Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer Professional Photos by Jason Yang of Exclu Collective

Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Today we are sharing professional photos of some of the Funko Hikari 9-inch figures that we sell in our shop. This is a shoot of the Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer figure.



The stock photos circulating on the web of the Hikari figures are woefully inadequate, so we figured we'd send some of these figures to several talented photographers to generate some really top-level imagery. This post contains photos by Jason Yang (IG: @workmoreorless) who was suggested to us by the toy photography gurus at EXCLU Collective.

Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Funko Hikari Joker Shimmer 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

About Jason Yang:


In real life, Jason Yang uses his job as a commercial animator and illustrator to fund his ever growing toy collection and photography hobby. Within the past year, Jason has collaborated with several international brands, and his toy photography has been featured at San Diego Comic Con, NYC Toy Fair, and Star Wars Celebration. Jason posts his work as @workmoreorless on instagram, and also contributes to Exclu Design Collective as a network partner. He has three young padawans and (used to) enjoy long walks of Scarif with his wife.

About the Exclu Design Collective:

Exclu Design Collective is a multimedia showcasing platform that highlights and promotes the work of the creative toy industry whilst also connecting members of that industry to the community at its heart. Exclu exists in both digital forms operating at the core of the toy photography community and also within their printed showcasing publications which help to expose the emerging toy photography scene to the wider world of creative enthusiasts.

https://exclucollective.com/

https://www.instagram.com/exclucollective/

Funko Hikari Optimus Prime Metallic Professional Photos by Jason Yang of Exclu Collective

Funko Hikari Metallic Optimus Prime 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Today we are sharing professional photos of some of the Funko Hikari 9-inch figures that we sell in our shop. This is a shoot of the Funko Hikari Transformers Optimus Prime Metallic finish figure.



The stock photos circulating on the web of the Hikari figures are woefully inadequate, so we figured we'd send some of these figures to several talented photographers to generate some really top-level imagery. This post contains photos by Jason Yang (IG: @workmoreorless) who was suggested to us by the toy photography gurus at EXCLU Collective.

About Jason Yang:


In real life, Jason Yang uses his job as a commercial animator and illustrator to fund his ever growing toy collection and photography hobby. Within the past year, Jason has collaborated with several international brands, and his toy photography has been featured at San Diego Comic Con, NYC Toy Fair, and Star Wars Celebration. Jason posts his work as @workmoreorless on instagram, and also contributes to Exclu Design Collective as a network partner. He has three young padawans and (used to) enjoy long walks of Scarif with his wife.

About the Exclu Design Collective:

Exclu Design Collective is a multimedia showcasing platform that highlights and promotes the work of the creative toy industry whilst also connecting members of that industry to the community at its heart. Exclu exists in both digital forms operating at the core of the toy photography community and also within their printed showcasing publications which help to expose the emerging toy photography scene to the wider world of creative enthusiasts.

https://exclucollective.com/

https://www.instagram.com/exclucollective/

Funko Hikari Astro Boy Professional Photos by Jason Yang of Exclu Collective

Funko Hikari Astro Boy 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Today we are sharing professional photos of some of the Funko Hikari 9-inch figures that we sell in our shop. This is a shoot of the Funko Hikari Astro Boy figure.

The stock photos circulating on the web of the Hikari figures are woefully inadequate, so we figured we'd send some of these figures to several talented photographers to generate some really top-level imagery. This post contains photos by Jason Yang (IG: @workmoreorless) who was suggested to us by the toy photography gurus at EXCLU Collective.

Funko Hikari Astro Boy 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Funko Hikari Astro Boy 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Funko Hikari Astro Boy 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

Funko Hikari Astro Boy 9-inch figure photo care of Jason Yang

About Jason Yang:

In real life, Jason Yang uses his job as a commercial animator and illustrator to fund his ever growing toy collection and photography hobby. Within the past year, Jason has collaborated with several international brands, and his toy photography has been featured at San Diego Comic Con, NYC Toy Fair, and Star Wars Celebration. Jason posts his work as @workmoreorless on instagram, and also contributes to Exclu Design Collective as a network partner. He has three young padawans and (used to) enjoy long walks of Scarif with his wife.

About the Exclu Design Collective:

Exclu Design Collective is a multimedia showcasing platform that highlights and promotes the work of the creative toy industry whilst also connecting members of that industry to the community at its heart. Exclu exists in both digital forms operating at the core of the toy photography community and also within their printed showcasing publications which help to expose the emerging toy photography scene to the wider world of creative enthusiasts.

https://exclucollective.com/

https://www.instagram.com/exclucollective/

Exclu Collective Covers the Funko Specialty Cosmo Dorbz Figure

Click through to Exclu Collective to see the full photographic coverage of the Specialty Cosmo Dorbz figure. To grab one for yourself, click here. To see all of our available Dorbz, click here.

