Toytography Magazine - (Fall 2023)

SEPTEMBER 2023

HOW TO CREATE ACTION POSES THAT LOOK GREAT ON CAMERA

RESOURCES FOR PHOTO TOUCHUPS ON YOUR PHONE

A NEW DIY TUTORIAL FROM JONATHAN.

A SEASONED TOYTOGRAPHER WHO BROUGHT INSPIRATION TO THE CREATORS OF THE LEGO MOVIE

TOYTOGRAPHYMAG.COM

3 IMPACT IMAGES 5 FEATURED TOYTOGRAPHER 11 EDITING ON THE GO 21 DIORAMA BUILD 23 TOYTOGRAPHY WALL 31 33 C O N T E S T W I N N E R A Message from Brian Carr

Creating unique action packed poses

Avanaut - Vesa Lehtimäki

CONTENTS

TABLE OF NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER

Exploring the Best Photo Editing Software for Cell Phones

DIY with Jonathan of “Randomdiorama”

Inspiring work from our readers

Themed Contest #SCIFI

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A Note from the Founder

It’s hard to believe that we have reached one year with this publication. It has been quite an amazing journey thus far.

I am so grateful for all of the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of meeting along the way. I am also happy to see all of the positive comments that have been received. But Most importantly, I am grateful for our readers. They are the inspiration for us to keep producing issues.

As we continue on this journey, we will always do our best to bring help and inspiration.

In this issue

r r a C n a i Br

We had so much fun with our last diorama tutorial, we decided to do another! This time, we are receiving help from the creative mind of Jonathan of “RandomDiorama”.

Founder

Our feature interview is with veteran toytographer, Vesa Lehtimäki. He explains his humble history of toy photography and how his images influenced the creators of the Lego Movie.

Don't forget to check out our artist wall and this issue's themed contest winner.

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c p t a Im Action shots are present in some of the coolest photographs of toys. These images typically depict a fight between two or more characters.

When done right, the punch or kick you're seeing in the picture almost makes you feel it.

Balance and a lot of patience are needed for this technique, especially if you're not using a stand to support the figures. Although the task is difficult, the results are well worth the effort.

Spend some time experimenting with all the joints and getting familiar with your figure's mobility before setting up your figures for the scene. The torso is one of the most crucial components of an impact pose. When most throw a punch, they tend to lean into it, so make sure your figure has the ability to do that as well. If your figure is unable to accomplish this, your character will appear very stiff and the impact won't appear as plausible as it could.

Additionally, the character's arms must be able to raise at least 90 degrees. Try to imitate the pose to get a sense of how high the figure's arms should be raised. Think about where your arm would be if you were to throw a punch, then put your figure’s arm in the same position.

Until you have produced a convincing position, repeat this procedure for each component of the figure's pose.

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IMAGES

GOING WITH THE FLOW

Your photo won't be convincing just by the way your figure is posed. It helps to position any fabric that is on or attached to the figure you are posing so that it gives the impression that the figure is moving. If your figure is wearing a cape, you will need to position the cape so that it appears to be moving, for example. To facilitate this elusion, some figures have wires sewed into their capes. For those who don't, you'll need to sew wires into the cape yourself or come up with other inventive solutions.

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IMPACT REACTIONS

So, your character is now in a convincing stance and appears to be about to strike someone hard. Now we need to make sure that the person who is experiencing that force actually appears to be being hit. You might need a support stand to hold the other figure in place depending on how your first figure is posed. Pose the first figure's hand so that it actually makes contact with the figure taking the blow. Most of the time, by angling the fist from the first figure past the victim's face, you can effectively convey impact.

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CONTINUING THE FLOW

Now that your second figure is in place, check to see if its fabric material is flowing correctly. If it does, you've successfully placed your second figure. If the character being hit doesn't react to the blow but the clothing does, it won't appear realistic on camera.

The fabric ought to be flowing the other way from where the victim was struck. Consider Newton's law.

(See? Toytography is actually a science!) As a guide, use the fabric that is positioned in the first figure.

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READY FOR CLOSE UP Once you have everything in place, position your lights and camera and you’re ready for action. The final important step is making sure you place your camera in the right position so that the viewer can really get a sense of impact from your punch or kick. So experiment with different perspectives to find the most eye-catching image you can produce.

