Minor/Repaint: G1 toon backgrounds

Discussion in 'Radicons Customs' started by OptimusTimelord, Mar 25, 2014.

  1. OptimusTimelord

    OptimusTimelord Masterpiece Reanimator

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  2. Superquad7

    Superquad7 OCP Police Crime Prevention Unit 001 Super Content Contributor

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    Request: Please discuss your process from start to finish with these. Both from a digital painting methodology and a physical (customs) methodology.

    In other words, if I wanted to make my own physical backgrounds, tell me how to you do it.

    (For those of you playing at home, I'm making this post specifically to get OTL here to pen down more instructions for a tutorial :) )

    Again, thanks for all you contribute :) 
     
  3. OptimusTimelord

    OptimusTimelord Masterpiece Reanimator

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    Aha, no worries dude :) 

    These panoramic shots I've been doing are fairly easy. I just screen grab stills from a shot, like this:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    And using layers in Photoshop, line them up into a wide image. Then it's just a matter of hiding the joins (with plenty of overlap it doesn't have to be a hard edge: I usually use a large feathered eraser tool). Sometimes individual frames might need colour or brightness adjustment to match the others, and occasionally even a tiny bit of rotation, due to the often erratic nature of animation.

    [​IMG]

    For zooming in shots, like this one of the Ark, each step forward gives a clearer look at the detail. So I keep the first frame as the base layer (for the extremities) and add the closer up frames on top, resized to match the picture.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Then when everything is lined up and balanced, erase the black borders around the inset layers to reveal a new version of the original wide shot but with much clearer Ark...

    [​IMG]
     

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  4. OptimusTimelord

    OptimusTimelord Masterpiece Reanimator

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    The actual poster prints I used for my customs are a slightly more elaborate version of this process. For example, I used this Ark background:

    [​IMG]

    With this close up of the entrance pasted in on Photoshop:

    [​IMG]

    Because I specifically wanted to make the iconic entrance a feature of the poster (also of course, being a close-up it had more detail to work with).

    I also wanted lots of 'floor space' so cleaned up the foreground into a basic dirt track. The mountains in the distance were also blurred a bit to give some perspective. The most labour intensive part was zooming in and smoothing out jagged pixel edges/compression artifacts so that none would show up on the large scale poster print. For that I just had to spend time adding colour and shading in new Photoshop layers, constantly trying to match the original art. You can probably tell I gave it some more vibrant colours too :) 

    [​IMG]

    I ordered a 40" print online and that's about it. It's too big to fit in any shelving, but for me it needed to be big because my customs are usually Masterpiece scale. All I have to do is fix it to the wall when I need to do a photoshoot, the rest of the time it's kept rolled up in a tube with my other background print.
     

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  5. Murasame

    Murasame 村雨

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    This is so awesome! What I always wanted. I was so close doing it myself, but never found the time. Thank you so much! Now I can finally print backgrounds for my shelves :) 

    By the way: With content awareness filter and copytool you can get rid of characters in backgrounds.
     
  6. Deadsled

    Deadsled Energon Recovery

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    Great stuff! I know this is all very time consuming. Your dedication to this project is greatly appreciated. :thumb 
     
  7. Brum Bot

    Brum Bot "Give them Victory... or Give them Death"

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    Definitely going to use some of these in future, OT, thanks again.

    Does anyone know the best size if you were going to use in a detolf? A4/A5?
     
  8. mazdaspeed7

    mazdaspeed7 Autobot Engineer

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    Man I don't know how I've missed this thread.. You sir are killing it! You've remastered a stack iconic back drops from series 1 through to the movie & done a magnificent job of doing so. Keep them coming as a few will be making it to my new TF case & wall :D 
     
  9. Peagis

    Peagis Superion

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    This is great exactly what I've been wanting for my MP display!!
     
  10. Soundwave3k

    Soundwave3k TFW2005 Supporter

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    Amazing job OptimusTimelord! I've printed a couple of your backgrounds already but wasn't sure if there were enough of them for a large display... now though I may have to print some others and go all out!
     
  11. Arkvander

    Arkvander Optimal Optimist

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    I found some of the original storyboards for the '86 movie, and thanks to your work, it is very clear the backgrounds are almost exact copies of the storyboard layouts.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    From this, we can also see what a larger version of this room would look like if it had been animated!
     

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  12. The Wombat King

    The Wombat King Ruler of a distant land

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    Love these. :D 
    I was attempting to do something like this of Autobot City from the movie years ago, but gave up. Thanks for sharing these.
     
  13. OptimusTimelord

    OptimusTimelord Masterpiece Reanimator

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    I'd be surprised if it has never been done sometime, somewhere by somebody, but I've never seen it.

    How does this content awareness thingy know what's behind a character to fill in the gap? (assuming it isn't just doing what I'm doing and using other frames).
    Thanks!
    I don't have a Detolf but it does seem to be rather a TF collector standard :D  So if anyone can provide the sizes, I could even post some images specifically tailored to fit?
    Lol cheers :thumb 
    Good to hear :) 
    So how do they look? I'm thinking, as a continuation of the thread and if folks are interested, of 'remastering' some of the images posted here using the techniques I used for the Ark one, basically trying to reconstruct the original painting in proper high definition. If I were to do that, which of the shots I've posted would people like to see worked on?
    That's really cool, thanks for sharing it :)  I guess most of these original painted artworks probably went off to the sides even more than can be seen.
    No worries :) 
     
  14. Danilko

    Danilko Well-Known Member

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    Wow, man, thank you so much for these! This is awesome! :) 
     
  15. grimlockgravez

    grimlockgravez Dinobot

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    This stuff is great. Glad I happened across this thread.
    These will be great backgrounds for computers, an great backgrounds for reviews, murals whole nine. You had to put a lot of work into this. If there is anymore you happen across keep it coming great stuff.
    Thanks,

    Cheers!

    Oh... By the by, How big can you make this image?
    Would be great to print and frame.

    [​IMG]


    I am going to try and get my buddy to commission this as a mural on a wall for... A project I have.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2014
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  16. grimlockgravez

    grimlockgravez Dinobot

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    Wait for it... wait for it...
    Yea there it is... Sigh. G1 had it's art issues but this. Le Sigh.
     
  17. Bicycletronox

    Bicycletronox Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for posting the beautiful backgrounds
     
  18. Solrac333

    Solrac333 G1 got it right!

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    Very cool.
     
  19. SCENARIO

    SCENARIO Well-Known Member

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    very impressive showcase of environments. when taken out of context a different appreciation goes out to those artist who rendered these backgrounds, in which they typically go unnoticed during viewings albeit short screen time or just pace of episode. I mean its called background for a reason... but its great to see these in the foreground and admired.
     
  20. LeakinLubricant

    LeakinLubricant Well-Known Member

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    Wow! These are amazing, how would they work on a large TV screen with figures displayed in front of them?