KFM Logo Sculpture Finished

My Kung Fu Machinist sculpture is done! I'm very happy with it. It's not perfect, but it was largely an experiment. All three elements, red sun (painted aluminum), black bird (painted plastic) and the base (polished aluminum) proved effective.

My photography isn't fantastic. I don't have proper lights and studio props. I did quite a bit of scrambling trying to find stuff to use to give it a proper backdrop. Here's one on a white background:

I set it up on a large sheet of paper to create a seamless background. I placed a piece of glass on the paper to create the reflection. It was a good try, I'm not sure why it doesn't look better. I think if the room had black walls and ceilings the base would look a lot better. It looks kind of washed out.

Here's another shot on a piece of grey paper.

I used two back lights, one of them red, and used the flash. There are a couple of nice specular highlights.

Finally, this shot was done on the back of a floor mat I stand on in my shop:

It's heavily color-corrected. It's kind of cold looking, but probably looks the most like how I see the real object.

I am know planning my next sculpture which will use the same surface treatments. I think I can do better with the red. If I brush the aluminum or otherwise give it some texture, I think the transparent paint will show through some of the specular highlights better and it will look more like anodized aluminum instead of just something painted red.