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Also located at Frank and Son's Collectible show Booth 612/Row 6

1518 Arrow Hwy, Suite F La Verne, CA 91750 Tel: 1-909-593-4912

EKIAHobbies.com We are your last stop for various collectibles and toys. We have been an experienced online retailer since 2011 with the fastest, easiest, no hassle service for your entire collecting needs.

TM: Haha! Ok, wow. So, when you saw these toys, where they your inspiration to want to take photographs?

VESA TM: How did you get into Toy Photography and what motivated you to start?

Vesa: It’s actually a long story. I’m not a young person anymore. I did my first images that could be, sort of, the forefathers of what I do now in 1980, I think, when I was still a kid. Lots of kids do that. They take toys and they photograph them.

Mine were about some Battlestar Galactica models that I built, and I put them on snow and tried to make them look real. But I was 13 years old at the time, so that doesn’t count. The idea still came back to me sometime later, I think it was around 1990, when I was in art school. I had this model of a Chevy Camaro, and I tried some images of that.

That led to thinking about it some more. I tried to build some models for this stuff, but I never finished those models. My studies took all my time, so nothing really happened. I still have those project models, but I never finished them. It was when I was playing with my kid in 2009, and he had these Star Wars action figures, and I thought they might look nice, if I tried that whole thing again. At the time, I hadn’t really played with the idea that much. I hadn’t even Googled it in any way. So, in the summer of 2009, I Googled toys and photography, and there was a scene in Flickr. There were some toy photographers doing their stuff there, and it was a very big surprise to me, to find these images. So, in late June 2009, I put my first images online. So, that’s how it started, this current phase.

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Vesa: I have always been a fan of Special Effects in movies. I used to subscribe to StarLog Magazine, and I read all those things I could get my hands on. And, living in Finland in the 80s, it wasn’t easy to subscribe to those American Magazines. But I had all these ideas. I knew how they made the clouds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the models for Star Wars, of course. So, all of those ideas, I thought I would try them in photography with the toys. That was, sort of, a laboratory thing. Haha! At the time, I had my first digital camera, so it required the right tools, at the right time, to try things out. I am an illustrator and graphic designer as a profession. That’s my job, so I had some education in that area. So, all of these came together, in the summer of 2009.

TM: So, when you first started, when you were 13, what type of camera were you using at that time? Do you remember?

Vesa: That was my father’s camera, I don’t remember the make, Yashica maybe. It wasn’t a very good system, we had one lens and it didn’t focus very close. It was a struggle. I didn’t know anything about apertures or depth of field, so it was just trying stuff and trying to sneak in a few exposures here and there. Sometimes I managed to get my hands on a film roll of my own.

Vesa: I have never really tried to recreate scenes from any movies. If you look at my photos, there are really only one or two that recreate a scene in a movie with toys. I have always tried to do something on the side. If you look at the book from 2015, it’s 8 years old now, there are stories about these side characters that you don’t really see in the films. People who make everything happen for the centerpieces of the story. The stars. There was always a small guy who did the hard work in the background that never gets the attention. So, my stories are mostly about those characters, the people you don’t really see, but I’m using the universe everyone knows, movie Star Wars. That’s my way of exploiting that pop culture universe.

TM: So, what was the inspiration behind the book?

What was the reason why you wanted to create a book with your photos?

TM: Haha, ok! And during the time you were taking the exposures, would you say that toy photography and your love for film is what inspired you to do graphic design? Or was that something completely separate?

Vesa: I don’t know if they’re connected that way, but maybe I was. I don’t know. I always made images, drawn pictures, and they just went together.

Vesa: When I started in 2009, the toy photography scene was very different from what you see now.

The thing I feel I brought into it was the little flying particles, the little blizzards, the smoke and the fog, the light rays in it... Those things didn’t exist at the time. That’s the reason why the book got made. The images I made were something that hadn’t been seen before, and that is why they caught Lego’s attention, because they were different. If you look at the toy photography scene now, it’s everywhere, everybody does those things. So, that’s why the book happened, because what I did was different.

That book is the first art book that Lego has ever approved, I’ve been told.

TM: At what point did you grab their attention?

Was the book the reason why they approached you about wanting to collaborate with you before they did the films? How did that work out?

TM: Ok, so from the time that you started to the type of photos you take now, what would you say have been the changes? When you first started taking photos, were you trying to create scenes? Or did you just want to take pictures of the toys?

