Comicpalooza 2016

Comicpalooza 2016 was another great experience as a photographer and a nerd. I met many new people I can now call friends, I got to learn more useful tips on when and where to shoot especially at a convention hall that was huge! I learned where to shoot which will help me at next years comicpalooza. Here is a video I created of my experience at Comicpalooza 2016. Here some of the shots I took while at Comicpalooza 2016!
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Space City Comic Con 2016

Space City Comic Con 2016 was an interesting experience. It was my 2nd comic con experience.
Don't get me wrong I had an awesome time, but as you may know there were some not so good things that happened at Space City Comic Con that shouldn't have happened at all.

Here is a video I created of the experience I had at Space City Comic Con 2016 minus all the drama.


Besides all the Drama I had a great time meeting new cosplayers, hanging with old friends, and diving into the world of cosplay via Video and photography. I managed capture quite a few cosplayers and here is what I ended up with.    
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Raiding Tombs for Dragonballs

I had the pleasure of shooting a new model I haven't shot with before. Veronica Brightman is a fantastic model and we both had fun shooting 2 very unique cosplays. Rise of the Tomb Raider's Lara Croft and Dragonball Z's Android 18. 

A Massive shoot

I have been scheduling with Mechelle for several Months since her last shoot to do another shoot. We brainstormed a couple of cosplays that we thought were interesting enough to tackle. I wanted to make her trip worth while and picked several cosplays to develop.

This shoot was extremely large because of how many cosplays we wanted to tackle and the quality of some of the cosplays.

The first cosplay we chose was Assassin's Creed III Connor Kenway. I was waiting to do this one for a while and wanted recreate some of the famous poses from assassin's creed III. I took a while gather all the props and costume. I was lucky enough to find some really great weapon props on etsy. The famous Tomahawk, Bow and Arrow, and a flintlock pistol. I also managed to find a US Betsy Ross Flag that we also used as a prop. The Images came out fantastic!

 

We then shot the Batman v.s. Superman Wonder Woman. This costume was really high quality hand crafted from an etsy store. It looked fantastic. We had a little problem getting it on because of the way it was designed as a corset. I had fun creating the scenes for this shoot.

                       

 

Sailor Moon & Frozen Shoot

I had a blast with Megan Booth shooting two really cool cosplays. We first shot Disney's FROZEN Elsa cosplay. I really enjoyed creating the snow FX and making the image look cold and frozen. I loved how the images turned out!

We also shot her as Sailor Moon. I tested out a few things with her hair. Since Sailor Moon always has flowing hair in the tv show I thought we should try to blow it around a bit. I tried using an industrial fan but it wasn't flowing like I wanted. I then used some chip clips to hold her hair up attaching them the the light stands and positioning them the way I wanted. This gave me more control of the hair and made the final images look awesome.

tried using an industrial fan but it wasn't flowing like I wanted. I then used some chip clips to hold her hair up attaching them the the light stands and positioning them the way I wanted. This gave me more control of the hair and made the final images look awesome.

Alice in Wonderland

Mechelle also brought her Alice in Wonderland cosplay. I created an Alice in Wonderland composite before this shoot with my niece so I had some idea already of what create with this shoot. Last time I shot this cosplay was with my niece. I created a composite with her looking at the Cheshire Cat (My cat Pixel). This time I used the same image of my cat but made the background a little more interesting.

Sitting on the ground was easy for Mechelle, but we tried something a little more difficult for this next shot. I wanted to portray that she was falling into the rabbit hole but spinning in mid air. I had her lay on a bar stool and had the help of her husband holding her so she didn't fall backwards. This technique worked very well and I believe we came out with a great shot in the end.

The last shot in this series was really fun to do. I always wanted to shrink someone down to the size of a small fork. I used a reference image from the real alice in wonderland movie. I took a photo of my wife's china as the saucer and tea cup. I made sure the angle was correct and matched the angle of Mechelle. This creates the illusion that she actually is small.

I've been learning a lot about compositing as I continue to create these pieces. Every shadow, light ray, dust particle, perspective, blur, hue, shade, and position matter in a composite. If any of these key components are incorrectly placed or adjusted it would throw off the illusion and the composite would just become a collage. That is the real difference when it comes to defining a composite. It has to become real for the viewer as it is real in my head when I create it. I continue to enjoy making these and continue to learn along my journey as a compositor.

The Loud Assassin

Model Mechelle was very good at quickly striking different poses. Her natural ability to strike a pose and move smooth and quick helped me to get the perfect shots efficiently. This shoot was hilarious because every time Mechelle moved her arms in a 90 degree angle her Assassin's Creed bracers kept sliding off and hitting the ground. They must of hit the floor 5 or 6 times. I told her "Assassin's aren't loud." We both laughed and blamed it on Amazon which is where we purchased the bracers. Mechelle did awesome with this shoot despite the mishap with the bracers.

This shoot went very well and we captured some great images. We used the ladder a lot to get the effect that she was either climbing a wall or jumping down onto her next target.



The composites came very natural to me because I remember playing the Assassin's Creed video game. I remember birds in the game and thought it would be cool to add birds as to hint at that the Assassin always seemed to have a birds-eye view of the city.

Mechelle and I have already made plans to do a future shoot as Kenway from Assassin's Creed III. So stay tuned for some very patriotic shots!