Thanks Jerry & thanks too for bumping “Another 105mm”, that’s the one I was referring to a week or so ago here & I couldn’t find it either – didn’t help I couldn’t recall the title. It’s as brilliant as I’d remembered it looking at those pics on p. 39. I don’t think there’s any risk of mine bearing much comparison, as yours is most decidedly beyond compare but at least it should look different enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxMCPATnhZI

Interesting !
J

Hi Tim,

Great progress on the base — very impressive!

For some reason your hot-link didn't work for me, but I was able to find a workaround. This is clearly an Aussie band, as they are driving on the 'Mad Max' side of disaster! 💥🚘💥

—mike

Thanks guys even though it’s dragging - I run out of patience with bases faster than anything else. Final push tomorrow if the wind ever dies down, today’s effort resulted in chasing 3 of my trees round the garden...which was almost as surreal as it sounds.

Hey Mike - I’d forgotten Puretone was an Aussie band, always liked it mainly for the great percussion but the eerily complementary lyrics made me smile...eerie also that they used 3 camera angles for the original clip’s smash-up, but any suspicions I’m just re-hashing that idea are, of course....

baseless

So here’s the provisional set-up – sharp eyed lurkers will note that this dio wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of National Geographic(s)...



Nearly done with the bases, as seen from the 3 camera angles...







The scrub’s dubiously labelled “Ground Cover Turf – Golden Straw” from Wee Scapes (Simi Creative Products)...maybe they should change their trading name too. But I bought it years ago based on what I could see in the pack rather than the description, it looks OK-ish & will get moderated further by a sprinkling of loose soil which will also blend all joins, with some paler soil for the convoy’s t*re tracks.

Leutnant Rudel finally agreed to some fresh test-flights after the recent scare (albeit subject to some rather unrealistic safety conditions as seen below) in order to try out different camera angles & see how it looked against the groundwork. With the big bird it’s a particularly tricky equation comprising relative distances between camera/plane/base; meteorology + orientation + sunlight strength + shadows; ideally eliminating wire visibility when it’s rigged properly (next task); getting the prop spinning (the task after that); and then there’s always random lorikeet shadows...









That shadow in the 3rd pic is way too big, maybe I can use the smaller plane to substitute its own shadow instead. Here’s the latter for comparison & alternate shots, suspended + prop-spin...



I’m beginning to figure out how to fade out the fishing lines during photography – either swinging the plane & shooting from further away on a slightly slower shutter speed (to blur the lines as well as the plane)...



...or on a higher shutter speed with the plane closer & in sharp focus so that the lines are not...



Easy to say, not so easy to achieve especially in the latter case because if the speed’s a fraction too fast the spinning prop “freezes”. I’m still using just Paint to mask out any lines that remain but if that doesn’t cut it hopefully Michael K can help out with Photoshop, despite my reservations it’s no different to what I’m doing anyway.

And that concludes this phase of prep - unless I’ve forgotten something which is always possible. There’ll be a couple of bonus features to surprise but I’m keeping those under wraps as they're still in experimental mode, so now it’s time to go dark & pull it all together. Lots of work still to do, maybe a few weeks before I’m ready to launch. Meanwhile thanks for looking in so far...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q

I tried to find them, but try as I will I cannot see any support wires on the plane and the spinning prop looks great.

Perhaps devote a couple of National Geographics to raising the rear edge of the first tectonic plate so the camera no longer sees that dark seam line in the ground. (Or I can take it out in PS if you want!)

Other than perhaps that one little thing it is very exciting work!

That is just brilliant man !
J

You might deside where, in advance, you want the plane's shadow to fall. Then rotate the dio base and pick the right time of day to put the shadow where you want it to be.

If using real sunlight (as you are) you are going to have to be shooting around 11am to 1pm with the sun more directly overhead, otherwise the shadows are so long that the plane's shadow will fall outside the perimeter of your dio base.

Just trying to help, not trying to tell you what to do.

Your daylight shots in you outdoor studio look so real. It is just a quality I cannot quite seem to generate in my outdoor "patio" model work and I have tried!

Beautiful!

Up to my old post production tricks again:

Thanks again gents, slowly it’s getting there I think/hope.