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Vesa: The first thing with Lego was they asked me to do photographs for their Lord of the Rings Lego line of products. As far as I understand, that was the first time they collaborated with someone online, a “fan”, like that. That was in, I think, 2012 or 13. I think I did around 70 or 80 photos for them, total, for the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Star Wars eventually. So, they knew me, but it was me who tried to sell the book to them. The reason I wanted to make a book is that I think a printed book is special. It’s different from an online publication, or anything electronic. I kind of wanted to make a mark, to that style of photos. To say, “I did that.” To make it real and drop an anchor there.

TM: It’s true. Looking at your photos, and considering the time those pictures were made...

It’s true. Now, you see people taking the fireworks and setting it off next to their toys, things like that, and around the time that you were doing it, no one was even really thinking of doing something like that.

Vesa: I have tried to find the timeline of toy photography and what actually existed at any particular time. Social media is one thing, Flickr and later Instagram and all the others, but I’ve been trying to look elsewhere to find what existed, but I still haven’t found anything like what I came up with. Not saying it absolutely wasn’t there, I just haven’t found it. There was one person who did photos for Hasbro, sometime late 90´s/early 00’s, Gianni Lopergolo. From what I’ve seen it looks like he had the idea of using those sprays and debris effects. The all-enveloping, engulfing effects were not there yet, just small spot effects, but I’m sure if he’d lived he’d gotten there. Sadly he passed away too soon. Lopergolo is the only one I found, a forgotten pioneer. But I always like to mention Mike Simpson and Chris McVeigh as true pioneers too.

Their works in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s is unique for that time period, yet you see that look also everywhere these days.

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I KIND OF WANTED TO MAKE A MARK, TO THAT STYLE OF PHOTOS. TO SAY, “I DID THAT.” TO MAKE IT REAL AND DROP AN ANCHOR THERE.

TM: So, I recently have been taking a look at your photos, and it seems like you kind of evolved from the Legos. I’ve been noticing that there’s different types of photos that have been posted. Do you still do the Legos, or has it evolved into something else?

Vesa: I did build Lego, when I was a kid. There are Lego photos that I took from around 1979, 1980, something like that. Builds I made myself. We had a Super 8 film camera, and I also filmed those toys, Lego crashes, fires, explosions and animations in miniature landscapes. I’ve lost the films but I know they should exist somewhere at my parents’house.

I’ve just haven’t found them – yet. But to photograph those Lego images, after 2009, again came from playing with Lego with my son. When he was small it was easy for me to dive into that world of play with him. I would describe my son’s role as being my spiritual guide to children’s play. It felt like I was invited into the play by him, I just got to go there with a camera. Now that he’s 20 years old, we don’t play with Lego anymore, and I find that it’s not that easy to reach that world of play anymore. I’d need another guide I guess, but I don’t have any. So, I’ve been trying to find different routes to explore this thing. Your observation is correct. My motivation to photograph these things has been, from the start, to find something I haven’t seen before. To find something new… innovate. So, to get my interest, to get me motivated, I need to experience some sense of discovery while photographing. It’s been slow, recently, because I don’t really know where to go to at the moment. I also had a really busy spring this year with work.

TM: So, all the time that you were taking photos of your toys, or your son’s toys, your son never decided to get into it?

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Vesa: Haha, yeah, they were his, and I felt like I was stealing those toys from him. At one point I decided to draw a line where I left his toys alone and started to buy my own, I didn’t want to invade his play too much.

TM: Haha! He never decided to get a camera and take pictures himself? Or he just felt that was your thing?

Vesa: He did some animation shorts and some experiments in toy photography, but I don’t think he was really into that. He’s into movies and he’s got a talent for film making. We don’t know if he’s going to make a career out of it, but he’s really into that.

TM: Oh, ok. Well, it’s kind of the same thing, with your love for film, that seems to have developed in him.

Vesa: Well, yeah. Hm. I didn’t think about how much these things pass down the generations, but, yeah, we share. We watch a lot of films together, all kinds of films.

TM: So, considering you have such a long history with doing this, is there a photograph that you can think of that was the most challenging for you to create?

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Vesa: I don’t know if I can pick any individual one.

