[346076] Sasia Samaris (Rackham)

[xMANIGHTx]

Direct link:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/346630

Name of the small diorama (wich is just an elaborated base) is: Pod 8 since she's patrolling between pods overviewing extraction operations

(more pics even with big zoom in the CMON linked page)

In this shoot I flooded with light the scene to better show the base but the color/shadows are a bit faked ofc

After 4 years of stop (quite a common attitude for me don't ask why since I don't know myself) I took back the brushes.
She was patiently waiting inside my closet, struggling to be noticed together with other 1289371823681 buyed and never touched minis I fell in love with!
I tried to use this model to get back the feeling with brushes and colors and try some new colors (some new brand I mean). Overall basing, painting the base and taking shoots took almost more time than painting the model!!LOL
And this considering that after days and days of trying I ended up shooting pics in the daylight. But light was still not enough so I had to switch at 400 ISO and that's why most of the grain in the pics.
Pics are a bit dark but it's ok with the mood of the piece but I have to say that all the shadows/lights and colors are kept like the original... guess this is one benefit of shooting in naural diffused light. Maybe for the next I'll have some money to buy a lightbox and shoot with lower ISO.

Hope you like it. Hugs

 

[ten ball]

Very nice, great atmosphere.

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Thank you mister!! I was about to ask if you were... then I read your signature lol
Saw your girls, very nice indeed!

 

[Dragonsreach]

A hearty welcome back xMANNIGHTx, good to see you brush in hand again.

I've got to say that Sasia is one if the more daunting of Rackhams figures, so I appreciate how challenging she is to do.

Having said that I'm sorry to say that for me the photo's don't look 'good' enough, there a lot of pixcelation/noise showing up in the gallery shots and the initial top down photo with the limited depth of field took me several moments to get a comprehension of where and what I was seeing.

I'm sorry if that's hard to hear, but I think that looking at the other photos there's a lot of quality in your work that's not being displayed in the pictures.

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Hallo Dragon, I appreciate your comments. About the firtst picture ofc it was sort of "artistic-heavily-retouched" presentation of the piece.
The following shots, like you said are not good. I mean they really preserve the original colors and highlits/shadows of the piece but it's really dark and noisy (400 ISO). You are right about them.
I have a phiotographer friend specialized in still life, with a complete studio setup for it... the only problem is that he's out to make some courses but I'll try to catch him when he's back and provide better pics.
Thanks for your feedback and the warm welcome back

 

[xMANIGHTx]

I just built a DIY lightbox.. really!! Tomorrow I'll try to take some better shots. It was about time to do this step.
Now I just have to test a bit with the light(s) position, ISO, aperture and all that stuff! Considering that I use a crap canon power shoot this won't take long

 

[Tyrannus Libris]

This looks great and the atmosphere is outstanding... the NMM is outstanding!

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Thank you mate encouraging feedback

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Here are new shoots made with my brand new DIY lightbox. I have to say the original shots I posted, even if darker and grainy, are much more akin to the model seen live. Those are way more "brighter" than how the piece would look seen inside a room with an interior lightning.
Anyway colors and lights/shadows are quite realistic even thought some shadows are eaten by the light and that's a pity.
There are 2 pics here since they were made with 2 different light setup.
I'm asking you if:
- you prefer the original shots I posted or those one
- you prefer left or right shot

Thanks for your help!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Personally I prefer the newer versions and of those the right hand photo, it just darkens the shadows enough to "Zing" the highlights.

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Thank you Dragon... still experimenting but ok this is the way to go it seems... still many shadows are eaten up from the light but I think I found a way to preserve them more. Tonite I will repost the mini on CMON site with new pics Thanks so far

 

[Zab]

Holy crap! That is with your "crap cannon powershot" and a DIY light box? Hmmm... me thinks you have natural talent for photography sir. And I suppose your painting isn't bad either (totally top notch actually!)

 

[Demihuman]

Love the bottle cap and bendy straws!!! Fantastic diorama/base.

I am interested to see if you get better results with the light box or with the under exposed photos. I think I like the left photo better but the grays look better in the right... to me. Over all I kind of like the original photos better. I understand taht they are worse technically but the dark works great and the grainyness looks very scifi to me.

$.02

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Thank you both guys! I put much effort in trying to make a nice base, that was in context with the mood of the model.
About the pictures, I made some other tests and I think I finally reached a good compromise between picture quality (no noise, sharpness and good exposition) and mantaining the real colors, highlights and shadows of the model.
The new pictures I posted above infact are good but they don't give the same effect of when you wach the real model live. So I was not completly satisfied. Since this is the only way we have to share our works (unless we meet somewhere ofc) I wanted to reach a better compromise... and I guess I finally come to a good one.
This new pic is the best I could obtain and it's very close to the actual model when viewed live in daylight or good interior lighting.

This is really oversized respect to the real model and can be "useful" to show technical details but also exagerates imperfections and mistakes that you won't be able to see with naked eyes, not even getting really close to the model.

This is the CMON sized version wich is yet much bigger than the actual model, so even some technical nuances can be appreciated but it's not "oversized", a good compromise in my opinion that can let the viewers have a similar impact to watching the real model live.

Tonight I'm going to work on the new shots and repost the whole project on CMON. Any comments are very much appreciated as always! Thanks so far for your help, suggestions and support my friends!

PS. some technical infos about the shots that can be useful to someone.
The picture was shot inside a 33cm cube DIY lightbox with baking paper on all sides and black paper on the background and floor.
Two full spectrum 32W lights 5500k 96CRI were put on the sides of the box (almost attached at the baking paper) at middle eight pointing at the model (forming a triangle with it).
Camera used is a crap Canon PowerShot A700 compact digital with scratched lenses (LOL!) and settings were: 1/25 F5.0 80ISO Macro with autofocus, white balance on "fluorescent", auto shoot with 10 seconds delay, no flash.
With this setup I didn't have to change color balance in photoshop! I just raised exposition, a bit of contrast (with levels but really a tiny bit) and a very tiny bit of sharpen.
Here are complete photoshop steps on the original pic to obtain the one above:
> Cropping of the bkg
> Very light noise reduction just for the black background (Neat Image without sharpening)
> Resize
> Exposure+ 1.46 Offset -0,0044 Gamma 0,98
> Levels: just a tiny bit to have better contrast (like moving the right slider 0,9 or such toward the center)
> Unsharp mask 26% 2,8 pixel 4 treshold
> Very light noise reduction just for the black background (Neat Image without sharpening)

 

[xMANIGHTx]

Ok I reposted the whole project here

http://www.coolminiornot.com/346630

I was going to just update the pictures as suggested by Dragonsreach but didn't know if this would reset the votes so I opted to delete the old submission and post a new one!
Hope you enjoy the pictures more than the old grainy ones. I can say they are quite close to the original model.

Thank you for your patience

Here some of the new pics (you see them all in the new submission)