Kimono Troop Command Random Photos

Kamiko Takahara
Commanding Kimono Troop

Kamiko Observes by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Kamiko Takahara: My Inner Samurai 6 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Kamiko Takahara: My Inner Samurai 4 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Kamiko Takahara: My Inner Samurai 2 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

TB League / Phicen by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Captain (Retired) Glynnis Penny-Farthing, OBE
Explorer, adventuress and frequent ally of Kamiko's

Captain Glynnis-Penny Farthing, OBE, Retired by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Captain (ret) Glynnis Penny-Farthing, OBE by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Captain Glynnis Penny-Farthing by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Captain (ret) Glynnis Penny Farthing, OBE by Gary  Menten, on Flickr



Leutnant Erika von Stroheim
Commanding Stahl Force. the militia of a rival faction

Erika in desert by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Erika von Stroheim firing P38 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Erika von Stroheim by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

More great pics!

Blondeactionman wrote:

More great pics!

It's nice to be able to share them with anyone who enjoys the hobby.

Erika seems to have mastered a variety of small arms weapons. Not a character you want to cross!

Capt. Penny-Farthing: what can I say that I haven't expressed, perhaps overly enthusiastically, on Flickr? Very possibly my favorite TBLeague kitbashed figure... thus far, anyway. Hoping for a quick photo-tutorial on making those hats at some point.

Based on what I've seen on Flickr, was Kamiko the custom figure that started you down this slippery slope of action figure collecting, customizing, and storytelling? She is a marvelous combination of dangerously intimidating and adorable!

I really like the excellent outdoor photos. You have some interesting settings at your disposal. Are these colorful desert locations nearby, or do you need to travel to reach them?

SCU_HQ wrote:

Erika seems to have mastered a variety of small arms weapons. Not a character you want to cross!

Capt. Penny-Farthing: what can I say that I haven't expressed, perhaps overly enthusiastically, on Flickr? Very possibly my favorite TBLeague kitbashed figure... thus far, anyway. Hoping for a quick photo-tutorial on making those hats at some point.

Based on what I've seen on Flickr, was Kamiko the custom figure that started you down this slippery slope of action figure collecting, customizing, and storytelling? She is a marvelous combination of dangerously intimidating and adorable!

Kamikp was not my first figure but rather my third. She started off however as a DAZ 3D figure a couple of years ago and from the moment I got into the 1/6th scale hobby, I knew that as soon as i found a suitable head sculpt or her, I would have to try to create a 1/6th scale version.  

SCU_HQ wrote:

I really like the excellent outdoor photos. You have some interesting settings at your disposal. Are these colorful desert locations nearby, or do you need to travel to reach them?

There are three locations used in my photos, all in the municipality where I live.

SB32-2_0027 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Kamiko To the Rescue10 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

TB League /  Phicen by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

TB League / Phicen by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Images 1-4 above are all shot at a small public park across the street from where I live, where where a stone retaining wall is built into the edge of a slope to one side of the park. It offers the least amount of possibilities; the photos have to be tightly cropped and I have to lie in a very uncomfortable position on the steep slope to get the photos.

Alexis Nihon Park Shoot 2_0039-3 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Alexis Nihon Park Shoot 2_0111 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr


12 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

6 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

The second group of four images were shot at another, larger park, maybe a mile from where I live. This park has a sort or stone amphitheater in it with three successive stone walls built into it and is the most comfortable to use since I can sit on one level and shoot figures on the next level. However as you can see from the first two photos, that unless the images are tightly cropped and the figures placed close to the walls, some unwanted stuff will make its way into the photos.

The firefight05 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

The firefight01 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

The firefight07_2 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Katanga Lost Diamonds028 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Katanga Lost Diamonds031 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Katanga's Lost Diamonds Part II: The Valley of Strange Occurences by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

The last batch if images is shot at yet another Park a couple of miles from where I live, but which offers the best location, which is an artificial waterfall built on a rise in the ground with layered and climbable stone retaining walls on either side.  This being said, I often have to sit or lie in an awkward or uncomfortable position to get the shot, and have to climb a bit to get a lot of shots.