There are some where the effects worked out really well but most of them are surprises, things I only really noticed after going through the images from the memory card. There was this image called Moonlight Shadow, a Lego image. There is a couple of AT- AT walkers, you can see the horizon through their legs, like woods, and there’s a moon in the sky. There are these little Snow Troopers in snow with a snow lantern in front of the walkers, warm light coming from the lantern in the cold ambient light. It was a terrible shoot. It was really difficult, I felt it didn’t work at all. I shot it on my living room table, and I recall there was some time pressure because we were going to leave the house to go somewhere. I was really frustrated, and for the last couple of exposures of the session I just blew on the snow and packed everything. And later, when I looked at the exposures, the last photo had these really tiny particles floating, suspended in air just above the surface of the snow. It looked wonderful, especially when you look at it in big size. You can’t really see it if you looked at it on a cell phone, but if you blow it up and look at it in a big size, you can see that’s really atmospheric.

Those tiny things... This is the thing I like about this stuff, those little moments when you discover something. Like, “Woah, this works. This little thing.”

Maybe sometimes I try to do that and reach the goal, sometimes I didn’t know what I was doing and there just was something I discovered while doing it. There are also some of those scale model images, where the model worked better than I expected. There was this X-Wing photograph where it stands on this snowy field ”My Winter Wonderland”. There are some trees around, and there was really foggy atmosphere.

That was my first experiment to really try to take a picture of this thing I built, and I was really happy how it worked. When you have had an idea, and you put in a lot of work to make a model, and spend many hours on that, you never really know if it works or not. So, you have to invest all the time and take a risk, and when that pays off, I like it very much. Some models, they look great, but when you try to photograph them, they’re kinda boring, they don’t

really shine in a way that I would like. The X-Wing is great. The Millennium Falcon, you can photograph it from any angle, and it will always look great. But the Space 1999 Eagle, that’s a tough one. It’s weird. I mean, it looks wonderful to the naked eye but when you put it somewhere and photograph it, it’s always somehow... off. For me, at least. I have no formula for what works and what doesn’t.

TM: So, if you’re trying to get the whole thing, it looks ok, but if you try to focus on one particular area, it just doesn’t?

Vesa: Yeah, that too. With the Eagle, it’s the overall form though. It’s elongated with weird protrusions.

It’s just... The X-Wing! Great! The Millennium Falcon!

Great! But... I don’t know.

TM: So, would you say the X-Wing or the Millennium Falcon are your favorite toys to shoot? Or do you have a particular toy that you always go to?

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Vesa: Well, they always work. Haha! I guess... Maybe they are the favorites. It depends on the day.

TM: It depends on the day. Ok. Haha! So, as far as your photos that you do now... I understand that, when you were creating this book, you were doing something that really had not been done. From the time that you started doing that, to now, with all the new technology that we have with different cameras, and things like that, are there any new types of techniques that you adopted that you didn’t do before that you do now?

Vesa: There are a lot of things I know about photoshop now I wish I’d known earlier.

TM: Haha! OK! Vesa: The early years, from 2009 to the book in 2015, were really creative times. I did a lot of pictures at the time, because of all those ideas I’d had for years, all those things I had read from the books and magazines and seen on the silver screen. There was a lot to draw from, so I tried everything and did everything I could. So, I don’t know if I did it all then and now there aren’t any new things left for me. I did the book at a very good time.

Back in 2015 I did some extra images, I think 7 or 8, images that were shot just for the book. They were made really fast just before the book deadline, and they are still some of the best images I’ve ever done I think. You can use the expression “to have peaked”. In certain ways, the book captures one peak of what I can possibly do. I’ve learned how to make photographs technically better in photoshop later, sure, in the sense of color saturation and other technical things.

The images in the book, in retrospect, they could have been edited a little better, in terms of pre-press. But one learns over time and that is what it was at the time. Sometimes I wish I had a bigger studio space to try “bigger” things, bigger setups. Maybe even bigger models. I photograph at home, so there are limits to what you can do with that.

TM: So, when you’re doing your photos, are they mostly done indoors? Or have you taken them out?

Vesa: I take the models out sometimes to get the real daylight because it’s really hard to mimic that with studio lights. I can just step out the door and there’s a field next to our house. You can see that field in many of my photos. It’s just right there, I don’t need to put my models in a car and drive them anywhere. I just carry them out of the house a few meters and put them on a table to get the light, and that’s it. But mostly everything is indoors.

TM: Since graphic design is you main profession, is toy photography just a hobby? Do you try to collaborate with businesses?

