[WIP] Midway Character Photo Manipulations

[Majestic]

I've never been any good at doing Photo Manipulations, however with this final version of Midway I wanted to get them done and set up. My first attempt is of Commander Vannaka Icthlarin, the Midway's executive officer and somewhat pain in the butt.

He is of the Mahjarrat species, a species originally designed by former forum member Harrie whom also created the character of Vannaka Icthlarin.

Gerald Butler as Commander Vannaka Icthlarin


*Yes I know he still has Captain pips, I need to change those*

So for my first real effort at making an alien, what do you all think?

 

[Majestic]

Well here is my second attempt, I think I found this one harder than doing Vannaka.

Steve Bacic as Captain Thomas Hall, Captain of the Galaxy class USS Geronimo.


He is a minor character in the episodes, most notable appearances are in Ep101, Ep201 and Ep410. I am sure I'll have a Parallel Duplicate appear in an episode or two as well.

Thomas Hall is an character I created sometime ago, we are going back years with my first attempt at a Midway Fan Fiction, which I never publicly released. I also used him for a short time in Lord_Trekie's Tempest RPG.

The reason I choose Bacic as the actor to portray Hall, is for one I like his acting and character as seen in his work on Andromeda and later in Stargate SG1. Also Thomas Hall comes from a security background and is a strong character, especially when compared to John th'Majest. He is more like Maxwell Syf, but a bit more up front than the Legacy's Captain.

I would like some opinions on these please, are they any good? How could I improve them?

 

[thunderfoot]

These are pretty good! Much better than I could do. Always like it when someone takes the time to flesh out a character or ship with background. Makes them seem much more lifelike.

 

[Borg_Queen]

Those looks good, Majestic.

 

[Majestic]

Thank you both. I have done Profiles for only Vannaka, Max Syf and John th'Majest currently with plans on doing the rest soon. Last night I did a image for the beloved Doctor Gerald Sanchez, but I am not particularly fond on it. It needs more work to smooth him out so he fits with the background better. I am actually considering re-doing him. I am also planning soon to do some more work on Vannaka, being a new alien species I want to make his alien features more pronounced which is very difficult, took me hours to get him like that.

Well here is the current image of Gerald Sanchez played by Oliver Ackland.

 

[Majestic]

I have done two more characters, the first is our beloved Captain of the USS Legacy, Captain Maxwell Syf played by Jamie Bamber best known as Lee Adama off Battlestar Galactica 2003.




And the second is Captain Kathryn Ala (Kat ala ), Captain of the USS Medusa played by Jennifer Garner.

 

[Terra_Inc]

Hehe, I lol'd at StarFleet Apollo...

Nice work, really well done!

 

[Jetfreak]

Ah, quality-wise your doing all right Maj.

Apart from some minor lighting errors, the merge of the photos are pretty seamless if you ask me.


PS Did you receive me recent e-mail?

 

[Majestic]

Thank you, the lighting is one of the hardest parts of these. It's something one really has to get pretty close otherwise they look bad.

I haven't checked my emails for a few days. I'll check them tomorrow morning when I get up, it's time for bed now.

 

[Lord_Trekie]

The one thing that I noticed, and it's something I used to, and still do on occasion, is that their necks are pretty long. I'd suggest moving the heads down on the dudes a bit, they look like Giraffe's.

Another tip for ya, might want to take the blur tool to the guys hair, just blur it in with the background a little, it stands out a lot, just use like a 2px brush for it and go along the edges (make sure you have it set to sample all layers so that it'll blur into the background instead of just the hair).

I dunno what it is about that Garner one, but uh, it doesn't really look like Garner? *shrugs* Maybe I just need to put my glasses on.

 

[Hellkite]

looking good Maj

Captain Kathryn Ala nice touch

 

[Majestic]

The one thing that I noticed, and it's something I used to, and still do on occasion, is that their necks are pretty long. I'd suggest moving the heads down on the dudes a bit, they look like Giraffe's.

