Have you accumulated a huge Ghostbusters Collection? Talk about what you have and show it off!
#4788888
Thanks, guys. Glad you liked it.

I took the photo just over an hour ago, and it's already been seen by nearly 1200 people on the Cross the Streams: Ghostbusters Podcast FB page. That's more views, and faster, than any previous #MidWeekMattyMatters pic I've posted these last couple of months.

Since this thread just rolled over to a new page, I'm gonna put the picture up a second time...

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... and then share this quick video of how it was done.



Enjoy!

Alex
#4789184
Sweet!
Alex Newborn liked this
By Alex Newborn
#4789843
I renamed this thread-- again-- as there didn't seem to be any need to start a second thread that was GB1-specific.

Here's my latest #MidWeekMattyMatters photo.

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There are three containment units in this photo, two turned around backwards to be bare cinderblock walls. (I own four, but the other one to the left of Venkman didn't make it into the frame.)

Once again, it's a mix of Ghostbusters and Batman figures. Peck is unaltered. Courtroom Venkman is STILL wearing Alfred's coat. "Bennett" the NYC patrolman is an Honor Guard Joker, his white gloves swapped out for the fleshtone hands of the Scarecrow.

And his face, like the horizontal seams on all the figures, has been digitally retouched. Just in case you... wanna know how I got rid of these scars.

Alex
CaptCyan, Sutton621, Jake LeRoy and 2 others liked this
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By CaptCyan
#4789898
Hey Alex!

Nice thinkin' using the backs of those extra Units to expand the wall. :nicejobyoudid: I like it.

You should digitally remove the seams where they join if you get a chance.
By Alex Newborn
#4789943
I began doing that, but it still didn't look right. It left some 'too short' and some 'too long' cinderblocks due to the way the Mattel edges are spaced.

I wouldn't have been happy until I had it looking like one unbroken wall of regularly-spaced blocks... and at that point no one would have known how clever I was for using two extra toys turned around.

For a wall with all identical-sized cinderblocks, it would actually be easier, touchup-wise, to photograph one toy in three carefully-spaced positions and join the three pics.

So I un-did all the touchups to the seams between wall segments, and struck a compromise between tweaked toys in the foreground and unaltered toys in the background.

Alex
By Alex Newborn
#4790887
Well, it's not much in the way of a true dio. They're digitally pasted into a doctored film frame. But I did have to tweak one detail.

This frame was actually from later in the scene, so the deactivated monitor was solid black.

The Terror Dog is my Tsukuda model kit, photographed with an effects filter on my son's school-issued iPad, and then re-photographed off that screen with my normal camera, and pasted into the film set.

I actually did the Terror Dog composite before I shot the figures, which then gave me the idea to try for an interactive lighting look on Egon's face and glasses.

The whole thing was thrown together very quickly. I actually had a different photo planned for this week, but decided to shoot this one instead at the last second.

Alex
By PssdffJay
#4790939
Well done as always! I was going to ask for the behind the scenes video to see the miniature lab you built! Great detail about the screen and the blue tint on Egon. The highlight on his right arm is spot on.
Alex Newborn liked this
By Alex Newborn
#4791682
I took two Vinz Clortho pictures last week. This was actually the first one taken, but I decided to go with the second (Vinz/Egon) picture for last week's #MidWeekMattyMatters, and saved this one until today.

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Alex
CaptCyan liked this
By redfive1973
#4791757
That's awesome man!
Alex Newborn liked this
By Alex Newborn
#4791806
CaptCyan wrote:Nice job on matching the lighting.
Thanks!

The first step was creating the background image. I combined sections of three different screencaps to reassemble the empty set without Moranis or Weaver.

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I considered just printing this as a backdrop, but there were going to be challenges in lighting it to match the movie shot, so I opted to insert the toys digitally.

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The figures were shot against white paper which was backlit with a flex-neck lamp.

The paper was just propped up against two objects that were close at hand... two jars of peanut butter.

After that, it was just the digital work of removing the white screen and resizing everything. I also painted out Dana's right hand because it looked a bit too phallic in the finished photo.

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Alex
#4792525
Thanks!

Here's today's #MidWeekMattyMatters post, although the photo may look familiar, as I actually took it and posted it online back in December.

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But it felt like a nice continuation of the Keymaster storyline from the past two weeks.

Alex
#4792715
Although I've played with the concept of stop-motion on an older videocamera of mine, I never had any success with it.

If I were to attempt it with Mattel figures, I'd be up the creek when it came time to make Zuul move, wouldn't I?

Alex
By Alex Newborn
#4793245
Not what I'd planned on doing this week for #MidWeekMattyMatters, but at the last second I was inspired to do something a bit more timely.

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In case you don't get the reference, check out this video:



Alex

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