Vesa: I have a bit of a problem with that because I tend to get bored very easily. I like to have a day job with illustration and graphic design and another day job photographing toys just to keep it interesting. Haha!

So, in a way I don’t do either full-time. I have had some assignments as a photographer this year and as an illustrator and designer. Sometimes it’s just illustration, sometimes it’s just photography for months. It depends who calls, I’m doing both.

TM: So, with the knowledge you have acquired over the years, is there any advice that you would give to someone who’s just starting out?

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Vesa: It depends a lot on what you want. I don’t have THAT many followers online because it’s a lot of work to be active socially online for that engagement thing that is valued in social media. I mean, I have many followers but I like to think they are there because of what I do, not out of courtesy. I don’t follow very many people so that I don’t get too overwhelmed with everything. What I’m saying is that if you want a lot of followers you don’t have to be the best of the best photographer, you just need to be active online. That’s one thing and I’ve seen it work many, many times. But if you want to be really good at photographing these things, if you want to enjoy that... Well, you can enjoy it many ways, of course. But for me, the most important thing was that “Wow, what’s this?” moment in 2009, discovering the whole thing. Just take as many pictures as you can, enjoy the process. I always saw it as an exploration, as a journey. I really hate the word “journey” in this context, it’s such a cliché, but in this case I think it is apt. You do it picture after picture, try to figure out what works, what you like, it takes time to find the path and you can only find it by making a lot of images. That’s how I see it.

There are people who discover one thing that works, and they just repeat that over and over again. It’s great.

I mean, if you think of film makers, some of them make the same movie over and over again, they just get better at it each time with small variations. So, repetition is one way of doing it, nothing wrong about that. Then there’s the not repeating anything method, just going all over the place at whim, trying different things and seeing what works. There is no universal recipe for anything. I started with Star Wars and, mostly, with snow and Lego models. And then, I went underwater with divers, trying to see what comes of that. This was another thing I Googled but didn’t find anything. It’s just about being curious and not being afraid of trying anything.

TM: Yes! And I have to say, those photos were absolutely beautiful. Just putting them underwater in those type of settings, to me, they just totally captivated the imagination. And some of those photos, where all you saw was just the Lego underwater... I don’t know how far down you were underwater, it probably didn’t go far at all, but just looking at where they are, and the fact that there’s nothing else in that water, your mind just sends you like they’re in the abyss.

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Vesa: Yes, that was a Jacques Cousteau thing. I would like to do so much more of those underwater things but I live in Finland, we’re practically a peninsula surrounded with the Baltic Sea, but there’s so much algae in that sea that it’s never clear. Pollution by agriculture and waste dumps. I’ve tried but it just doesn’t work. To get to clear enough waters you’d have to drive up north to Lapland for those crystal clear pools of arctic meltwater, but it’s about 1,000 kilometers away. It’s doable and I’ve done it a few times but it’s quite an effort with our old car. And you don’t get those really deep or large views in the north, there’s always something in the background.

So, I would have to fly to the Mediterranean to really get those big azure images. So, as you can imagine it’s a lot of work to get those done. Haha! But yeah, I would like to do more. It is just also that I try to avoid flying, there would have to be a really good reason for me to go.

TM: That’s the thing I like about the statement that you make. From the number of photographers that we’ve already spoke to, that seems to be the commonality. Don’t waste your time trying to copy someone else, or going to social media to see what everyone else is doing. It’s grab your camera, take some photos, and find your own creativity.

Vesa: Yeah, copying someone else, well, I think, is fine… to a degree. If you copy things, you learn how it’s done, but at some point you have to let go.

TM: Yes, I agree. At some point, you’re going to have to discover yourself and the things that you like. One thing I have noticed by looking at your Instagram, I’ve notice that there is no particular pattern to your photos. Your photo ideas are kind of all over the place, but that’s what keeps it interesting.

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YEAH, COPYING SOMEONE ELSE, WELL, I THINK, IS FINE… TO A DEGREE. IF YOU COPY THINGS, YOU LEARN HOW IT’S DONE, BUT AT SOME POINT YOU HAVE TO LET GO.

Vesa: I’ve sometimes wondered what it looks like from “out there” when I just jump all over the place and have long pauses with posting. Is it, like, an ADHD kind of thing. Or should there be consistency so that when you scroll down you can see a beautiful cohesive body of work in one glance? I don’t know what’s good or what it should be, or what’s perceived as ideal, so I just... don’t really care. Haha!

