Notes on photography of the figures:

In order to do the figures justice, their unique personalities had to be captured; to this end the control of lighting the figures to show their detailing, expressions, multiple layers of clothing, armor, weapons and other gear and accessories; the paintwork and sculpting; and perhaps most importantly, posing the figures in a way that appeared natural: formal or casual, candid or ‘in action’, solo or group shots, etc.

All the photos were taken with a Sony Mini DV camera with a good Zeiss zoom lens, which has a still-photo function yielding a rather small (less than one megapixel) image. (Barely adequate for web posts.)

Photo-flash lighting was rarely used. Instead, various ‘improvised’ light sources were employed: tungsten desk lamps, fluorescent light boxes, flashlights, candles; as well as reflectors and flags including small mirrors, tinfoil, cardboard; and clamps and improvised holders for the above light sources. Backdrops included black velvet (duvetyne), foil, blankets; basically whatever was at hand. The ‘photo studio’ was the same tabletop that I built the figures on; an area of approximately 3×6 feet. All the shots were handheld, and usually several angles were experimented with to try and get as much detail and ‘attitude’ as possible. There are several images that utilized preexisting images dropped in to the background; with the figure superimposed using Photoshop. Basic cropping, retouching, sizing, adjustment of contrast, color balance, sharpness, etc were done in Photoshop. Most of the figures are not only dense with detail, but also have a great range of surface types and contrasts; from glossy weaponry and gear, to matte clothing, and everything in between. They were as almost as much fun to photograph as they were to create, and as challenging.

I hope you enjoy the photos; I tried to instill a sense of narrative in them, almost as if they were a frame taken from the pages of a graphic novel.

On creating the figures:

I’d like to mention several terms/concepts generally used to describe various categories of figures in the 1:6 modeling hobby: ‘Kit Bashing’, customized, enhanced, etc.
Kit Bashing is basically taking a preexisting boxed figure, and changing out or adding various elements to create a ‘modified/enhanced’ figure. A fully custom figure would entail creating most of the clothes, accessories, headsculpt, etc from scratch.
Most of my figures fall somewhere in between (although they were generally considered customs due to their unique subject matter); I used preexisting parts in combination with custom made items; also using many ‘found objects’ such as rubber finger puppets and fridge magnets as the basis for my animal headsculpts; a 1:6 skeleton model kit as the basis for recast skeleton prosthetic elements, etc…
It should be noted that there are a couple figures that were ‘out of the box, enhanced’; a prime example of this is the elaborate Kit Carson WWII paratrooper with ‘unauthorized’ John Wayne headsculpt from DML – CyberHobby. As it was a rare, limited edition figure, he is included here. The astute 1:6 collector may recognize one or two others in this category.

Finally, a word of thanks to the many ‘friends and fans’ with whom I enjoyed hanging out on the MWD, Fantasy Net and 6th Division forums. It’s been quite a few years, but some of the folks I remember and thank are: Terry Rosler, Ed Cassar, Fred Richter and Family, Ted Menten, “ReddGriff”, Hugo Hidalgo, Wes Wood, ‘RainWaterCat’, ‘Bashalot’, ‘HawkMoon842′, ‘CustomDawg’, ‘Andrea – an42′, ‘Irish70′, ‘Pangaea95′, ‘Chamildav’, ‘PointmanLrrp’, ‘Azruel’, Jim-Bob Wan; and the many others whose names escape me now; thanks for the fun years online sharing our special creations, ideas and tips. If any of you find this site, please sign in and let me know how you are doing!

-PaulData

Here are some ‘odds and ends’:

Flyer:

One of the various flyers I did for my 1:6 stuff

“Adam Variations”:

‘Adam Variations’

“Adam” was the first 1:6 ‘nude’ male figure released by DML (Dragon Models). I did a lot of experiments in adapting and customizing the original Adam headsculpt, including ‘razoring’ open and re-sculpting the mouth, adding teeth, beards, various wounds and repaints, etc. Some were more successful than others; above you can view a selection of these “Adam Variations”

Grim Reaper

“FaceOff”

Above are slightly higher res versions of my Reaper and Faceoff figures, showing various angles and views. Both figures are highly articulated; the Reaper is a full skeleton (based on the Airfix model kit), while Faceoff is a hybrid using a DML body with added skeleton parts. Faceoff’s headsculpt took approximately 12 hours.