The SDH-18A on the S32A body is an absolutely superb combination. The way you equip your figures with uniforms and accessories, and the excellent outdoor lighting, really brings them to life in these photos!

But... the photo of Kamiko sneaking around the boulder, rifle at the ready, is superb! The pose looks so natural as she slinks, almost liquid-like in her litheness, around the rock on high alert.

The detailing in the costume is impressive, with the dirt on the boots. The equipment belt rides like it has some mass to it.

The tilt of her head is simply perfect!

That, sir, is an outstanding action figure photo!

You know, your comments about where you shoot will have us all wanting to see a behind-the-scenes pic as you sprawl awkwardly across the rocks!

SCU_HQ wrote:

The SDH-18A on the S32A body is an absolutely superb combination. The way you equip your figures with uniforms and accessories, and the excellent outdoor lighting, really brings them to life in these photos!

But... the photo of Kamiko sneaking around the boulder, rifle at the ready, is superb! The pose looks so natural as she slinks, almost liquid-like in her litheness, around the rock on high alert.

The detailing in the costume is impressive, with the dirt on the boots. The equipment belt rides like it has some mass to it.

The tilt of her head is simply perfect!

That, sir, is an outstanding action figure photo!

You know, your comments about where you shoot will have us all wanting to see a behind-the-scenes pic as you sprawl awkwardly across the rocks!

Yeah, I've thought of that "behind the scenes" thing but never seem to find the time to think about it when I shoot photos. The whole art is in trainingyourself  to spot locations that can be used  to shoot a well cropped photo.  It does help that when I was a kid, both my mother and father had worked for TV related businesses and took me to work with them sometimes (My father more than my mother) and I got to see TV sets of shows I'd seen on TV and saw how small they were in real life but how big they were made to appear on screen.  You also have to think a bit of the Sergio Leone Spaghetti western--best example; The Good, The Bad and the Ugly--where nothing that's visibly outside the frame of the shot is seemingly visible to the people in the shot and people just pop into the frame at times as if they'd been invisible the whole time to the character as well as the audience.

Location 1 ws easy to find; it's across the street from me .  I came to understand from using it however that stone walls with big rocks were as close as I was going to get to finding an outdoor location in Montreal that might resemble parts of the American Southwest enough to pull it off, so I started using the satellite imagery available on Google maps to look for other stone walls and stone piles around where lived and looked over the images the way a CIA or military guy might look at satellite images to find what he wants and "voila!" I found other locations and went to check them out.

Also, I should have mentioned it earlier, but I'm a graduate of a commercial photography school and shooting photos like this is not very different from shooting a product photo in the sense that all you see is what the photographer wants you to see, and there are many little tricks to help fool the eye.

Ah, a background in product photography! Hence your eye for creating evenly illuminated scenes without harsh shadows or "blown out" highlights!

Oh... you're in Canada! So your "New Mexico season" must be relatively brief! You certainly manage to achieve a "southwest" look in your photos. I actually live in the American Southwest... sort of on the edge of it, anyway... and you had me believing!

I had the opportunity to visit a "real" television set once when I was a little kid, and yes, I was surprised at how small and "partial" the sets were. The mind fills in a lot of space when watching visual media.

Sometimes some of us here on the forum get pretty deep in to the conversations on constructing 1/6 scale sets and lighting them so they will "work" for photos, so don't be surprised if the questions start rolling in once the forum members get to know you.

Also, a few of us who are new to the seamless figure world have been "picking the brains" of more experienced forum members when it comes to posing the figures. While the figures are nicely sculpted, it can be surprisingly challenging to pose them so that they look life-like, alive, and in the case of the "girl figures," feminine. There's a subtle art to working with these figures that takes time and practice to develop. It appears that you may have come up with some insights on how to work with TBL/Phicen figs to get them to "look right."

SCU_HQ wrote:

Ah, a background in product photography! Hence your eye for creating evenly illuminated scenes without harsh shadows or "blown out" highlights!

Oh... you're in Canada! So your "New Mexico season" must be relatively brief! You certainly manage to achieve a "southwest" look in your photos. I actually live in the American Southwest... sort of on the edge of it, anyway... and you had me believing!

