That is really cool! I have to tell you that in many of the pictures, I can't tell if they are diecast models or the real thing. The angles and framing of all the pictures are really awesome. Great job! I can't help but thing that you have photographic experience. Am I right? Maybe you were the photographer for your high school yearbook or something?
I am no professional photographer and I don't have much prior experience. I just bought my camera about a year ago and start going crazy photographing my diecast collection. I wanted my diecast photographs to look realistic and I guess I achieved that. It has been a lot of fun and I do not see any end in sight.
I have also been playing around with some graphic manipulation. Check out this photo of my 1/18 Kyosho Countach.
Great job! The Lambo picture looks a little more realistic, but tell us, how do you cut the picture out from it's original background so perfectly. I'm sure there's a good trick other than acually tracing the along the contours of the car.
If you're looking to make the photos look more realistic, I have a couple of constructive comments, if you don't mind.
1. Shadows are the key. The shadows of the diecast are cast straight down, but the shadows of the background and foreground are cast at a fairly sharp angle forward suggesting that the sun was to your back during the photo. Another hint is the shadow that is cast from your own head that is in the picture. If you really want to perfect it, you should probably try to take a picture of the diecast in sunlight with the sun in approximately the same position as when you took the picture of the background.
2. Also, there are shadows on the car when it is in a spot on the background that appears to be in bright sunlight.
3. One last point, it looks like you might want to decrease the size of the diecast compared to the background because it looks like the scale is just a tad too large. It appears to take up about half of the width of the street, when based on the surroundings, it probably should take up about 1/3 of the street... not to mention that these cars are actually smaller than normal sized cars.
I hope you don't mind the comments, but you're really onto something here. These pictures have actually made me want to do something very similar. Very cool and thanks for sharing!!! :cheers:
I don't mind at all and thank you for your comments.
These are fairly quick chops. I used Photoshop to edit the images and yes, all I did was trace along the contour of the car. The pictures were taken at the same time and I tried to take them at the same angle. The cars were in a shaded area when I took the photos, I still have to experiment with this techinque. The Lambo did come out a little better because I was able to capture the reflections of the trees.
I was trying to make the shadows accurate as accurate as I could. I took the picture of the model at the same time and angle as the street image so the shadow being casted should be accurate although it appears darker and straight down. Also the shadows are falling in the opposite direction of the car so you probally would be able to see the whole shadow anyway.
Resizing the cars to get them to look the most realistic was difficult. There is no good reference measure against other than the road. The road is a one way street and cars driving down it seem to take up more than have the size of the road.
I do really apprieciate your comments and I'm glad you enjoyed my work. I have more pictures I can share of my models in realistic scenes. If you do create something similar I'd love to see it.
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