TM: Haha!

Vesa: I do whatever comes to mind.

TM: I totally understand. I do the same thing sometimes. I like taking pictures with a black background, because whatever subject I’m taking a photo of, if there’s a lot of colors, it makes it pop. But sometimes, I look at my pictures, and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m just sticking with the same background. Let me go and change some things up and look at something different.”

Vesa: Yeah, that’s really where the reward is for the maker of these things. It comes from that realization of ”I’ve seen this before in my own work, so let’s move to something else”. For me, at least, that’s the greatest thing.

©Vesa Lehtimäki

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Editing on the go: EXPLORING THE BEST PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE FOR CELL PHONES

BY DAN HICKMAN In the digital era, smartphones have revolutionized the way we capture and share moments. With increasingly powerful cameras integrated into our handheld devices, the demand for high-quality photo editing software for cell phones has grown exponentially. Whether you're an amateur photographer or a social media enthusiast, having access to professional editing tools on the go can transform your mobile photography experience. In this article, we will delve into some of the best photo editing software options available for cell phones, empowering you to unlock your creative potential right at your fingertips.

adobe lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is a household name when it comes to photo editing, and its mobile app is no exception. Packed with a vast array of features, Lightroom offers powerful editing capabilities, including exposure adjustment, color correction, cropping, and selective editing. With seamless integration between desktop and mobile versions, you can sync your edits across devices effortlessly.

Additionally, Lightroom offers an extensive library of presets and allows you to create and share your own, making it a favorite among photography enthusiasts.

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VSCO

Visual Supply Company (VSCO) has gained popularity for its minimalistic and artistic filters that emulate the look of film photography. The app's sleek design and curated preset library make it a favorite among influencers and social media enthusiasts. VSCO also provides advanced editing tools, such as exposure, contrast, and grain adjustment, giving users the ability to fine-tune their images. The platform's vibrant community allows for sharing and discovering creative photography, fostering inspiration and growth.

snapseed Developed by Google, Snapseed is a feature-rich and user-friendly photo editing app. It offers a wide range of editing tools, including selective adjustments, brushes, curves, and filters.

Snapseed's intuitive interface makes it easy to enhance your photos with precision. Moreover, it supports RAW file editing, allowing you to retain maximum image quality.

With its unique 'Stack' feature, you can save and reapply edits, offering greater flexibility and control over your editing process.

Prisma Prisma stands out from the crowd by offering unique artistic filters that transform your photos into stunning artworks. Utilizing artificial intelligence, Prisma applies complex algorithms to your images, emulating the styles of famous artists like Picasso or Van Gogh. The app provides a simple and intuitive interface, allowing you to experiment with different filters and adjust their intensity. Prisma is perfect for those looking to add a touch of creativity and individuality to their mobile photography.

Adobe Photoshop Express As a mobile version of the iconic desktop software, Adobe Photoshop Express offers a simplified yet powerful editing experience for cell phone users.

The app boasts essential features like cropping, rotating, and exposure adjustment, along with an array of creative filters and overlays. Photoshop Express also provides quick-fix tools, allowing you to remove blemishes, redeye, and unwanted objects from your photos. With seamless integration with other Adobe products, you can easily transfer files and continue your editing process across different devices.

With the advancements in smartphone camera technology, the availability of powerful photo editing software for cell phones has become essential for unleashing your creativity on the go.

Whether you're a photography enthusiast or a social media influencer, the options mentioned in this article offer an array of features and capabilities to enhance your mobile photography experience. From professional editing tools like Adobe Lightroom and Snapseed to artistic filters provided by VSCO and Prisma, these apps enable you to transform your ordinary photos into extraordinary works of art. So grab your cell phone, unleash your creativity, and let these photo editing apps be your creative companions wherever you go.

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DIORAMA BUILD thh w wiit JONATHAN

"RANDOMDIORAMA"

This simple wall and floor display will demonstrate several techniques to work with foam to make toy displays and action figure dioramas. The foam used in this build is XPS foam used for home insulation, more specifically, Foamular pink panther insulation foam board. This foam typically can be found at a local hardware store.

1.

After deciding how big you want your floor and wall to be, use a ruler to make marks where you will need to cut.

Always try to measure from a straight even edge, from the factory cut edge if possible.

Getting a straight even cut can be tricky but a metal edge to guide the blade helps. Make sure to use a metal ruler, the blade will catch on a plastic ruler and can jump up risking injury.

