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I like graphic design and messing around in Photoshop. One night I got this idea for creating illustrations using my miniatures. I've toyed with the idea before, but now think I found an angle/style I want to go with. Using some blank white papers as backdrop, I'm able to mask the backgrounds and replace them in PS. Highly black & white affairs, hence the monicker "Grim Noire".

More than anything, these are studies in lighting. I want to see how far I can take our everyday unpainted minis, in an attempt to evoke a feeling of exotique and atmosphere from something you see everyday on sites like this.

Here's the first one. I tried to go with a slight 60s/70s scifi comic book vibe. Was tempted to add in some catchphrase and some blurb such as "50p every Wednesday" hehehe!

Click the pic for ull res, dakka keeps ruining image sharpness in the previews somehow..

(If these illustrations are offtopic, could the mods please relocate this thread to the appropriate place? I figured since the models used in these picts are unpainted, they do not qualify as materiel appropriate for Modelling Showcase.. I'm just an old guy having too much fun with my plastic toy soldiers)

Great stuff. Reminds me of the stuff that FW does when they photoshop models into scenery. I've always wanted to see more of that in the community; someone who's good with photoshop. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

My only criticism would be that the orks don't quite have enough contrast with the background. Some of it is getting lost with the darker values. Is everything just primed black? I'd be curious to see what your process is.

Here's the next one. I went a bit further with textural fx this time, mostly because I wasn't satisfied with the angles and composition of the raw images. The result is a more grimy, WWI feeling thing. The shoot was a quick build, I might revisit this scene later in order to get more dramatic angles but yeh.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Great stuff. Reminds me of the stuff that FW does when they photoshop models into scenery. I've always wanted to see more of that in the community; someone who's good with photoshop. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

My only criticism would be that the orks don't quite have enough contrast with the background. Some of it is getting lost with the darker values. Is everything just primed black? I'd be curious to see what your process is.

Thanks! These are still quite simple shops tbh, mostly messing with image exposure/curves/levels and replacing the background with some content-aware filled textures. Nothing too complicated or fancy.

The pieces in the Kommando pict are all unprimed grey plastic. I wanted to go super dark with the foreground so as to minimize the visual "footprint" of the model's actual bases. Hence the inherent compromizes. I am not too fussed if some parts of the image remain hard to read, the overall feel of the image takes priority over 100% legibility.

EDIT: Figured that Content-aware fill can totally bail me out with regards to the model's bases showing! Retouched and added BA symbol (which btw needs to be remodeled for further use, looks disturbingly assymmetric by modern standards..)

And here's the next one,(if you follow my glacially slow BA blog you might have seen the source)

Wow, nice!