Guarding the border of Nocturnus

[de Gothia]

I wanted to try different border techniques so I thought I build my moc close to a border as well! And after NM gave me a private lesson in background removal I thought I tried that as well!

So thanks to Nice Marmot and SOT!

As you all know, Avalonia is keeping an eye out for the Drow at the borders Avalonia/Nocturnus. de Gothia was given the task to lead this small army. Here is a small moc I made up showing one of the heroic soldiers guarding the border.

C&C is most welcome!

[Zach Mills]

I love the foliage on Avalonia's side, and how well you have transitioned the ground. I've always imagined that the border would be a little less abrupt.

[Hyler Talliwell]

As above said, it is a little abrupt, but I like it. Nice work!

[Maxim I]

I like it!

It reminded me of a MOC Tazodactyl made a while ago:

Cross Roads (link)

[Ecclesiastes]

Guarding that part of Avalonia will be easy, I only see death guys

But it´s a nice small build, the base is well done as is the foilage. Also cutting the photo is a great touch, I´m still figuring it out myself!

[de Gothia]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The abrubt side is because the moc wouldn´t be to large.

Yes Da Maximus that moc is great and they sure are a little similar.

Ecc: you have to talk to Nice Marmot about backgrounds! He taught me everything!

[soccerkid6]

The borders look great! And the landscaping is excellent

[Captain BeerBeard]

Whoa! That's not what I expected! I like the Nocturnous side better. Good work on the base.

[Dustin]

Lookin' great, de Gothia!

[Legonardo]

Borders ay? now where have I seen that before...

Great MOC, a picture showing mor more of the base and less of the border would be nice

keep bricking!

=Legonardo=

[NiceMarmot]

Ecc: you have to talk to Nice Marmot about backgrounds! He taught me everything!

Here's a slightly edited version of what I told DG about editing out backgrounds. These are instructions for using GIMP specifically, but the same concepts probably work for PhotoShop.

I selected the background first using the Fuzzy Select (or "Magic Wand") tool, then used that tool a few more times with the Shift key pressed to add to the selection (by clicking unselected areas of the background that had a slightly different shade of grey, my Threshold setting for the Fuzzy Select was set to 15). Then I used the Free Select (or "Lasso") tool, first in Add mode (Shift key), then in Subtract mode, to add and subtract a few areas from the selection that the Fuzzy Select didn't get right.

Once I got the selection right, I colored it all magenta, so that if I wanted to, I could easily select it again (or you could), since that's a color that's not in the pic already. [Note: I only did this so I could save a version like this as a JPG and send to DG. If you're just editing a photo for yourself, you can skip coloring it magenta.]

Then I colored the selection pure white, and then used the Filters > Render > Clouds > Solid Noise to generate a cloudy background (in grey tones); play around with the settings to get a feel for it. Then I used Colors > Colorize to give the clouds a bit of a darker blue tint. Play around with Colorize to get a feel for the different possibilities. That's it for the background tutorial.

Then I used the Clone tool to copy the green plate background to the sides, to fill out the horizon. Since this is so fuzzy already, it doesn't have to be perfect, which makes it a great candidate for the Clone tool. Especially if you're going to post it in a discussion at 800x600 resolution.

Note that DG sent me a link to a

on background removal. But it's probably overkill for simple MOCs that are well photographed. It's a really useful technique when you have a foreground that has a very complex/detailed border with the background (which makes it hard to use the Free Select tool to select the foreground/background border, a problem DG's images don't have) and where the existing background is so varied that the Fuzzy Select tool would have a hard time selecting it (again, you don't have that problem with these images). If your background is close to one color (like your white/grey background), and the foreground doesn't have similar colors bordering the background, it's much easier to use Fuzzy Select, and then clean up the selection using Free Select.

That's why it really helps to photograph your images with a backdrop that is all one color, and that color should ideally be something very different from the colors in the MOC.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I usually put the photo on photoshop, draw round it as best I can with the lasso tool, cut and paste it onto a background, then zoom in and fill in and touch up the areas around the moc. Very simple, takes about 15 mins.

Great moc de Gothia. Great scene of a brave lone soldier standing against the darkness of Nocturnus.