Another tip for ya, might want to take the blur tool to the guys hair, just blur it in with the background a little, it stands out a lot, just use like a 2px brush for it and go along the edges (make sure you have it set to sample all layers so that it'll blur into the background instead of just the hair).

I dunno what it is about that Garner one, but uh, it doesn't really look like Garner? *shrugs* Maybe I just need to put my glasses on.

Yeah it look me four attempts till I got a Garner one that would work. She has such a skinny neck. I do blur the hair, just not into the background. Thanks for the tip Trekie I'll certainly look into doing that one. I'll also have a look at lowering the heads a little and see how it will look.

looking good Maj

Captain Kathryn Ala nice touch

Thanks Hellkite, I also choose Medusa as her ship out of the blue, the funny thing is she loves Medusa from Greek Mythology. What a coincidence.

 

[Majestic]

Certainly not my best:


Alexis Bledel as Yvonne Helen, the Midway's Chief of Operations.

I'll probably re-do this one.

 

[Hellkite]

Medusa, originally a beautiful young woman whose crowning glory was her magnificent long hair, was desired and courted by many suitors. Yet before she could be betrothed to a husband, Poseidon found her worshiping in the temple of Athena and ravished her. Athena was outraged at her sacred temple being violated, and punished Medusa by turning her beautiful tresses into snakes and giving her the destructive power to turn anyone who looked directly at her into stone.

Medusa her tail such a sad story

 

[Jasoneagle]

They are looking good. At least you admit to not being the best at photo manipulation, one thing I would like to point out and I see a lot of people doing it (to be honest I still sometimes do as well) is not scaling the Images to fit with either the background or other parts of the Image, I tend to use a multi (3 or more) layered format in my character images doing each layer would take me sometime in till i felt they where right. and like Trekie said your some of your necks do look long (just remember don't make them with no necks) Another common mistake most people make is the head and body's angles in the images don't match, try playing around with the skew or flipping the source image a bit to get them to fit as best they can. (I notice this in the Image of Alexis Bledel the head is facing a way that with the direction the body is it out not have been a natural angle (not to mention the sore neck they would have it they did put it in that direction.)

 

[Majestic]

Thanks Jason, yeah I felt it wasn't right and I'll probably search around for another body. I will no doubt re-do quite a few of these to get them right. I tried another character yesterday but she didn't turn out right so I ditched it. Again I need to find a better body.

I tried mirroring Alexis but she didn't look right.

It's a real mission to do photo manipulations and get them to look right. I suppose practice makes almost perfect as no one or image is perfect.

 

[Jasoneagle]

if needed i could point you to some images of both male and female startrek officers that i have done in the past and if you wish you can use them for parts.

and you are correct no matter how good a photo edit is it will never be perfect as you will always be learning how to do different things to make improvements on it (just take a look at jesters pic for midway that was done years ago for another game and i am thinking about redoing it as i have learned and improved my skills since than)

 

[Hellkite]

Was thinking about this for a Starfighter Uniform
and it is from Star trek online quasi-cannon

 

[Majestic]

if needed i could point you to some images of both male and female startrek officers that i have done in the past and if you wish you can use them for parts.

and you are correct no matter how good a photo edit is it will never be perfect as you will always be learning how to do different things to make improvements on it (just take a look at jesters pic for midway that was done years ago for another game and i am thinking about redoing it as i have learned and improved my skills since than)

Any reference or ideas are very much welcomed. I would actually love to see some of your work and love to see a new pic of your Midway character.

Was thinking about this for a Starfighter Uniform
and it is from Star trek online quasi-cannon

That's near perfect, however could you get a large image of it. I am looking for images around 500-600px, as I want high quality images for the characters. They look better and I can then utilise them for other purposes like episode covers, videos and a web-site.

 

[Hellkite]

cant find any

but I know who can Lord Trekie we need your help Friend

 

[Majestic]

I could always see about making edits to existing uniform templates I have. I'll see what I can do when I get onto the Starfighter Corps characters.

 

[Hellkite]

Trekie just sent this to me Via a PM

Spoiler: SFC uniform pic

Thank you Trekie

 

[Adm_Z]

Thats awesome.