March in Review

March has been a good month in my lego journey. So I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what Finn and I have played with and the photography I’ve done this month.

Our most played with lego this month has undoubtedly been the marvel super heroes sets. In particular the Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown which is a great set and one I’ll review very soon. (If we can stop playing with it long enough!) The Rhino Face Off by the Mine set got a lot more play than I expected – especially the rhino and the minifigures.

We’ve also played a lot with the temple of the ultimate ultimate weapon ninjago set. Again, if you read the review, the traps are great for play and we’ve certainly made the most of it.

Photography wise I’ve really enjoyed myself this month. I started the month planning to learn a lot more about photoshop and I think I have achieved that goal. I feel way more confident and I’m quite happy with some of the pictures I’ve created. Hopefully you’ve read this months posts so you’ll have some idea of how I’ve created some of what I did this month. It also turned out to be really useful for me as I was able to refer back and use the techniques again in different photographs. That is the best way to reinforce a skill – use it again soon.

Just for fun, I thought I’d countdown my favourite photos this month.

5. Classic Lego Pirate

A classic from when I was a kid. I remember playing a lot with my pirate sets and this shot was of the captain celebrating back on board his shop.

The set up was fairly easy, apart from balancing the iPad for the background. There wasn’t much editing apart from bringing out the colour and cropping.

I suspect I’ll come back to the pirates again next month at some point.

4. Okoye Riding Into Battle

This picture was actually taken for the review of the face off by the mine set. For review I prefer to have pictures of the actual sets so people can get a feel for what it’s really like. But for this picture I felt I could enhance it by creating a battle feeling.

The main tools I used to create this image were the radial gradient layer, sparks and the colour dodge brush. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and, as I said earlier, we played a lot more with this set than I expected this month. It’s actually really good fun recreating the battles from what was an awesome movie.

If you follow me on instagram you’ll also know I used the Rhino and Okoye to create the face off scene when the rhino stops it’s charge when it sees her.

3. Kai, Master of Fire

Eagle eyed readers will instantly spot the background as being the temple of the ultimate weapon.

This one was inspired by some artwork at Legoland on the Ninjago ride. It shows Kai holding a ball a flames and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to try and recreate it.

I used a few of the techniques I’d learned this month to create the fire, with the lens flare and a glow. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and I’m planning to create similar shots for the other characters next month – so look out for that.

2. Iron Man

Ironman is one of my favourite marvel characters – who doesn’t like Tony Stark. As I said, we also played a lot with the Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown set this month. Hence, I really wanted to create a shot of ironman flying into action.

Again, this was me using a couple of tools to reinforce what I’ve learned. I think the hardest part was getting used to the brush tool and making it look realistic – as far as a superhero is realistic. There turned out to be quite a few layers to this shot and Really enjoyed making it. I hope you like it.

1. Doctor Strange

Hopefully you read my behind the scenes so you know how I created this shot. I really pleased with how it turned out and the range of tools I used to create it.

Doctor Strange is another character from the Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown set and this shot was a chance to create some “magical” effects. I’m pretty happy with how the shields turned out with the sanctum in the background.

Conclusion

To be honest I could have chosen Ironman or Doctor Strange as my favourite shot of the month because I like them both. Which do you prefer?

As I said, I’ve really enjoyed my photography this month and I’m happy with how they turned out. I can’t wait for next month.

Next Month

My plan for next month is to create more ninjago character shots like the shot of Kai. I’m also going to make sure I review the Sanctum Sanctorum set because we’ve been playing with it so much and I particularly like the characters in it. So much so that I haven’t actually got round to reviewing it. But I’ll change that next month.

I’m going to continue learning more about photoshop but I’m also going to go back and take more shots without post processing affects.

Have you got any plans for next month you’d like to share? Any shots you’d like to see? Let me know but contacting me. I’d love to hear from you.