I had the opportunity to visit a "real" television set once when I was a little kid, and yes, I was surprised at how small and "partial" the sets were. The mind fills in a lot of space when watching visual media.

Sometimes some of us here on the forum get pretty deep in to the conversations on constructing 1/6 scale sets and lighting them so they will "work" for photos, so don't be surprised if the questions start rolling in once the forum members get to know you.

Also, a few of us who are new to the seamless figure world have been "picking the brains" of more experienced forum members when it comes to posing the figures. While the figures are nicely sculpted, it can be surprisingly challenging to pose them so that they look life-like, alive, and in the case of the "girl figures," feminine. There's a subtle art to working with these figures that takes time and practice to develop. It appears that you may have come up with some insights on how to work with TBL/Phicen figs to get them to "look right."

Here's a product photo from my graduation portfolio at Dawson College; Product photography was my "minor" in my grad portfolio.

product006 by Gary Menten, on Flickr

My major was "glamour" photography.

F08_Menten_Port#1_glamour001_r3000 by Gary Menten, on Flickr


Being asked and giving advice is not a problem. That's why this is a forum, and not just Flickr or Facebook. Also, there are no real secrets in photography, and I've never known a single photographer who was unwilling to share his tricks.

You majored in glamor photography?

Boy, did I ever do the whole university thing wrong!

SCU_HQ wrote:

You majored in glamor photography?

Boy, did I ever do the whole university thing wrong!

Let me clarify a couple things.  

1.  This wasn't university. Dawson College is what we call a CEGEP here in Quebec, which is  junior college and normally a step in between High School and university.  They have two photography programs; a three year daytime program in which you have to take a bunch of outside electives as well, and a two-year night program, which is for older students where the average age is 30-32.  I was 44 when I started it and my best pal on the program was 49.  Most of us in the program had full-time jobs during the day and to boot, we had classes four, sometimes five nights a week until 9.30=10.00pm, and sometimes on Saturday morning.  Plus, the smart guys made maximum use of the studio space, so starting in my second semester, I was there every Saturday and every Sunday to use to get the maximum studio time.

The instructors in the night program are almost all working commercial photographers by day, while the daytime instructors are mostly not.

2. There is no glamour photography major.  In order to graduate, at the end of the program, each student must produce two portfolios; A major of nine images and a minor of five images.  You must have a portfolio adviser and your adviser MUST approve your subject selection.  Most students attempt to choose subjects like food photography, fashion, architecture, portraiture, landscape, etc.  I was the first student anyone could recall who did glamour photography and my portfolio adviser, had been teaching there for 17 years so she knew what she was talking about. My minor was in product photography,

The program was grueling and producing those portfolios was pretty much the hardest thing I ever did.


I should further point out that what I'm doing now, is much more fun and personally rewarding if not financially rewarding than anything I ever did commercially. The reasons is that I do this for creative release as opposed to money, have only myself to answer to and can do many things with the figures that I can't do with real people. My inspiration for getting back into 1/6th scale so many years after my childhood and GI Joe figures....was in seeing Mark Hogencamp's work and being blown away by it. My reasons for wanting to do this sort of thing are much different from his; to me just creative and artistic self expression and giving my sense of humor another venue. That's one reason my collection is as narrowly focused as it is. All my figures are kitbashed, though Erika is the least kitbashed of the bunch, and all of them fit into this Post Apocalytic fantasy world I've created (Erika again, took a bit of back story manipulation to achieve this, with her 1943 Afrika Korps uniform.)

I am just totally loving all the Kimon Troop Command Random outside Photos. Especially the rocky scenery.

Prof Gangrene Fan wrote:

I am just totally loving all the Kimon Troop Command Random outside Photos. Especially the rocky scenery.

The outdoor shoots, for all the trouble involved, offer a lot of advantages but chief among them in my opinion are:

1. The depth of the scenery usually not possible on indoor shoots.

2. Scenery elements that are difficult or expensive to mimic on an indoor set, like the pile of rocks in the background of a lot of my photos. This particular setting offer's both depth and height, which is desirable.

These really are superb pictures

Sparklebudgie wrote:

These really are superb pictures

Thanks.