Hi Martin and Timmy! Your joke made my day
Well this guy is more or less me, in mini, so it's mini-me like in Austin Powers
Ah ah Michel, why a sailor instead of a captain? very good question! Ever since my compulsory Military Service time I nursed a strong dislike for everything wearing red or gold on the shoulders, this is why i only model soldiers of the war fodder kind (My apologies to you guys if some of you actually wear some gold on shoulders during daytime!!). Another reason is that officers -especially during that time, wore TOO much stuff like gold, feathers etc, they are harder to paint and harder to really blend in the scene. The figs in my dioramas always sort of emerge from their surroundings (at least this is how I design them), and it's harder to do if they just don't wear some plain discreet clothes
About authority, if you look at his features, he does not look that stupid nor that young, he's got a beard and something about him that says he already saw some stuff
You guys know Jim Baumann? arf that's a joke we all know Jim Baumann, he is so good i can even forgive him to share some letters of his name with mine.
He is SO good that he can even help me to solve a FIGURE problem, so also sprach Jim baumann "you should use the ship modeller's trick: a very thin stretched sprue bit, you leave it under some glue for the fumes to tender it, and you fix it with matt varnish". Well he said that with a correct English of course.
I tried, it worked! thanks Jim!
Ah ah, of course if I were about to put the guy behind his window, I put the focus of the viewer on the windows themselves, and yep, I noticed something which was not so good -the way those are tied to the wood beneath was errr, pretty noticeable.
So I made a bit of sawdust, mixed it with water and a bit of paint, applied it on the windows themselves and *pushed back" the mix at the place of the joint.
then I applied a thin line of brown paint at the joint for extra depth, and now you just don't notice plastic edges anymore
Ah well, time to prepare pictures..
Outside, in the shadow, with a tripod and a piece of blue paper behind it
You notice that thanks to my way of doing the sea, i am left with some sort of handle on the bottom of the diorama, this is very practical to hold it!
So here I am, with both arms in front of the camera, trying to find the best angles..
i set the white balance of the camera and set the bracketing at its maximal value so that I can get one overexposed, one underexposed and one normal picture. I of course put 2 seconds delay on the clock to be sure that the pressure of my finger on the camera won't get the first pic blurred..
DIGITAL PROCESSING
i have been changing my mind a lot about digital processing of the pics. let's be honest, I consider myself as a very good Photoshop handler as i have been using it professionally for the last 10 years, i can spot a retouched picture from miles. I have been noticing some guys who posts pics in forums that wear so much make up they begin to look like stolen cars and are a downright lie considering their actual abilities. As those are very often poor digital pics handler, you can see their tricks for miles (in doubt, just open pics with Windows' Notepad and just have a good laugh)
Anyway, I think there's a law in texas (?) that allows you to wear a gun in the street if the gun is APPARENT. My opinion on digital processing is about that: if you add a background, digital fog or whatever no problem because you VISIBLY enhance the pic. Actually wht you show is not a MODEL anymore, but really a PICTURE, big difference). But i can't stand people that try to hide failures with digital imagery.
When i started sending some pics 2 years ago to guys on diorama sites, i was always adding some backgrounds but I realized it was a very bad idea: indeed, I never travel with my dioramas and probably none of you guys will ever see Galil�e live, so I have to make my best so that what you see is the real thing!
Moreover I work a lot the colour schemes and light directions, if I begin to mess with those too with adding some digital background, then I loose my effects.
So i have been working on some subtle effects that are actually some work on colour range, this is why I take 3 pics:
Now using some digital processing, I make ONE which could get the shadows of the first and great quality highlights of the last one: basically my picture looks like I had some 10000$ Nikon, while I have a 5 years old 400$ Panasonic (and that's not bad already
)
So anyway, this closes the Galil�e. I will have a bit of extra work to do on the painting of the guy some day because the matt varnish coat I put left one place a bit white!
Too bad about that, no problem I call it finished
Time to open the Champagne and to thanks all of you guys who supported me for those last 3 months from the heart, thanks really
Now I will go back on my own website with my big Mass�na bit, kid sculpting and other joys..
