The Energon Pub

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:44 am

The Buster Sword...nobody can resist the appeal of a ginormous blade!

Here's more:

Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:21 am

dude, its clouds sword!!!!!! that sword pwns, and if im correct, is the other sword from one of the evangelian figures?

Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:42 am

now thats just showing off!!!!
gonna bash one of them???
I need two, one to kinda keep as Mirage (w. Gitanes decals) and one to repaint as Blurr, older style light blue and orange

Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:43 am

Dude... I mean- Squall... (Lol) I'd love a repro of that sword if at all possible. :shock:

Is that the one that comes apart into just the Buster plus the twin Butterfly blades or is it stuck like that as the Buster with one of the Butterfly blades attached?

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:31 am

The sword on the left is indeed the Buster Sword. It came with the Cloud figure from the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children line.

Unfortunately, it is one solid piece. It does not come apart...but we can all dream right?

Shade - if you know how to repro, or you know someone thats willing to do it. I'm willing to send you the blade (I'm just gonna ask for the blade back, along with a copy!)

The sword on the right is from the Red Eva (Piloted by the red-haired girl, I forget her name) from the Kaiyodo Evangelion line. The Evangelion lin came with some of the best accessories for Alernators. I'll post more pics if you guys want.

Getting two Mirages...well...it was actually all a fluke. I traded someone over at TFW2005.com for the Mirage. But the guy was from Canada...but I figured I'd have a better chance of getting it from him, than seeing it here. (I haven't even seen prime at retail yet...)

Anyway, I take a toy hunt out a little farther than I normally do...and behold..a single Mirage, the lone Alternator sitting on the shelf!

I couldn't pass it up...I'm just gonna take the second one to work, to display in my office.

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:59 am

I didn't post these pics last night for fear that some of you would go insane...but...realize that I bought mine off of e-Bay way before NemesisGate. Without further ado...

Mirage and Mirage vs Nemesis Prime!

If anyone want to add special effects to these pics...please feel free...

The axe in Nemesis Prime's hand is from the Revoltech Getter-One by Kaiyodo.

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:46 am

Armada Starscream vs Armada Megatron:

and for those of you that are into Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children:

Sun Jul 23, 2006 11:54 am

where did you get the stand that is holding mirage in mid air? cool pics by the way

Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:05 pm

Hey now! No showing off Nemesis Primes! Some of us are still sensative!

Okay, not serious.

Those pictures are pretty cool. The Alt Hotshot on Fenrir (while kinda odd...a car riding a motorcycle) with the Buster sword is all kinds of awesome!

Along the lines of gang-ups, I have this pic I made from a long time ago:

Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:03 pm

yes please not the paint.. we dont need no more stinkin repaints!!! ..

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:10 pm

Hey Pun-3X, you seem like you really got some skills with the special effects in your pics! If your bored, and want to take a crack at it, I'd like to see some special effects in sme of the pics I posted with Mirage and Nemesis...that would be awesome!

Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:23 pm

Sure!

I'll see what I can come up with.

EDIT: How'd this turn out?

Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:09 pm

Hey Pun: How's bout putting a tutorial together of how to do those effects? It's all kinds of sweer...

Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:27 pm

Shade wrote:Hey Pun: How's bout putting a tutorial together of how to do those effects? It's all kinds of sweer...

I too would love to know how you do stuff like this...I mean, you got the support stand out of the pic and the way you have blur on Mirage really makes it look like an action shot.

Please....do tell!

Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:38 pm

i think that someone put one up not long ago..... might be in the ask our help or 2-d section...

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:44 pm

That is SO awesome! I wish I could do stuff like that! Share the secret my friend! hahahaha

Great job...I'll have to take more pics...feel free to use any of mine you find on the boards!

Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:52 pm

Glad you guys like it.

The greatest tip I can give is to get Photoshop. I currently have PS7, though I hear CS is very good too.

Most of the tricks are simple enough. Getting rid of the display stand was easy--you simply take samples of the nearby wall using the CLONE-STAMP feature, then paint on top of the stand. The table isn't as easy as the wall, though. I brushed over the base in different colors sampled from the table and blurred it. Then I added lighter colored dots (like a starfield) onto the part I painted. (this is all on a separate layer) After that, I hilighted the section and selected [filter] in the top menu, [blur], then [motion blur]. You can directionalize the blur of the selection as well as the intensity. That helped to create a matching grain to the existing grain on the table.

Of course, I slightly cheated on that. To blend it together better I ran a blur tool across the table top.

As for the motion blur on Mirage, same trick. This time, I simply 'copied' a cut-out sample of blur onto another layer. I used the motion blur to streak it the direction I wanted, then moved the layer around until the positioning looked right. The last step I did was to reduce the transparency of the layer (Opacity selection in the layers toolbox display) to my liking.

Laser and sparking effects are also done on another layer. When opening a new layer, change the setting from NORMAL to SCREEN. It automatically brightens the colors, making it easier to create bright lights, fires, or whatever is needed.

The rest is simply a matter of practice. I'm not utilizing PS anywhere NEAR to its capacity, but it still is a great tool.

News Credits: 1 · Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:59 pm

The sad thing is that I went to school for graphic design...and I never ended up using my degree...

I have Photoshop CS...and believe me I wish I could go back to PS7. If you are using a PC (as opposed to a Mac) then stick with 7. CS loads slow, and sufers from some major slow-down issues. It also conflicts with Windows Media Player.

Its not my computer either...cause I'm also quite the computer nerd...hahaha, this thing is a powerhouse!

Thanks for the tutorial...I'm actually trying a pic now! You rekindled my interest in PS!

Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:04 pm

You should post in TFW2005's "Let's see some cool stuff!" thread in their toy section. People put up all sorts of pics on TF toys. A lot of them are just people playing with filters, but every so often someone really splices up some good stuff.

Sun Jul 23, 2006 11:11 pm

I have a PC and a (cracked) copy of PS CS2 9.0 O_o;

I can run everything just fine.

Dunno why Squall's is being weird... Then again my baby's not even 5 months old yet.

That and some codecs I DL's killed my WMP. -_-

Ah well... I got a (cracked) copy of Zoom Player WMV.

And, Pun... The only thing I need a tutorial on is the lighting stuff... Everything else I can do. Lol

Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:54 pm

I have been using photoshop CS and just upgraded to CS2! I am running off a Pentium 3, 1 GHz machine with a gig of memory and find it only takes about 5 to 10 seconds longer to load the program than older versions of PS and have never had any problems with conflicts of any kind! Not to be a smart ass or anything, I just have not had any problems to speak of.

Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:01 pm

i use ps 7.0 as well.

News Credits: 1 · Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:34 am

I don't know what it is then. Maybe its conflicting with something else on my computer.

This thing is a 2.8Ghz P4 with 1 gig of RAM...mayeb I just need more RAM, you can never have enough RAM!

I'm not trying to say it doesn't work...I just thought PS7 worked better. I do have CS currently installed...and I continue to use it despite the slowness...

Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:52 pm

ive 'upgraded' between the two, and like the majority of graphics programs,(especially 3ds max!!!) the programmers seem to change things around for no apparent reason. i understand that sometimes its necessary to revamp things but seriously, half the time it appears that they just do it so they can add a .5 to the name of the program and up the price.