Alright, Green Riders. You voted for the next photo I would be editing… and I mean you REALLY voted.

(At last count, there were 114 comments! You are awesome!)

While there were a large number of you that wanted to see the Eletian Tiendan next, even more of you wanted to see a Weapon…sooo…

 

…your wish is my command!

 

 

Surprisingly, even though this image was shot in studio, and the castle passageways added in post, this piece was actually much easier to edit than the previous Green Rider images I’ve shared. It’s funny how that works out sometimes! I guess it goes without saying that I really don’t love shooting images on bright sunny days (which the previous two images were shot under), but rather prefer studio settings or cloudy days!

 

 

As for the background, the castle image I used is one I shot several years ago while living with my family in the UK right after graduating from university. On one of our trips to southern England, my parents and I decided to tour Arundel castle, where the Duke of Norfolk and his family have lived for over 400 years! The family allows tours through their home periodically, so of course I took every opportunity to photograph and document such an incredible place!

 

 

Other than adding in a new background, however, the edits were fairly simple. You can see in the video below that there needed to be some touching up of the costume: as it turns out, most guys don’t have tall leather boots, so spats were converted to boots, the various blacks of the fabrics were all brought to the same hue/level of black, and modern details were painted over.

In addition to the costume edits, I also created a bit more of a moody/dark feel with the lighting (the old passages of King Zachary’s castle are known for being quite dark, after all), and warmed up the image before doing some final light painting to create a more painterly/dramatic feel.

 

 

And voila! Our first Weapon has come to life! What do you guys think? Is this how you pictured the older portion of Sacoridia’s great castle? Comment below and tell me how you always pictured it!