Nendoroid Comic - Sadako-chan

I haven't done a Nendoroid comic in a while, but I thought it would be fun to break out the camera and spend a lazy Sunday afternoon doing something creative.

Also, I have a plethora of anime figures I've collected over the past year which I haven't really had time to photograph or show off. Kuronuma Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke is one the Nendoroid figures. All of those parts you see on her belong to her except for the horrified face. She comes with about four heads including the odd chibi face she usually has in the show. Maru, Kazehaya's puppy, also comes with her.

As for the Nendoroid comic...it's upgraded, now with backgrounds! To stand her up I used the paper clip method I used for all the previous comics. Usually those comics have a white backdrop so its easy to remove the paper clip stand. With this I need to shoot two photographs locked with the same focus and lighting. I have a flash set to the side shooting the ceiling to give it some diffuse illumination. (That's a thing the Sony Alpha dSLR and its separate shoe flash can do and it's fun to play with!)

The two photos are placed in the same PSD, the photo without the characters as the second layer beneath the one I'm interested in. I mask the top layer and then use a new tool I learned literally a hour ago by watching an Adobe video: the quick mask selection tool. It acts like a paint brush so you can just paint a selection and when you lift the brush it automatically tries to clean up the edges so they fit the border of what you're trying to preserve. I invert the selection and then use an airbrush of various opacity and remove the paperclip that sticks out so she looks like she's standing on her own. There may still be imperfections. I think reducing it in size may help on that end.

I can't say if there will be more Nendoroid comics coming -- it's really spotty when I decide to do these. I also still need to finish off the other story.

The last Gitah episode, done 8 months ago(!), right here: