I'm very proud to tease my last series of Lego photographies. To say a proper goodbye, I have outdone myself !
First of all, this serie features my first collaboration with a MOCer. I had the chance to work with the very talented Cole Blaq from Germany. I've contacted him with an idea in mind, to design a mecha for a futuristic battlefield. I've provided him various inspirational pictures, from Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the shell to Kojima's Metal Gear Solid. Then he has done his magic and the result looks stellar !
The mecha waited two years patiently before I've finaly put it in stage this summer.
What comes next is quite crazy, beacause with the help of two set designer Paul De Laroche and Frédéric Mercier we have builded an entire little city and engineered lighted commercial billboards.
In order to make this series (4 photos) I've spend more time than to make the entire Lego Dino's book. For my goodbyes to this fantastic Lego world I've wanted it to be insane and I hope you gonna enjoy it !
All this to tell you can expect 4 "Lego Tokyo" pictures coming soon on flickr !
In 2038, Neo Tokyo has become a battlefield facing US army's troops during WW3. In despair, Japonese's army scientists have unleashed a terrible weapon....
Tags: shobrick lego tokyo cole blaq moc ww3 science fiction macro photography diorama city cyberpunk cyberwar infinity war modern warfare metal gear solid japan kojima canon
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25 January 2038, 3 a.m.
Three us navy seals special operators have been deployed in Neo Tokyo' no man’s land for a recon mission.
Earlier in the day, US army staff lost contact with an entire light armored platoon. The 42 soldiers are KIA and seemed to have engaged fire with an unidentified enemy.
The mission is simple : infiltrate the crime scene and discover what forces annihilated the platoon.
Corporal Preacher, privates Stump & Rabbit are getting closer, they have climbed to a high point to get a better view on the street. Everything seems extremely quiet, smoke dances in the breeze, a few drops of water are still falling from the rooftops after an heavy rain.
The soldiers are enjoying this suspended moment, even though they perfectly know it could just be the calm before the storm...
This is the first picture of my last lego series !
Everything is done in camera as usual, so few retouch here, just to combine smoke and water drops from different shots. The foreground was build from scratch, from extruded polystyrene actually. And the background uses two buildings made with polystyrene and cardboard. The advertising billboards are customs too. It is made with printed designs on Plexiglas and we have built small light box behind it using ruba Led.
I have worked on building the set pieces with two set designers from the cinema industry, Paul De Laroche, Frédéric Mercier and his son Antoine Mercier. The billboards were also engineered with the director of photography Olivier Tresson.
You probably noticed that the soldiers are made with Tiny Tactical's awesome gear. Make sure to have a look at their website : www.tinytactical.com
After uploading the whole serie expect some making of videos and shots. :-)
I hope you will enjoy this one. Let me know what you think in the comments below !
Tags: shobrick lego tokyo minifig tiny tactical hideo kojima ghost in the shell metal gear solid japan macro canon 5D city WW3 modern warfare us navy seals M4
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25 January 2038, 2:30 a.m.
A メカ is waiting in sleep mode hanging up on a building's facade under a heavy rain.
メカ is a fighting mecha driven by an artificial intelligent software developped by the Japan Self-Defense Forces 自衛隊.
In desperate time, desperate mesures, Japanese governement has given huge amounts of money to a controversial and brilliant scientist. After one year of accelerated developpement they have released the first protoype on the battlefied. Neo Tokyo has not been fully evacuated, plenty of civilians are still living in the war zone.
メカ is a fully autonomous 6-legged walker tank, equiped with a huge fully rotating anti heavy armored laser gun, 8 grenade launchers, 2 machine guns on the front legs for close range combat. This is a very agile beast designed to fight on both horizontal and vertical zones. It is moving at an incredible speed, every leg of its body is made to kill, to the point where it is trying to avoid as much as possible to open fire.
This incredible mecha has been built by Cole Blaq, a very talented MOCer. I have contacted him with this project in mind and have sent him some inspirotional pictures to achieve something between Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid bestiary and Masamune Shirow's famous Ghost in the shell mecha.
I invite you to discover the building process detailed in Cole Blaq's last article -> cole-blaq.com/shobrick-meets-cole-blaq-neo-tokyo
Make sure to watch his fabulous work on Flickr and Instagram :
www.flickr.com/photos/coleblaq
www.instagram.com/cole_blaq
At first I had 3 main pictures in mind, this fourth one has been shot at the end because I had the opportunity and little time to do it. I made it very fast compared to the others, that is probably why it is my less favorite. Nevertheless I think it still have its place in the series.
Please let us know what you think of it in the comments !
Tags: lego tokyo tank ghost shell shobrick cole blaq sci-fi science fiction WW3 future 5D diorama cyberpunk kojima metal gear solid canon cinema cinematography practical effect japan japonese army military fighting artificial intelligence mecha
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25 January 2038, 5:30 a.m.