To snap up one of our regular 4-inch POPs at $5 each, click here.

Funko POP Specialty Series Heroic Batgirl Covered with Beautiful Photography by Exclu Collective

Exclu Collective kicks off a week of coverage of some of our products with this article about the Heroic Batgirl Specialty POP by Funko. Still available in our shop here (although very few left at the time of this post). Read the article and see many more beautiful pictures of this Specialty POP (and her absolutely minty fresh box) here.

Kicking Off a Week of Photographic Coverage of Tenacious Toys Products on EXCLU Collective

We are always game to expand our relationships with like-minded people and companies, so when Jack from EXCLU Collective contacted us about working together, we were all ears.

Jack explained that EXCLU focuses on in depth coverage of the work of active members of the Toy Photography community, the the images don't lie... there are some seriously talented people taking pictures of toys!

DEFINITELY definitely worth a read through issues 1, 2 and 3. Click here to visit their site, click on Magazines in nav menu to see all issues.

When I realized how AWESOOOME these photos are that they are publishing, I immediately sent EXCLU a box of our current toys. Stay tuned to EXCLU for a week's worth of coverage of some of the items we sell. Their own intro / teaser post is here.

- Benny Kline

New Book On IndieGoGo: Memory of Roman Shevchenko Lives On Through His Photographs of Toys

I did not know Roman personally, I am sad to say. After I learned of his sudden passing in 2014, I was able to read many tributes to him online and learn more about his life.

Roman was one of us. By that, I mean that he was passionate about art and toys and sought to express his passions through photography, so that he could share the wonderful art with more people. Roman was a huge art toy collector, but more than that, he touched the lives of many people in our community, all around the world. In the past few years, I have seen a huge increase in interest in the designer toy world by Russian collectors. I don't think that's a coincidence.

I think that truly special people can continue to have a tangible presence in the world long after they've passed. This is still true of my mother, who passed in 2001. Like Roman, she spent the better part of her life bringing people together. Like Roman, she had friends and contacts all over the globe - people who still talk about her, with sadness in her absence, but also with joy and love in their memories. The world is a little more gray because they are gone, but you can still feel their pull and their influence wherever you are.

So it is with pleasure that I write this post about an book project that you can back on IndieGoGo. This is a book of photographs of art toys, all taken by Roman. His friends have set this whole project up as a way to honor Roman's life and continue to spread his influence around the world.

"This book is dedicated to designer toys by various designers, from mass produced figures to single custom-made ones. The book is a collection of fantastic photographs taken by one of the most well-known Russian toy collector and toy photographer Roman Shevchenko, aka AlPred. Each photograph tells a little story and introduced a figure from a very special, different angle. This photographs motivate the others not just to collect designer toys, but to be creative while doing it."

"Roman was an active member of the toy community; he visited fairs all around the world, talked to designers. He was so open, communicative and enthusiastic that he got along with everyone who had a chance to get to know him. He became quite well-known in the global toy community; so after he passed away in 2014, Coarsetoys released an action figure of Omen Fade as a tribute to him. We are grateful to the company founders Mark and Sven for granting us the right to use the sketch of Omen on our book cover. It is extremely important for us.  

Roman was the biggest contributor to the popularity of designer toys in Russia, largely thanks to his photographs. He did not just take photos of the action figures, every time he told a little story and introduced the figure from a very special, different angle. The figures were not just part of Roman’s collection, in his photos they came to life and acted as characters of lots of stories. His pictures always stirred interest and motivated the others not just to collect figures, but to be creative while doing it. "

$50 will get you a copy of this book. Click here to back the campaign.

SDCC Photo Coverage 2 - Leecifer, 3A, Joe Menna Punisher, Andrew Bell, tokidoki, DKE, Martin Hsu and more

SDCC Photo Coverage - Jermaine Rogers, Ron English, JRYU and more

HOW-TO: Photograph Custom Toys at Home, On a Budget (Part 1 - Setup)

Intro:

So I have this thing I'm doing called Rollin Gobis. It's a rolling online custom show featuring the Muttpop Gobi platform - a 3.5" vinyl humanoid (luchador) figure which is basically part of the lime of toys that the popular Tequila came from.

As I gather up my images for this release, I had one custom Gobi by Cash Cannon left to shoot, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to show all of you how to photograph a custom toy for the web. Initially I thought this might be a short tutorial but I realized that not all of you have access to the same DSLR camera and Photoshop like I do. So... those tools are great for me but maybe not a useful tutorial for many of you.

The reason I am doing this is the same reason I've been bitching and whining about your images for years: when you sell stuff on the web, the images are all you have to make an impression. They have to look pretty good and professional, even if you do them yourself.

