Masters Class Presents: The Photo Shop with Clintastic4
For this edition of the Masters Class we have done something that has yet to be done on this page, and presumably has never been done within the toy community in general. The concept had planted roots from a conversation with Instagram's resident Photoshop Wizard @Clintastic4, or as we have come to call him, Clintastic the Great and Powerful. We had been discussing ideas of shows for group of us, and Clint had mentioned an idea of a show called "The Photo Shop" in which he would take a shot from someone else, and do a step by step breakdown of how he could turn it into a veritable masterpiece of photoshop art.
After letting the roots take hold, and likely more suggestions and prying than Clint had anticipated from a comment he had made, I had reached out to Clintastic inquiring whether or not he would be interested in participating in another Masters Class collaboration regarding photoshop, and to try out his idea in that manner. Full disclosure, and dont believe him if he tries to tell you otherwise, "The Photo Shop" is one hundred percent Clintastic4's idea. This Masters Class is, as always, an attempt to provide tips and tricks and insight from some of the most creative and knowledgeable artists in the action figure photography community. It is also, however, an attempt to convince our dear friend Clint that an idea such as his should not be kept from coming to fruition. This idea is something that can be incredibly useful to all of us in the community that may struggle with the ways of photoshop, and to get tips and tricks from someone who not only has demonstrated a mastering of it, but also acts like a beacon of support and positivity to the community.
Without any hesitation Clint agreed to bring this idea to bare with this collaboration. Anyone aware of Clint's IG page and his body of work will note that his artwork is second to none and awe inspiring. What you would also note as you scroll through his portfolio of figtography, is that he exclusively collects and shoots figures related to the X-Men. So in order to bring this collaboration to bare, and essentially force Clintastic out of his comfort zone of Marvel Legends and X-Men, I needed to search the depths of my imagination (as well as my toy box) to find a new style or genre for him to work with. Do I shoot a scene involving pro wrestling figures and see what kind of magic he could whip up? Was it Funko Pops with their limited range? Legos? When trying to decide on such a thing to test a Master with, the things I had to keep reminding myself of, was that it needed to be 1- Something no one would see coming from Clint, 2- Needed to focus solely on the steps he took to bring the end result rather than what it took to photograph them, and 3- It needed to be something fantastical that would suspend disbelief. Ultimately, I decided that the best option was Power Rangers. After all, what is more fantastical and out of this world than multi colored teenagers with attitude piloting gigantic robots to defend the planet against evil?
With the baseline set, I set up a shot featuring the Dino Fury Green Ranger after facing down some Hengemen baddies. You will see in this collab that the shot provided to Clint was a no frills, no thrills, boderline boring and mundane shot. And the end result? Nothing short of Morphinominal.
Rather than ask Clint the normal Q&A questions you would see in this collab, I thought it pertinent to instead hand over the reigns to the Photo Shop host himself, and have him break down the process from start to finish. So, without further ado, The Masters Class brings to you the esteemed Great and Powerful Clintastic4.
Awhile back Unworthy presented me with a challenge: take a photo of his and go wild in photo production. No brief, no instructions. In the page below, I’ve gone through most of major steps of the post-production for this shot to give a little bit of insight into my process.
Let’s kick this party off with the base shot. Unworthy and I collaborated on the lighting of this set up. I kept my input minimal since wanted it to be mostly neutral in terms of lighting and backdrop to give me more flexibility since I would be essentially winging it in post-production.
To kick everything off with I did some minor adjustments in color and contrast Adobe Bridge before bringing it over into Photoshop. Since there was just enough contrast between the background and foreground, it was easy to mask out the original backdrop.
For the new background, I kept it rather simple. Starting by filling the background with a simple grey gradient. After that I created randomly sized tall rectangles to give the rough shape of a skyline. From there I blurred the rectangles, to give it hazy and faraway look with an added overlay of brown smoke made with some custom smoke brushes in my collection.
To add some extra impact, I added an image of the Tiger Zord. Normally with stuff like this I would have taken the shot of it myself, but since I don’t collect anything Power Rangers related, I just included the downloaded image just for this project. After sizing up the Tiger Zord image, I added some blur so that it appears further away in the shot. From there I color correct the Zord to ensure it matches the rest of the photo. Additionally, I gave it a simulated rim light effect by adding a light glow on the top edges as well as darkening the center portions of the Zord just slightly. Extra blurred smoke was added just for additional depth.
For some additional elements, I extracted portions of the cement blocks with some added smoke in the foreground and added more rock features between the background and foreground.
Now on to the foreground. I added a similar ring light effect as before to the figures and rocks in the front and replaced the ground with a rock texture.
To tie in the smoke/dirt from the background, I added smoke to the foreground to balance everything out
For the most part, everything manipulation wise is complete. Added a couple of passes of color and contrast adjustments to finish everything off.
And here is the final result:
Overall, this was a fun challenge. Since I don’t collect Lightning Collection figures at all, it was cool to dip my toes in to the Power Rangers pool for a bit. Thanks for following along!
Thank you all for tuning into this edition of The Masters Class Presents, and stay tuned for next week as the Classroom gets taken to the bricks in Masters Class: LEGO.
Until then, Class is dismissed
~The Curator
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