Photo Setup Improvements

Finally got about to trialling a new setup for miniatures photography.  Took two desk lamps and replaced the bulbs with 'daylight' grade LED bulbs.  Massive increase in brightness and a bright white hue as well.

The result: a dramatic increase in brightness and proper colour.  Witness below, some Eldar models (three warlocks and a Bonesinger).  Much better colour than some previous photos.

This last one I cropped it a bit and touched the brightness up a hair, so there's room to improve.

Granted, still needs some work on tweaking the grey behind (it's actually a white page).  I have some references for setting the white balance on the camera, so that will be the next step.  This was a simple setup on the gaming table with the models on a bright white piece of paper, and two desk lights aimed at them camera A/B style.  Keeps the shadows to a minimum.

Some Reaper Miniatures minis had the same effect, though backing away a little and zooming in seemed to work a bit better.
A lovely rogue mini that just yelled 'red' at me when I was choosing the colour.

The photos are much better, you can see the green mildew at the base of the stone wall.

This Succubus was a tough one to paint.  Flesh tones, especially on a model that is little else, are harder than they look.  Turned out fairly well, though in my experimentation I found a slightly darker skin tone I can use in the future.  More of an olive-skinned look.

I'm going to have to revisit this guy's varnish a bit.  He's a bit shiny, and I'm not sure what happened there. The photo came out well though.

That went well, for some quick experimentation and a very quick setup.  More fiddling around is needed but I'm on a much better path than before.  This post is Ironclad-approved!

Irons in the fire

So many irons in the fire the last few weeks, it's been crazy.

However, to give you something to bide your time, here's my Reaper quarterly contest, Sir Conlan.

First Bones mini I ever painted, and the material stacks up well against anything else.  Very strange not to use primer though.  Very strange indeed.

A friend of mine has a much better photo setup, and now that I've been able to pick his brain, mine will get better too.  Much better (which I will tell all of you about too).

Warlock model

Here's some photos of a warlock model I completed for Reaper Miniatures' quarterly contest. How it works is the previous winner selects a mini ($10 or less) and anyone who wants to paint one up and submit a single photo can do so.  Winners are judged by amount of likes and you get a prize for the online store.

Here's the one I did for the contest.  I went with something different, in that yellow is a colour I very seldom use.  Yes, I use it for trim and a bunch of other smaller things, but never to date as the largest part of a model.  Honestly, it turned out better than I thought.

The base coat is P3 Heartfire paint, with Bloodstone and Brown ink used in various amounts for shading, and highlighted with Cygnar Yellow and Menoth White.  The actual contest winner was a splendid model, well deserving of the honour.  As my my guy, well, my photo quality was crap, which I think hurt me. The colour is way too yellow-ish in the background.  Next time I will have to work on the lighting.  Nevertheless, it was fun to do and I anticipate doing more of these, if for no reason than to push my painting further.

Elven Druid

Here's another recent finish, an Elven Druid from Reaper Miniatures.  I started this one before the move, but didn't have time to get her done before everything had to by packed up.

One thing that I feel turned out splendidly was the skin tone.  It's P3 Khardic Flesh, shaded with a mix of Khardic Flesh and Skorne Red, then Khardic Flesh and Battledress Green.  Then a selectively applied shade of Skorne Red and Battledress Green for the deep shades.  Then highlighted up with Khardic Flesh and Midlund Flesh.  Key here: lots and lots of thin layers.  That gave me the smooth transitions.

The loincloth is P3 Gnarls Green highlighted with Iosan green, and the leather parts are Umbral Umber washed with first edition GW brown ink, then highlighted by mixing in Rucksack Tan, but only a bit to keep it dark.

Her hair turned out rather well, and it's Bootstrap Leather with Moldy Ochre mixed in for the highlight, also after a brown ink wash on the basecoat.  The blades are Pig Iron, Cold Steel and Quicksilver with Molten Bronze for the guards.

If the eyes look a bit strange, it's because she is painted as a Pathfinder elf, where the iris of the eye goes all the way to the edge, so there's no visible sclera.  Since Pathfinder is the primary fantasy RPG I play, I do tend to paint my non-wargaming models to fit that world.