Many of you seem to fall back on the good old "shot in dim lighting on my kitchen table with busy background" shot. Please stop doing that. I know many of you are working a day job and sculpting at night, and you're exhausted by the time you finish, but also super excited... so you snap the first picture you can of that piece, at night, on your table, in front of your bored cat and overflowing garbage can. And then you post it to IG because you're all proud, and some bloggers pick it up and run with it, and BAM - that's your actual official picture that gets circulated of that piece.

So your pictures look like you don't give a shit. And that's bad. Whether you want to believe it or not, there is psychology involved in selling your art to people, and you have to appeal to their inner sense of "must have this thing right now." Not giving a shit, in sales, leads to not selling shit.

So, to recap: your images of your custom toys should be brightly lit, against a white (preferably completely blank) background. 

MANY of you don't seem to think you able to produce images like this without hiring a photographer, but you can. In this How-To series, which I think will be 4 posts long, I will show you how to: set up your photoshoot, edit the images on your iPhone, OR edit the images in Preview if you have a Mac, OR edit the images in Photoshop if you have it. All with the intention of creating nice clean images that help sell your artwork. So, 3 different image editing options according to what equipment/tools you have available. I chose this particular figure to demonstrate because black objects (and sometimes white objects) are the most difficult to photograph. This piece by Cash happens to be both black AND glossy, so it's actually pretty difficult- all those reflections plus a high contract between object and background.

Part 1 - Setup of your Photoshoot

So here we have the awesome Vader Gobi

A "seamless" is a piece of equipment for a photo studio into which you place the object to be photographed. The intention is to give you proper light and a nice clean white background behind the object.

You can buy a seamless pretty much anywhere. Google that shit. They're not expensive.

I don't own a seamless, despite having considered myself a photographer for a while.

I make one every time I have to shoot a toy in my home.

How do I magically make a seamless? you may ask... well, I'll tell you, slappy: it's a piece of damn paper.

Yeah that's right, regular old printer paper works just fine.

So basically, I did this shoot at about 10AM today when the light was shining right into my kitchen through the window. I chose this time and location because ambient light (the amount of random-ass light in the room) is strong here.

On the floor I placed a heavy, clean, white envelope that is supposed to be used for shipping prints. It's big on purpose, just to give me more white space to work with. Taped to the side of the cabinet is a regular piece of white paper, low enough that almost half of it hits the ground and curves. That's a seamless right there. It prevents the viewer (the camera) from seeing a line between a floor and a back wall inside the frame of the image.

So you can see right at the bottom of the shot above that the patch of sunlight gets really close to my little shitty seamless.That's awesome and intentional. Sunlight (natural light) is great but being in DIRECT sunlight makes for really difficult photography. What you want is AMBIENT light bouncing all around the room, lighting up your subject from all angles (instead of hitting it directly on the top and making really dark shadows right next to really bright spots). The sunlight will get close to Cash's Vader but will not hit it directly.

If you or I owned a professional seamless, there would be one or 2 lights affixed to it that would achieve this ambient lighting effect. And it'd be better... but we don't have a seamless and this makeshift shit will work just fine for us to sell items on the internet.

From the side, the seamless looks something like this. You can slide the curve in or out as needed.

So I place the feet of Vader right at the edge of the paper to hold it down flat.

Above you see the subject right up at the edge of the seamless, approx 4 inches from the back wall. Feet of the toy hold down the edge of the paper. You can also do this with tape if needed. Keeping that edge down flush is key because we are doing a bit of half-assed editing after the shoot, and I want to keep the work as basic as possible so you can execute without having to use a clone stamp or some weird tool in Photoshop to remove the shadow that would be created if that edge wasn't flush.

This image shows a tiny shadow under the piece of paper near Vader's feet. I can edit this out in Photoshop but just try to do a better job than I did in eliminating that shadow and you won't have to edit it.

Above are the unedited shots from this photoshoot. They have not been cropped or adjusted. These were taken on an iPhone 6 Plus with the HDR setting turned on. All iPhones have decent enough cameras for this, and many of the Samsungs and other smartphones do too.

All that weird stuff like the edge of the paper, the shadow cast by the figure, the different colors of the envelope on the floor vs the paper, and the crap on the floor in the background will all be edited or cropped out.

That's it. In the next post in this series, I'll show you how to edit these images on your iPhone.
Good game.

SDCC 2015 - Day 1 Coverage

Admittedly there is a ton of stuff at SDCC every year. So, there will be a ton of coverage from many sources. Here is a photo dump of my day walking around SDCC 2015, Day 1.

God Complex had some amazing figures on display.

 - Mark-Anthony

Google+