FT-17 tank turret pillbox diorama

I have been working with my Photoshop program to create photo merges of model photos with background images. Here is my first attempt:


It is a bit difficult to select the proper boundary around the model and cut and paste it into the background, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. Maybe it would help if I actually read the manual! [D)]

Looks pretty good to me. Pixalator could probally give you some pointers, he likes to do the same thing.

Very nice leopold. Thank you for sharing the picture with us.
mark956

Very nice!!

Looks great!

looks great nice diorama

Photo merging isn’t as easy as it seems if you want one to blend well with the other. Hopefully Dwight Ta-ala will jump into this thread, I’ve seen him do some amazing stuff with this.

As far as the dio goes … very nice Leopold. A most interesting subject.

Read the manual [:0][:0] … think of what may happen next, you’ll be reading the instructions from a model kit. [;)][;)][;)]

Thanks for sharing.

Really nice work on the diorama. Robert’s right in that Dwight and Pix have a great deal of experience at this sort of thing. They can offer some very useful suggestions. Keep it up!

Looks pretty darn good to me! Nice work!

heres a site that might be of use http://www.pegaweb.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-adobe-photoshop/

HI guys.

Sorry to jump in a bit late.

First (on the dio). I saw this in Ron’s gallery last week and I thought it is great. Good composition and overall build.

Second (on the Photochopping) I think leopold did a good job in putting the background there. The boundary lines between the model pic and the background are almost OK. It is really difficult to have a clear cut or well-defined boudary lines. For you to have this, you should have a very hi-resolution pictures. With high res pics there will be more pixels defining areas and Photoshop works in pixels. It is advantageous to work originally in a very large-sized pic (meaning hi-res pics) when defining and cutting boundaries. Once you’re done you can just reduce the image size. Also use dark uniform colors for your background when taking the original pictures. Or colors that are very much different from the colors of the items in your dio. This will help Photoshop differentiate from the background and the items in your dio.

Anyway, as I have said you already did a good job. I don’t recommend reading the manual (he-he-he) it drove me crazy when I was starting on Photoshop. LOL.

Thanks to everybody for the words of encouragement. While I have been a modeler for over 35 years, including a couple of bouts as a architectural / professional model-maker, (which I don’t recommend if you want to keep your hobby and your sanity intact!), modeling in the digital world is a whole new ball game for me. Thanks especially to Dwight Ta-ala and Captain Caveman for the tips and the Photoshop tutorial link. Selecting around the model’s plants and trees is especially difficult. You can go crazy trying to tweak your selection set before pasteing it to the background! [%-)]

Very nice work leopold. I like the dio, it’s diffrent. To me it tells a little bit of the not so “glamorus” side of war anyone who is or has been in the army knows this all to well.

Nice dio leopold. Did you scratchbuild the pillbox or buy a kit for it? I haven’t seen the other pics on rons yet, I’ll go check 'em out.

See ya, Wacky

Wacky; the pillbox is an older Verlinden kit. It looks OK, but it is a solid chunk of plaster with a solid resin turret, not much room for detailing without major surgery. I hollowed out the interior of the bunker and made the main door operational, but the turret is still a block of resin. I thought about hollowing it out, but I didn’t want to risk going medieval with the dremel and breaking it. I may try casting a hollow turret from this one so I can open up the rear doors. Maybe put a light inside too.