The only horrifying part came when it was time to varnish the model.  Somewhere, the varnish I have turned, and it came out making her look like she was covered in frost.  Fortunately, I only applied a small amount, and was able to brush it off with a medium bristle brush without damaging the paint job.  Always check your sprays before applying to the model if they haven't been used in a while.

The miniature, by the way, is "Anjanis, Elf Druid" from Reaper's Dark Heaven Line (#03406).

I think I'll have to lighten up the background a little bit, but the photos turned out reasonably well.

Next up is the Razorthorn class battleship for the Firestorm Armada game.

Fuegan, the Burning Lance

Another post with finished models.  While I didn't get much writing done in the last few days, I've been productive at the painting table.  Here's some shots of the Eldar Phoenix Lord I've been working on (by working on I mean that I did most of him a while ago, then finished the last few bits recently).

The photo setup isn't the greatest, but it seems to have worked with just a backdrop of white paper and the camera with flash.  I still need to trial some different methods of taking pictures of models, but for today it'll do as I've got a bunch of other things on my plate.

I'd say he looks pretty good.  For those who are interested, the main colour is P3 Khador Red Highlight.  The gun is P3 Blighted Gold (sweet colour for that ancient look) and the green trim is P3 Iosan Green.  It should be noted that the Space Marine helmet on the base is done in the colours of one of my most excellent foes, a Dark Angels successor chapter.  Fuegan has waded through many of those warriors, and it's a good way to 'poke' my friend, with whom I had a good narrative campaign going.  Also, the GW technical Blood Spatter paint makes for good blood dripping out of the helmet.

That's all for now.  More on the painting of a wizard character I have later.

Photo Box

Back again.  What a year!

Since the last time I posted, I was posted to HMCS Regina as the Assistant Engineering Officer, and deployed for NATO Operation Active Endeavour.  That took from May to September.  As a short notice posting it totally threw the plan for the early part of the year.  Believe me, when I came back from four and half months of 24/7 work, I spend my post-deployment leave thoroughly enjoying myself.  Good intentions to post notwithstanding, I didn't even get in any gaming.  I just spent time with my family, worked around the house and generally chilled out.

As the days go on, I'll put up some of the more interesting photos from our various ports of call.

However, for this post I'll show you the photo box I've made.  The plan for it came from Privateer Press' magazine No Quarter issue #53, dedicated to all things PP (Warmachine, Hordes, et al.).  The concept is to have a box, with paper sides, that allows the light to be more evenly diffused so that photos of miniatures look more 'even' and hopefully aren't tinted as much by the bulb colour.  So, without further ado, here's the glorious box (and the two desk lights that will be the first light sources):

Here's a look at the two miniatures without the benefit of a photo box.  This is just with the desk lights, though I did try to angle them beneficially for the light.

Now we have the same photo, only with the two of them in the photo box.

This photo is a bit dim, though the light is diffused and there are no glares.  I moved the lower lights so that they were down at miniature level.

This gives the final results:

It's better, but still a bit dim.  I'll have to play a bit with the combinations to see what lights up the models well but without creating the glare from the first photo.  At least it's a start.  Maybe invest in a higher power lamp too, but we'll see.

The box itself is just a moving box (almost rid of those!), with the sides cut out and tracing paper put over the holes.  I used tracing paper rather than regular printer paper as advised in the NQ article as I found I would have to overlap the papers to cover the hole completely.  I was afraid of either darkening the light or creating a shadow line in the photo.  I also didn't feel like buying a whole ream of 11x17" paper, which I can't feed through my printer and wouldn't really use for much.  Tracing paper I already had on hand.

I may need a smaller box, as this one might be too wide, forcing me to keep the lights too distant to avoid shadows.  If the sides of the box were closer, I could have the lights closer, even if I have to back them away from the paper a bit.  More experimentation is needed.

The models are characters I painted for my daughters in the Pathfinder Roleplaying game campaign we play at home.  Since I hadn't really photographed them before, and they're some fine looking minis, I figured they'd be good test subjects.

Fore those who care, the models are: 03574 - Juliette, Wizard (as my daughter's character Ezreth) and 03566 - Valloa, Elf Thief (as my other daughter's character Merisiel), both in pewter from Reaper Miniatures .

Next up will be some larger models.  Maybe some warjacks will do better in the larger box.

After that, some photos and drawings of the comic box shelves I built over the last year.