Subject:
|
Re: Neoclassic Space Cutter
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.space
|
Date:
|
Thu, 1 Feb 2007 21:26:05 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
5177 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.space, Aaron M. Sneary wrote:
| |
A most excellent addition to the NCS line of MOCs. Something about the shape
reinforces the militant nature of this vessel. I especially like the use of
the 2x2 trans-red slopes.
Your photos, background and framing really make a fine presentation. Would
you be willing to share some of your techniques?
I promise to get a presentational photo of my NCS fast courier soon.
|
Aaron,
Thanks much! I still think your creation has a higher coolness-factor. I’m
currently working on another, a larger ship, that’ll have more features than the
cutter. Yeah, I like the NCS line. Way too fun.
My techniques? It’s all general Photoshop stuff, really. The part that is
usually the biggest pain-in-the-hiney is “floating” the ship (or
whatever-the-vehicle-is) on a separate layer. If the background is kept simple,
the magic wand tool makes this relatively painless. But if there are too many
complications in contrast, then I select the ship out by hand, using the
polygonal lasso tool. This takes some patience, but I’m a little crazy
sometimes, and can do it. Certain masking techniques can also help.
The Saturn image is courtesy of Voyager 2. I pasted the ringed world into its
own layer and modified it some. Used a Gaussian filter to blur it slightly,
along with the stars, to bring the ship out in starker contrast (which is easy
to do when everything is on separate layers).
The stars I made with the airbrush and very light blue. Put on a layer behind
the planet and ship.
With the photography, one thing to pay attention to is lighting. Mine isn’t as
good as I’d like it to be, actually, but I keep it directional enough to at
least suggest the harsh, direct lighting of interplanetary space. I use diffuse
natural lighting from a single window, with some scattered light from another in
the same room--this gives the shadows some direction, but also allows for a good
exposure of both the highlighted and shadowed areas (this is Lego; doesn’t have
to be 100% realistic ;o). Though, letting some shadowed stuff get lost is okay,
AFAIAC, as that is what would really happen in deep space. When the ship is next
to a brightly lit planet, then there’s a means for reflected light to highlight
darker portions of the spacecraft.
Incidentally, I use a fairly inexpensive camera--Kodak Easy Share--with a cheapo
tripod. Don’t need anything super-fancy to do what I’m doing. I’d rather spend
my money on bricks. :o)
Hope this helps. And I am most certainly looking forward to the presentational
photo of your NCS design. One day, I’m going to make something like that ship...
-best,
Wolf
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Neoclassic Space Cutter
|
| (...) snipped (...) Thanks for the photo advice. I figured it was along those lines, but I've seen some fancy 'automatic' starfield tutorials too, that I had little luck with. Also, I wanted to point out to you and the others reading that I found (...) (18 years ago, 3-Feb-07, to lugnet.space, FTX)
|
Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Neoclassic Space Cutter
|
| (...) A most excellent addition to the NCS line of MOCs. Something about the shape reinforces the militant nature of this vessel. I especially like the use of the 2x2 trans-red slopes. Your photos, background and framing really make a fine (...) (18 years ago, 1-Feb-07, to lugnet.space, FTX)
|
6 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
