Long Over Due Update - Shooting Iron Man

Hey everyone, sorry for the absence on this blog. No this update isn't about my calendar, but I am one model away from finishing it, then I'll have a blow out of processes to go though. In a way this shoot I'm talking about today took a lot of experience in processing the images from the calendar images. On May 3rd, 2013 I did some images for Phillip Vautour and his newly constructed Iron Man suit. You may remember Phil from the Harbour Con-Fusion images last year as Batman. He's an amazing talent that I hope to continue working with into the future. Now, on to the images. Originally I was going to shoot against my black backdrop, but the walls of the Empire Theatre we were shooting in were fairly solid and neutral, so we just went with that. Why were we in the theatre you ask? Well Phil was helping Harbour Con-Fusion with promotion on the opening night of Iron Man 3.

Now on to the images. After adjusting my lighting in Lightroom, I started by carefully cutting Phil away from the background in Photoshop. Once that was done I applied lighting for the lit pieces on the suit from my candid shots I was taking earlier in the evening. From that point he was ready to be pasted with whatever plate images I could find and match lighting up too. In some cases I went for a far more graphic design look. All and all I'm fairly happy, next time though I'll try and use more practical elements from the time of shooting and design the lighting a little more with angles in mind.

Iron Man Suit Edits

Example of the Candid Images Used Editing the Lights

Collection of the Final Edits

What a great experience, I look forward to making more images in this style after East Coast Comic Expo this coming weekend, May 18th, 2013 in Moncton. 

And of course a Big Thank You to Phillip Vautour!

-Larry M. Holder