Hey folks, This was something I started back when WfC came out. It was sidelined for about 1 1/2 - 2 yrs just because I got stuck in a rut trying to figure out the best way to make the LED cannon. That's one of my personal flaws - if I get stuck, it's hard to work on the project until I get a stroke of inspiration or drive. I have limited free time to work on things so when I think about where I'm stuck, I just don't feel like trying to figure it out. Fast forward until FoC comes out, I finally decided it was time to finish this up. So I buckled down and got the LED figured out (see my second post for WIP info), got everything Krylon primed and airbrushed. I was sidelined another month or two out of frustration from all the paint scraping. I sanded and trimmed away so much and I still feel that there's just about nothing you can do with this mold to prevent it from happening. I went for a matte/flat, cartoon styled theme on the paint job. Though, I kept the orange for the cannon the full gloss in order to make it really pop. The purple was a custom mix of Flat White and Purple Pearl but I may have gone a little too light in my efforts to be cartoony. On the last picture, I included MP Skywarp's arm as a comparison (I can't quite figure out how to use my Rebel XT right to get good shots) so you can get a point of reference. Let me know your opinions on the color. I tried dry brushing a darker purple over top to give it some depth but also to lessen the lightness of the base color. I tried to strip all of the paint apps from the clear chest panel, as I wanted to keep that and the clear shin pieces as they were. I added some Guards Red highlights to wrap it up. I think I might add the grey color to the top of the shoulder piece. I'm not sure if there's anything else that could wrap this guy up. Let me know your thoughts and anything you think might be missing or an extra touch. Thanks! EDIT - I took a new round of photos and replaced them.
Here are some WIP pics. You can see the head I worked on. I made a cast of Classic Galvatron's noggin to get the crown from and used FixIt Sculpt to stick it on Meg's head. Pretty simple. There's also a picture of the pieces drying from being primed. The LED was taken from a plastic LED light caribiner thing from the dollar store. I cut out the battery holder and trimmed out as much from the WfC cannon to fit it in. I glued some styrene to the back that I sanded to fit in that little hole in the existing cannon so it would stay in place better. I also wanted the LED to keep some of the purple color from the existing missile, so I cut the tip off and dremeled out enough space to stick the LED in. It doesn't add a lot of color but it's something. Lastly, I hate momentary switches, so I bought a bundle of on/off switches. I glued and sanded some styrene for this too to keep it steady. And I cut the trigger from the cannon, drilled a little hole for a screw for stability and glued it to the switch. Overall, it's not the prettiest thing but not bad for my first attempt at LEDs. It works and it should be fairly easy to get back together when changing the batteries.
Yeah, I can't seem to find out how to best use my Canon DSLR and get the right shots. The same thing when I took pics of my Revoltech Skywarp years back... it just doesn't come out the way it looks in real life. I tried adjusting the tone/color in Photoshop to get what's attached but it's still not right. If anyone has any tips or tutorial references on the internet to help, let me know. I've read a bunch but I must be missing something. But if you look at the Skywarp arm, that's a much darker/deeper purple than in the picture .. so the colors are off. I was toying around with using some flat clear coat mixed with a tiny amount of clear red & blue (hopefully an okay shade of purple) to try and darken it.
Looks great! Mind if I ask where the head came from? I made one of these for myself, but with a very different head design.
It's the regular head with the crest from Classics/Universe Galvatron. You can see it on my workspace in the pics from the second post.
I have the same problem with my DSLR. The colors on the pictures just do not seem to reflect real life. It's my least favorite part of customizing...the dreaded photo shoot. I do like your version of Galvatron though. Nice job.
nice work man. Your camera should have different settings for light type. I usually have mine set to florescent, which helps a lot of the coloring problems. Be sure to also use "Auto Color" in PS; it usually shifts the hue to how the colors appear in real life. Another issue just might be your monitor, not likely, but sometimes monitors are off.
Thanks, Mike. I installed those natural light halogen bulbs in my lamps thinking those might be best (perhaps I'm wrong). I'll have to check my WB settings when I get home - I thought I had it set to either halogen or florescent. The newer PS have Auto Tone as well as Auto Color, and Tone seemed to do a better job. But I usually try Auto Level (better in CS2-era PS) and Auto Tone/Color. I don't want to 'enhance' them, so to speak - just make them reflect real life better.. Ultimately, I'd love to figure out how you and other folks like frogDNA can nail the photos with everything in focus and bright/colorful while the background is still black as night. I thought I saw you put up a tutorial a few years ago but I couldn't find anything, so maybe it was comments on someone else's post/how-to.
don't compliment me! I have no frikken clue how to take good pics. I got lucky, I have an (older) digital camera (canon SD1100) ...and it's got a nice macro setting. I keep the aperture about 1/2 way, set the light to florescent and don't use ANY lights, other than natural light coming in from the window. I do have a cheap light tent, but don't even think it's doing much. It's essential for accuracy that I run all my pics through PS for auto color, auto contrast, and to crop out the crap around the custom.
This is one of the most impressive looking Galvatrons yet. In my opinion, a pinkish purple is much more menacing than lavender. I wish someone would cast that head so that I won't have to hunt for a 2008 Galvatank to sacrifice. Those still sell really well on ebay, despite being a crap figure.
Ain't that always how it works out? Never planned, some things just fall into place. I have a light tent that I grabbed at Walmart cheap and some black sheet/fabric... but what you mentioned about the aperture triggered something, so thank you for that. I'm a total novice when it comes to photography and, though I've tried to put it all together in my head, I still can't figure out what's the right stuff for the right situations. But I threw my Rebel into Ap. priority, cranked that sucker up so it had a like 3-4 second shutter open and dialed back the lighting. Seemed to be better - and this is raw from the camera, no PS, just resized. Thanks for the compliment! To be honest, I was totally planning on offering some of my casts but I was having so many issues with bubbles I gave up (refer to the original post here on my frustration on that personality flaw). I was planning on a few things that have sat in my tray here for like a year or two. Though, a few weeks ago I had just about put on some man pants about pressure casting and planned on getting a pressure pot and supplies from Harbor Freight. I just didn't have the $100-odd for the parts. I planned on putting these left over pieces up to raise that cash - I just haven't inventoried them out and put a thread up. I should really get on that ... >=\
