| Have you thought about making some custom figures but knew you wouldn't have room to put them once they were finished? Or maybe you've thought of something that you just do not have the ability to do. Well there is a way to make your project happen and still have something great to show friends! You can make a VIRTUAL figure! First of all there is a history set in controversy that has to do with virtual figures. Many online scam artists have manipulated pictures trying to fool people for some reason or another. Most have in mind to show the image saying it's real, then once you send your money you never get a figure. There's many other circumstances too, but the main thing is that this isn't what we have in mind here. This page is more of an ideas page so you can make real figures like the pictures. Or just a way to place an idea out there that might be great! Having a site for virtual figures also gives a page showing different ones that's made. On the page is images I've put together, and also if you have any that you would like to see added, just send them my way! jman@softdisk.com Currently the page is just a simple one. I'll have something more set up eventually, but I wanted to get something online. |
| These are the ones I've made. |
| There's a chance some of you might be reading this and you don't have any idea how to go about working on a virtual figure. It's really quite easy, but many feel it's hard to do. It's more of a question of time than it is anything else. Naturally skill does produce better results. The first thing necessary before you can even think about this is that you have to have a paint program. Photoshop works the best, and because that's strictly all I use, that's what I'll describe. Any other program you have, you'll be able to know how to apply what described. To start you need the same thing as if you were to make an actual custom figure, and that is a base figure. You can take any picture you find, or shoot some of your figures in your collection. Once you have that, open the image up in the paint program. The simple way of working with the images is changing colors. Using the magic wand/selection tool, you can select individual parts of your figure. By doing this, you limit the areas that you will change the color of. Let's say you want to change a figure's shirt from red to white. Selecting the shirt only, you can go into the menu, select IMAGE, then select ADJUST. From there you have the ability to select a way to change the brightness, select color adjust which is the main thing we're doing here, and even Hue and Saturation where you have control to take colors completely out. Changing the shirt as we've set out to do, you'll select the Hue and Saturation selection. You'll have a pop up menu that gives you a master control, plus you can select individual colors. Scroll down to red and move the lightness all the way to the right. The shirt should already look white. Now just to enhance it, open the brightness and contrast. Play with the selections until you get something you like. Doing more complex stuff, you'll still start the same way. You have to select the part you want to work with so you don't mess up the rest of the picture. Once you've mastered simple changing of colors, you can now try adding things such as camo patterns, logos, and other things. This is simply done by either playing with filters you probably have built into your paint program. Just try several different things, and make sure to have a saved back up copy just incase you don't like what you've made. You can even draw patterns straight onto the figure. Change your brush opacity to 40% or 50%. Select the desired color and just start adding things. This takes practice, but it gets easier eventually. The most advance thing is to actually add things to your figure. You can either take parts from another figure (just like customizing!), or actually draw it on. Selecting from another figure involves the same basic task of selecting. You select the part you need and under edit, select copy. Just to say what you copied, let's say it was the legs. In your other picture, select paste so the legs are now with your virtual figure. Move the legs in position so that it matches the figure. The first time you do this, it might not be exactly what you had hoped for. You can smooth out the edges and fix up some things using the smudge tool, but again, this takes time to get used to. It's not difficult but it's one of those things you have to play with to get used to it. As for drawing detail in, I can only suggest you play with the stamp tool and take existing detail to move it around. You can recreate patterns and everything this way. Try to use this to "draw" with and only use the paintbrush when you have to. This keeps things as realistic as possible. If you have any questions that I can help you with, feel free to email me and I'll do my best to help you out. jman@softdisk.com |