Mike – you sure know how to spin Rudel’s prop, fantastic job. I’ve no idea how long the first shot took (?) but if you could try reducing the shadow to say 33% of what it is there (in about the same position) let’s see what that looks like - my main aim with the bases was to make their scale as vague as possible from overhead, even if the plane was on its attack run I’d say it would be higher than the shadow indicates. I should explain that for aforementioned attack sequence, there will be 1/72- sized trucks on the ground, not 1/35 ahh just let that trick slip out. Seamless disappearing act with the join in the second, awesome & many thanks – I’ll be shooting the final versions of the flying/approaching planes over the next week or so, I’ll contact you via members in-box if the photos need any post-prod if that’s OK?

Too kind about the fishing lines although I can still see some of ‘em e.g. in photo 33 top left corner starting about a centimetre (on a standard pc monitor) in along the top, going down to the tail root – also from the nose; in 22 from tail to just to the right of vertical; ditto in 23.

Yes the middle section’s only loosely in place at this stage, all joins will vanish...although I’m pondering a further diversion – trenches? The reason I’m averse is because the short central longitudinal join would need to become a zig-zag connecting the two transverse ones, involving going 12 rounds with the jig-saw because they’re quite thick fibre-board panels. On one hand that would be 100% authentic for Kursk defence lines, on the other hand I failed Carpentry.

Correct about the optimum time of day – except that’s just when it’s maximum glare, causing a few probs such as the wings reflecting/whiting-out...and with intermittent scudding clouds it’s like trying to set up a time-lapse sequence in a disco. Living in the Capricorn half of the planet everything’s upside down of course - the sun arcs overhead to the north, the dio table points due-south-west, and the sun clears my roof around 11 a.m. (depending on time of year/summertime-time) to light the garden terrace till sunset.

When I first came to Oz in ‘85 the second thing that hit me (after the heat) was the Big Sky - coming from typically overcast London it was overwhelming, and it still is. Feel free to lift some of my skies to P/shop into yours – despite what girlfriends have called me it’s OK, I didn’t create those

Done and done Boss, you're the Director!



The shadow is just about exactly 30% smaller - if too small, re-enlarging slightly would be no problem, whatever you would like.

As you can imagine, some PS functions are easy, some not so much. It actually surprised me how quickly I was able to remove that refrigerator shelf/CD rack supporting your aircraft.

I am game for more.

Here is another photo I played with, pulled from your earlier archive:



(I pulled the wrecked truck to the side of the main road pathway and extended the snow field.)

p.s. For straffing runs I think your aircraft are going to be fairly low.

One thing I now realize: I need to build some larger, sort of "ground cover only" generic bases like yours to pose my models on!

Yes I reckon that shadow looks much better, many thanks Mike. Nice tweaks on the silhouettes too, it’s looking more like a 50’s/60’s book-cover or movie poster than ever. As for bases, I wish I’d used styro blocks from the start – because of their extremely light weight they can be much larger than boards & remain portable, and provided they’re at least 3” thick they’re practically unbreakable. For those like me with limited storage space they can stack on their ends provided nothing’s loose of course - for reasons not altogether clear I don’t like doing that with boards. Generic landscape-blocks can be designed in smaller modules and mixed/matched depending on what you want, with different background elements like buildings/ruins etc made separately and plonked & settled into place with fine loose soil. With this dio (before being interrupted by the idea of trenches instead of just butting them together) I was only going to stick a 1” wide strip of paper along the long sides to overlap adjoining panels & when butted sprinkle soil over it to blend them together.

Obviously not much of the above is any use if you want to keep something as a vignette, but I’m never going to take anything to a show - the only way anyone else will see them is with photos so for me it’s pointless keeping the originals afterwards, they’d just collect dust & take up space. That also reduces the tedium of base-making by being endlessly recyclable/modifiable.

But each to their own & vive la difference, I fully appreciate the attractions of preserving what are “true” dioramas in 3D, mine are strictly 2D so probably need a different descriptor to differentiate – I thought about “Diodrama” but productions like Jerry Rutman’s & Nick Haskell’s and others deserve that moniker more.

Hi Tim - I must say, I really admire your process - I haven't had time to post much recently, so it was fun to review what you're doing - and the non-high tech (ie stil building models and not just photo shop) special effects! Nice! Very interesting...I usually run into troubles with peripheral, out of scale things (dogs, cars, plants etc) popping up in the background - very frustrating! It looks like your process will reduce if not eliminate the problem - nice work!

Cheers
Nick

Thanks Nick although I’m not sure, the only process I used to use was C(ritical) P(ath) A(nalysis), now it’s more like C(an’t) P(lan) A(head)...and yet somehow it’s so much more fun.

