Picture Techniques

Tools 'n' Tips Article by Greg Kerry on Feb 1 2012

 

It surprises me that with the advent of digital cameras people don't experiment more when they are photographing their models. Switching to black and white is one of the easiest options - as I've shown here with the first four pics showing Dragon's US Marines and Japanese Infantry. I bought them all together as one boxed set as a tie-in with the Windtalkers (execrable) movie. There was one extra marine in the box: a resin casting in fatigues but minus any other equipment and looking nothing like Nicholas Cage (or a Navaho Indian). My diorama was inspired more by Clint Eastwood's excellent Iwo Jima films: all bare, rugged rock and no (difficult to model) vegetation.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

Photo 3

Photo 4

Photo 5

Photo 6

Photo 5 shows the beginnings of my experiments with the photo edit feature on Windows 2000 (which I thought was excellent - much better and easier to use than that on Windows XP). This pic is monochromed and posterized. Other pics went through pretty much the same process though allowing some color into the posterization. Pics 6-7 are of Dragon's Russian Cossacks; pic 8 is of a pair of Dragon's French Foreign Legionnaires; pic 9 of the same company's Russian Tank Riders; and pic 10 of Trumpeter's 1/35 AS9 and its mighty gun.

I have yet to try PhotoShop but I'm sure there are similar features on that to indulge in. You don't have to limit yourself to setting models against dodgy (all too often unconvincing) backdrops . . .

Greg Kerry

Click on images below to see larger images

Photo 7

Photo 8

Photo 9

Photo 10

 

      

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry