Elbows
• One Clamp
• One eXtreme plate
• One Tab

Mando

 One model assembled, painted, photographed, and Photoshopped.

Painted Mando

 Last night I assembled this Mandalorian model from a kit by Bandai. I hoped it wouldn't need painting, but it turned out and there were a small but annoying number of small defects in the plastic that I decided to paint over.    This morning I got all the painted bits reassembled.    Should look good in front of my camera!