The navy seals recon team is trying to escape. Preacher is draging his wounded brother in arms, Stump, who is opening fire on the mecha. The M4 bullets are useless against it. Rabbit has already been taken down by the fighting bot.
As the threat is very low, メカ is having fun, which means that it disabled its machine guns and taking its time to erase the threat. Basically it’s doing like a cat with a mouse or a spider with a fly caught in its net.
As unpleasant as it seems it could mean a way to survive for Preacher. Stump’s body has been internally broken by a simple punch from the mecha. He won't live long but Preacher is not letting him behind.
メカ is a fully autonomous 6-legged walker tank, equiped with a huge fully rotating anti heavy armored laser gun, 8 grenade launchers, 2 machine guns on the front legs for close range combat. This is a very agile beast designed to fight on both horizontal and vertical zones. It is moving at an incredible speed, every leg of its body is made to kill, to the point where it is trying to avoid as much as possible to open fire.
This incredible mecha has been built by Cole Blaq, a very talented MOCer. I have contacted him with this project in mind and have sent him some inspirotional pictures to achieve something between Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid bestiary and Masamune Shirow's famous Ghost in the shell mecha.
I invite you to discover the building process detailed in Cole Blaq's last article -> cole-blaq.com/shobrick-meets-cole-blaq-neo-tokyo
Make sure to watch his fabulous work on Flickr and Instagram :
www.flickr.com/photos/coleblaq
www.instagram.com/cole_blaq
You probably noticed that the soldiers are made with Tiny Tactical's awesome gear. Make sure to have a look at their website : www.tinytactical.com
Preacher's tattooed arms are from citizen brick : citizenbrick.com/
Oh my god this picture was an everyday challenge to make it right. It has so many things in the same frame, from background to middle and foreground. The fire shot lighting was the trickiest part. I have taken separately the foreground with the two soldiers of the rest, because you know that kind of depth of field is impossible to achieve in one shot, and the fire effect was tricky enough to make the decision to seperate this two things.
So the idea was to get the lighting from the fire on the mecha. At first I tried with bengal lights but the sparkles keep getting everywhere in front of the mecha, so I simply switch to a small ikea lamp. You can notice the shadow of the mecha hand on its left front leg is pretty neat.
Then came the gun firing effect challenge, I wanted it to get it live as all my effects. I sliced of tiny pieces a bengal lights, put the powder on the top of an iron wire and light it. As you can imagine I had to light it so many times. And then on photoshop I mixed two blows to make the final effect. The bullets impacts are made with projections of bengal lights.
The shooting last at list 3 days, as I was not satisfied with the posing, lighting, effects, I kept getting back to the studio until it came up good.
Please let me know what you think of it in the comments !
Tags: lego minifig mecha brick moc diorama japan tokyo ww3 military war no man's land war zone fighting M4 assault rifle firing shobrick cole blacq macro tiny tactical citizen brick geek afol cinema cinematography 5D canon mark3 science fiction sci-fi cyberpunk spider mechanical robot AI artificial intelligence ghost in the shell metal gear solid kojima hideo masamune shirow
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25 January 2038, 6:45 a.m.
As the sun is rising on Neo Tokyo's no man's land, Preacher who is the only survivor of his squad, is running for his life. The killing machine, which slaughtered his brothers in arms, is relentlessly chasing him through the wreckage.
Preacher is running for ages through the ruins, zizaging, getting in narrow spaces to buy some time. But the mecha is so agile that he can not lose it.
Preacher is exhausted, he perfectly knows his body is on the point of droping him. He is reaching the edge of the highway that has been cutted in half by airstikes. The mecha is getting closer, he can almost feel its mechanical breath on his back. Preacher would rather risk everything than to get grabbed and crushed by the machine's claws.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, he jumps off the bridge as the mecha is trying to reach him out with its arm.
Here is the last picture of the Lego Tokyo series and my last lego picture !
It is the largest diorama I've ever putted in stage, using almost all the buildings built for the series. It is a bit frustrating to see that we finaly only see the top of the building on the right behind the highway, which is a full half destroyed building. We only see a fraction of it haha, but composition goes first.
The lighting and the posing was the most challenging things on this frame. First to make clear that the minifig is jumping on purpose from the bridge instead of just falling was really tricky. I had to make several long shots to find the right way to do it.
As for the lighting the idea was to get a sun rising and orange and reddish look to get a Blade Runner vibe. It mixes continious light and flash. The background is a matte painting that I had to continiously repaint because there was too much red, there still is too much to my taste.
Next, I will uploaded 3 making of video for the main 3 pictures of the Lego Tokyo series. You will have a really complete behind the scene insides from all the steps from bulding the set, to the shooting.
Please comment and share this picture ! ;-)
Tags: shobrick cole blacq hideo kojima metal gear solid ghost shell science fiction sci-fi future mecha war japan tokyo modern warfare soldier us navy seal canon markIII 5d macro diorama lego minifig lighting cinematography
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