This weekend I’ve been taking pictures of my Star Saga models against a blue screen. I try and capture as many angles as possible giving myself the ability to compose interesting images in Gimp. I don’t use proprietary software like Photoshop or Mac OS, I make use Gimp and Linux. You won’t hear me say that I Photoshop anything for that reason. The first image I created was a formation break of Alliance Swift starfighters. The idea for this image came from a stunning picture of four F-15’s breaking formation.
I used one model and took four different pictures of it in four different angles. Then cut them out separately and assembled them into one image. I found a dramatic nebula background that further emphasizes the moving forward implied motion as well as framing it off center to the left. The angles of the Swifts are different from the F-15s because this is space and there is no up or down. Kinda more of a starburst formation than a typical echelon.
The next photo I did was a slow pass of two war fighting starships, a corvette and a destroyer. Both of these ships are from the Starforgers Trilogy of the Star Saga. The models are shot separately against the blue screen and then composited into one image just like the Swifts. Only this time I added engine flares to the finished image. This adds some green color in the flare that I was unable to remove.
My compositing skills are not as good as my modeling and photography skills, but with more practice, I’m getting better. I’ll have more images like this on the blog in weeks to come.