A Step by Step Explanation of How We Created Our Entry for the 2024 Toy Dinosaur Forum's Diorama Contest
I've documented some milestones in the creation of our entry for the 2024 Edition of the Toy Dinosaur Forum's Annual Diorama Photo Contest. Anyone who is interested and as notes to myself. I've been using photo stacking recently believing it creates a greater illusion of reality by eliminating the shallow depth of field produced by having cameras too close to their small subjects.
I shot 8 exposures of both Stegosaurus and Allosaurus and then stacked them in photoshop. I also shot 8 exposures of the figures in silhouette to use as masks to drop out backgrounds for compositing.
1.) Early photo mock-up of our final composition taken with iPhone.
2.) First Test Photo with Canon EOS M- I originally intended to photograph my set-up live in front of our big screen tv. Unfortunately as you can see my base wasn't wide enough to afford the size difference in figures I had achieved with my iPhone.
3.) My second go at a test photo- relative sizes are much better but the Allosaurus is not on base. It quickly became obvious my set-up needed to be two to three times larger than it was to shoot live. Or I would need to shoot separate layers and composite after.
4.) My Studio Set-Up. Living in a small one bedroom flat I am resigned to the dining room table.
5.) I import test photos into Blender 3D (after knocking out backgrounds) to test various backgrounds configurations.
6.) I eventually settled on a simple fern savannah for the background and assembled a 3D model for rendering.
7.) Also in Blender 3D I tested various SFX including mist and ground fog.
8.) And scene elements for placement- the moon.
9.) Stegosaurus- (1 of 8 Exposure stack)
10.) Stegosaurus- B/W Mask- (1 of 8 Exposure stack)
11.) Allosaurus- (1 of 8 Exposure stack)
12.) Allosaurus- B/W Mask- (1 of 8 Exposure stack)
13.) Rendered Background from Blender 3D
14.) My original composition had a higher horizon line and clouds but I thought the Stegosaurus was lost in the background and the clouds were not photographed by me. But it's still a cool photo.
15.) Layers are then combined in photoshop to create the final image.
Posted on 24-11-05 by Stunt Kitty Films in dinosaurs
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