My first submission

[yxalitis]

Well, photography is not my forte, but after battling with a few variations, I managed to get half-way decent photos of some of my minis.
Here is one:
http://coolminiornot.com/280239 http://coolminiornot.com/280240
Question 1: Wow, 5.5, that's harsh scoring, is that a sign of a bad photo or a poor paint job (or both?)
Question2: How do I get two photos on one page?
Question3: What advice for posting submissions in the future, I firmly believe I deserve a higher score then that!

 

[INFERNO]

1. Probably bad photo. It looks like u're using flash light in your camera. Don't do that. Here u got two articles about photography Article nr 1 and Older but with photoshop advicesOn the other hand i can easly point some mystakes that u should remove befoer posting. For example paint chips on claws. Also (but that might be due to the bad photo) whole mini lacks depth. Shadows and highlight are not visible.
2. Article
3. Paint more, ask questions, watch others paintjobs read articles, make sure there are no visible "obvious" mystakes on your miniatures that even such paintnoob as I am can easly point.

 

[yxalitis]

1. Probably bad photo. It looks like u're using flash light in your camera. Don't do that. Here u got two articles about photography Article nr 1 and Older but with photoshop advicesOn the other hand i can easly point some mystakes that u should remove befoer posting. For example paint chips on claws. Also (but that might be due to the bad photo) whole mini lacks depth. Shadows and highlight are not visible.
2. Article
3. Paint more, ask questions, watch others paintjobs read articles, make sure there are no visible "obvious" mystakes on your miniatures that even such paintnoob as I am can easly point.

Yeah, paint chips were a bitch, but overall that's a fairly minor issue!
Funny, i had read both those articles, and I have a nifty camera, macro lens, and powerful lighting system.
But the photos still came out browny. I HAD to use the flash to get the colour there.
I tried light diffusers etc, but I think the problem was that the lighting system was two powerful lights about 40 cm apart, on a beam. I couldn't separate them more, whereas that article had quite mediocre lights, but on opposite sides.
sigh...back to the drawing board I suppose...

 

[10 ball]

Don't be to fussed about the scoring - it can get you obsessed and paranoid, you start painting for others and not for yourself. Dont get me wrong its nice to get a good score but not on the expense of you enjoying the painting.
Some people see a 5 in a 7 or a 7 in a 6 etc. Keep up the good work.
and yes 5.5 is a bit harsh.

 

[freakinacage]

ok well i typed a long and lovely reply but my comp crashed so here is the harsher, shortened version!

contrast generally seems too low, some edge highlighting on the edges of the armour/shell would work wonders

the claws need tidying up. the highlight and shade isn't blended and there a splodges of shade in the highlight

the snow? on the base isn't convincing. looks too much like filler (spackle). if it is meant to be snow, try dusting with bicarb, makes a lovely twinkly effect

overall i feel that 5.5 is about right as it's better than tabletop but not amazing. your photography is better than mine, which is why it's easier to see the faults. also people tend not to mark as well if you can only see one view

start a wip and let us hack you to hell!! best way to improve!

 

[BPI]

Merging pics for a single image entry for the Gallery, aka montage:

Crop your pics to your liking. If possible try to maintain consistent x:y ratios even if the pixel counts differ. Then download the free & simple image editing program called Irfanview (for Windows). Install it, launch it, click menu IMAGE, click CREATE PANORAMA IMAGE..., point it at the cropped photos of your mini, mark VERTICAL, click CREATE IMAGE. Click menu FILE, click SAVE AS..., name the file, save it. You now have a neat column montage. It can be resized & tweaked to get the file size down at this point, insert text, etc.

While vertical is best, if you want two pics next to each other with a big one on top just create a horizontal montages of the two pictures , save as ROW2, then join together with the big image in a vertical.

I only had a quick look but 5.5 seemed about right to me. Lots of 5s & 6s voted. A 4 would be harsh, 7 very kind (though more likely with a multiview montage than multiple single entries). Having said which, I see you signed up in 2006, it may well have been on 6.5 at this stage back then but things have marched on regardless of the rest of our abilities

Cheers, B.

 

[yxalitis]

Merging pics for a single image entry for the Gallery, aka montage:

Crop your pics to your liking. If possible try to maintain consistent x:y ratios even if the pixel counts differ. Then download the free & simple image editing program called Irfanview (for Windows). Install it, launch it, click menu IMAGE, click CREATE PANORAMA IMAGE..., point it at the cropped photos of your mini, mark VERTICAL, click CREATE IMAGE. Click menu FILE, click SAVE AS..., name the file, save it. You now have a neat column montage. It can be resized & tweaked to get the file size down at this point, insert text, etc.