That’s outdoor photography - if I had a dollar for every time I’ve spent half an hour framing a killer photo with the right light/right shadows/no wind, only to notice as I click that also in shot is (per scale) a giant triffid, 500 ft tree branch, flock of migrating super-sized albatrosses, con trails from a passing A380, a fruit-fly the size of a pig getting into a T34 turret...

Before now I’d abandon or postpone, but between my Paint & Mike’s P/shop I’m coming round to using them to overcome background inconveniences like the above, and fishing lines of course - I think that’s valid & sounds like you do too. But I don’t really want to go any further than that, I think the entire hobby becomes compromised if models, figures or landscapes are digitally enhanced - or is it rife & I'm being naïve? At least if they have to be, the resulting images should be captioned as such. Whatever, the hair-dryer’s not going back to the bathroom anytime soon.

So much for going dark - this gets slightly weird now (if you’re the last lurker standing who didn’t think it already was)so you might need this first...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD5G2ot3udk

Belatedly realising there were still scale issues photographing the attack run, some tags were popped at the thrift er hobby shop to get the only small-scale softskins in stock. Hardly awesome though...



Gonzo scratching required to convert these to a GMC & a GAZ AA, and just for fun using only kit components i.e. too lazy to dig out the Evergreen.

Yep, still got that razor-sharp attention to detail...



Lucky break the kits came with towed guns sporting the same t*res as the truck, which provided the GMC’s 3rd axle





They only need to pass muster from the rear, and from a distance...





As for the third cargo truck, the ZIS half-track - a rummage in my 1/76th-scale scrapyard produced...



Hey there must be a picture reference for this somewhere...



good thing it’ll be the one furthest away...



The reason I did all that in a hurry was in the expectation the next day(s) would be calm outside, but alas continuing 30+ kph gusts so these bonsai drag-queens would have been blown into next week trying test-shots outside...weekend looks promising though

I love to watch your problem solving methods !
J

Thanks Jerry - well as you know we don’t have problems, only ....mo’ problems. Finally a calm-ish day today so just to tie up this particular amendment, the truckettes got their first outing...













I’m well into unknown territory with this project & as unsure as I was from the get-go whether it’ll work out, hence the ridiculous number of tests-shots. I’ve probably taken over 400 already of which around 80% got deleted for various reasons at various stages, the remainder kept as references to improve on for the final-shoot sequences, some of which got into this thread. Anyhow I think switching to small-scale vehicles for this sequence was successful in that it provides much more scope i.e. what fits into frame, & makes the apparent distance from the planes more convincing...without having to photograph from atop a 30 ft ladder.

Paging Post-Prod Mgr - pls feel free to fix these trials up if you have any time, Mike. I was happy with #57 as a “clean” photo – without swinging the plane or any Paint enhancement I can only see 2 bits of support line [forward of cockpit & left wingtip], ironically the line shadows are worse [left wing & tailplane] but unless I wait until near sunset or go for all-overcast shots it’s unavoidable. The problem with re-orienting the bases around to compensate is that the shadows of the trucks etc would then become inconsistent with the main-sequence close-up shots.

Every day in every little way etc...

Just reopened my shop on Sunday afternoon. Called in a few of the folks to come work some OT in the studio.

So Boss - We will see what we can get done in the way of post production retouching.

Here you go . . . .


p.s. When the prop is turning straight towards the viewer it does not loose its opacity the way it does when it is moving at right angles to the viewer. Was not sure just how much to blur the propeller in this photo, given its' position/angle.


And with prop blur added:

p.s. Trying to figure out the best way to do the special affects work in this last shot. So far not too happy with the results. I would have put in more bullets and tracers but based on the position of the plane I calculated this is where and how the bullets would be landing. (Unless we assume the ground crews always aimed the gun pods a little "high" on the Stukas.)

A pet pieve I have with the Hollywood special affects pyro guys:

Whenever you see a line of machine gun shots coming straight at the camera hitting the ground they always look like they are marching straight at you and that the left and right shots are hitting the ground at exactly the same instant.

This presumes that the left and right machine guns are somehow synchronized to each other, which they are not. And it also assumes the plane is flying straight at you. In reality the pilot is most likely gently working the rudder pedals so the line of hits would be moving in a zig-zag pattern and coming at you almost diagonally. A good pilot could literally walk the line of hits right up to your toes and you would not know exactly where they were coming from.