Shooting Iron Man Once More!

A few weeks before Harbour Con-Fusion 2013 and just after Animaritime 2013 I did a second commissioned shoot with Phil Vautour, the Saint John Iron-Bat. Continuing off my experience from the premier of the suit  at the Iron Man 3 opening and then East Coast Comic Expo, we came into the new shoot loaded with neat ideas for images. Phil had some images in particular we wanted to achieve, most were based off cover art and other successful cosplay images around the net. We shot at the Saint John Art Centre, which had offered me space before when I was working on the calendar for Harbour Con-Fusion, sadly those shots were not up to par that time. This time I was highly successful in capturing pretty much exactly what we hoped.

Tales of Suspense

This was a suggestion I had when researching Iron Man images. We would attempt to make an update of the Tales of Suspense comic cover in Iron Man was first brought to life.

This required the making of 4 images of the suiting process, because of certain differences in the construction of the pieces of the suit, we had to change it up a bit, but the end result was fantastic. Here is the edited collection of images arranged on the page to match the comic.

After I had that laid out, I added in the graphics. Some cases I used elements from the original cover, and some I updated to more modern Marvel presentation. 

I still think it's one of my most successful images to date since I started cosplay photography. But wait it's not done. Phil had an idea too, based off one of Adi Granov's Extremis covers.

Extremis

We needed a model to play Maya Hansen, so I was lucky to get a good friend and one of the most professional models I have had the benefit of working with, Brandi Gray. There was no way to make this absolutely 1:1 perfect due to height and suit differences and the lack of a room like the one in the picture. Through painstaking hand compositing and piecing photographic plate elements together, I came out with this interpretation. 

It's pretty darn close and everyone was thrilled with the results in the end. From there we did some other original poses and images including a sequence of Iron Man ironing, just for fun. Here are the rest of the images including an original cover I designed.

All and all it was a highly enjoyable experience with two of the best professionals in this region. We had a goal in mind and met it head on and nailed it. Hopefully all my commission jobs progress like this. I've had one since this point and it was fantastic as well. That person I first met at my next post to go up, Harbour Con-Fusion. Only a few posts away from being caught up and then it should be very close to Hal-Con time. Till next post.

-Larry M. Holder 

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