While vertical is best, if you want two pics next to each other with a big one on top just create a horizontal montages of the two pictures , save as ROW2, then join together with the big image in a vertical.

I only had a quick look but 5.5 seemed about right to me. Lots of 5s & 6s voted. A 4 would be harsh, 7 very kind (though more likely with a multiview montage than multiple single entries). Having said which, I see you signed up in 2006, it may well have been on 6.5 at this stage back then but things have marched on regardless of the rest of our abilities

Cheers, B.

Yep, merging sounds like a plan, will do that for my next one.

 

[yxalitis]

ok well i typed a long and lovely reply but my comp crashed so here is the harsher, shortened version!

contrast generally seems too low, some edge highlighting on the edges of the armour/shell would work wonders

the claws need tidying up. the highlight and shade isn't blended and there a splodges of shade in the highlight

the snow? on the base isn't convincing. looks too much like filler (spackle). if it is meant to be snow, try dusting with bicarb, makes a lovely twinkly effect

overall i feel that 5.5 is about right as it's better than tabletop but not amazing. your photography is better than mine, which is why it's easier to see the faults. also people tend not to mark as well if you can only see one view

start a wip and let us hack you to hell!! best way to improve!

Unlike a lot of minis I see here, I prefer more subtle effects, high-contrasts are a factor that perhaps you need when viewing a picture of the mini, but in reality, on hand, it looks to cartoonish. That's obviously an opinion thing, and something I'll bear in mind for my following posts.

The snow IS Bicarb, it also looks better in reality, but has aged (that mini is now a few years old).
Funny, when I went to do my Scythean, I tried the same technique (White glue and bi-carb) but it didn't fizz the same, and was a bit runnier. My disappointment rapidily vanished, as I realised that the new snow looked much better, more like old snow that had melted and refrozen.

Hopefully some outdoor photos with better light, and presented in a vertical marquee will generate more generous scores!

Thanks for your feedback

 

[nels0nmac]

Unlike a lot of minis I see here, I prefer more subtle effects, high-contrasts are a factor that perhaps you need when viewing a picture of the mini, but in reality, on hand, it looks to cartoonish. That's obviously an opinion thing, and something I'll bear in mind for my following posts.

Unfortunatly for you whilst it may look nice in RL the subtle look in a picture tends to look flat and not highlighted/shaded ie just base painted and people will mark that accordingly. The pure white background IMHO is not doing you any favours either. It's a bit too intense and makes the whites on that model look a bit grubby. If you can get hold of photo manipuation software that allows you to alter the background then that would def. be a way of helping to raising the score.

View attachment 6384 Here I've used Photoshop to add a grey gradient to the background to take the edge of the white and make the image a bit more interesting. Now I know that P.Shop costs a bit but i'm sure peeps on here can recommend a cheaper, or even free, package that will do the same job.

On the subject of scores don't get hung up on them. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. Plus in the last year or two the expected level of quality has risen quite dramatically and so minis that would have scored 8+ a year ago are now down around 7+. Post pics in the gallery as it's always nice to see new variations of colour schemes and such but if you want to get advice on improving post in the forums as you will get far more useful suggestions than you will ever get from comments on your posts.

 

[yxalitis]

Unfortunatly for you whilst it may look nice in RL the subtle look in a picture tends to look flat and not highlighted/shaded ie just base painted and people will mark that accordingly. The pure white background IMHO is not doing you any favours either. It's a bit too intense and makes the whites on that model look a bit grubby. If you can get hold of photo manipuation software that allows you to alter the background then that would def. be a way of helping to raising the score.

View attachment 6384 Here I've used Photoshop to add a grey gradient to the background to take the edge of the white and make the image a bit more interesting. Now I know that P.Shop costs a bit but i'm sure peeps on here can recommend a cheaper, or even free, package that will do the same job.

On the subject of scores don't get hung up on them. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. Plus in the last year or two the expected level of quality has risen quite dramatically and so minis that would have scored 8+ a year ago are now down around 7+. Post pics in the gallery as it's always nice to see new variations of colour schemes and such but if you want to get advice on improving post in the forums as you will get far more useful suggestions than you will ever get from comments on your posts.

I have Photoshop, but I only dabble with it (My daughter is using it for her school work).
I posted a new piccie before I read this, so next one will have a nice gradient.

thanks for your comments, my new pic is http://www.coolminiornot.com/280367

 

[TrystanGST]

Nelson's spot on.
I, too, prefer to paint subtly in person. But cameras don't do subtle too well, and the voters here don't either. If you're worried about scores, you're going to have to go to extremes. It's just the way it works. Take a look at the Top 10 in any category, and see what they have in common.