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2.

In add ition t o the and b 1” thic ack wa k foam ll, add elevat used f an add ed po or the itiona rtion o floor l 1/2" p f the f iece fo loor r an

3.

This is the basic lay out of our display

esign e floor d h t k r a m r to Use a rule

ld shou r o o the d and t size nt door a h you w cale r fro e of s u r r o u e y s at ev er un measure 6 y wh re ev b s a ale, 3 e y s c a u e s o w h l 2 y c a n If an figur in 1:1 r of i ou c s 3” ve a i mbe a l u h r i be, y n ” to e the in. (IE 36 o helps s divid l g a n i ork 3. It t.)

12 is are w y b est i t d y e l l d sua divi to vi y d n ha

25

4.

ome and s ” 1 x ” 2 u er yo locks ll. Aft rger b a etal a w l k e ac the m om b s e e s e h u b t , o l n will e wal sure t x.5” o h g ” t 1 n f i There s o k k a c sides all m er bri both the w off. n small s o s o s r k arked t ac m mar u r e c o k o o a m nife t the d and k have u o y ruler ere ut wh not c

5.

After all the horizontal lines are cut, measure and cut the vertical lines.

6.

After a ll the li nes are them u cut use p a dull

pencil to open

7.

eat for inum foil are gr um al up d lle Rocks or ba xture. adding stone te

26

8.

Using a metal wire brush you can make a nice wood beam texture on this part of the floor

9.

For the door use a dull pencil to press in lines for a different type of wood effect. Just make fast passes with the pencil and it has a funny way of working out well.

10.

use is done g in r u t and tex e floor carving art of th e p h d t e t a is ra end).

Now th ach the ecomm t r t I a d o n t a lue the br tacky g ileens is (A . e s a to the b

11 .

m) aft foa r c ( m imple VA foa some s some E e k d a e d m d t big o I also a in mos door t e e l h b t a s il s a acro is av strips is foam h T . s p ra iron st res. t box s o

Now that everything is carved, textured and glued together we Are ready to paint!

27

12.

t. The Start with 2 coats of matte black craft pain on this inexpensive craft paints seem to work best coats to foam. Almost every solid color will need 2 look good, don’t rush it!

two different colors For the "wood" sections, use ms in the floor I for the base coat. For the bea nt umber(dark recommend painting them bur honey brown (a light brown) and for the door use brown)

13.

14.

Paint the floo r stones solid light grey and a blue grey.

Using the d ry brush tec hnique, start back wall. (D with a dark ry brushing grey on the is using a bru paint has be sh that som en wiped off e of the of then ligh across a text tly dragging ured surfac th e brush e so the colo high spots le r is deposite aving the lo d on the w spots dark er.)

15.

28

16.

The wood beams on the floor should be dry er brushed with a lighter brown over the dark brown base.

layer of y to the back wall. Each Now add a medium gre est. You es from darkest to light dry brushing usually go d with a little less area covere generally want to have seen and equent colors can be each coat so the subs pth. add to the illusion of de

17.

18.

For the parts we painted with solid lighter colors, we are going to use washes to add a darker color to the low spots in the texture. This is a simple wash made from mostly water a little paint and a drop of dish soap.

19.

Use black wash for the stone.

29

And burnt umber wash for the wood door

20.

After the wash is dry, add a final high light dry brush with an even lighter grey to the edge of the stone and in a few spots here and there.

Diorama Workshop

COMPLETION

There are plenty of details you can still add but I'm going to call this one done for now. This was made in an attempt to demonstrate a few different techniques and to give you some ideas of what you can do with this material.

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Congratulations to the themed contest winner! #SciFi Name: Luis E. Castillo Country: USA Instagram: Yranigami What type of camera do you use: Canon t7 DSLR and my trusty iPhone12 pro+ Tell us a little bit about your photo.The first time I tried toy photography was in the summer of 85’ and I was inspired to try it after years of watching the daily numerous toy commercials on tv. I think I still have that first 35mm blurry shot of a Hot Wheels jeep in some neighbors front yard landscape. The photo I submitted was shot early one morning at a park i was driving by on my way to work. I tried to recall the mystery and excitement of first first contact with an alien species on another planet, using the morning light and light fog. I used two Star Trek Enterprise figures and a Matrix squid.

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2n d

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