Blood Bowl Orc Blitzer

[ScottRadom]

Mostly just trying to experiment with my new light tent here. I\'m gonna poke my head inthe photaography forums and see if there\'s some advice to improve things. Lot\'s of work is not coming through at all. The reds on the eyes and the helmet look like they\'re not worked nearly as much as they are. Oh well! May as well throw it out there for votes!

http://www.coolminiornot.com/211602

Thanks for looking, and any advice always welcomed!

 

[freakinacage]

he seems a little clean for an orc!

 

[matty1001]

You need a narrower aperture (bigger f number) to get the entire model into focus, but better ask the photography boffins on here instead of me of how to do that.

Peace and love...

 

[Springbok]

That is pretty cool Scott!
Is Bloodbowl like a 40k Football game?

If it is, it would look pretty cool to have a white line going across the grass.... similar to the lines on a Football pitch, perhaps?

 

[ScottRadom]

Originally posted by Springbok
That is pretty cool Scott!
Is Bloodbowl like a 40k Football game?

If it is, it would look pretty cool to have a white line going across the grass.... similar to the lines on a Football pitch, perhaps?

Yeah, Blood Bowl is a fantasy style game loosely based on NFL style football. I do have the white lines planned out, I just didn\'t get to this one yet. I\'ll take any crit\'s on the fig but I am really trying to get my pic skills upgraded. I was waiting on the light tent before going hardcore on learnin\' but now I gotta go wade through the articles on pic taking. This is what the model will look like with the white line....

 

[Springbok]

Cool, will be looking out for some Bloodbowl models then!

Did you buy your light tent? I constructed one from 3 picture frames, some duct tape and silk mesh that screen printers use..... all accounted for, it cost me about 1.50 GBP and the cost of a McDonalds ( I got hungry on my way to buy the picture frames ), seems to do the job! After taking the pictures, I normally edit them in GIMP, which you can download for free

 

[ScottRadom]

Yep, sad as it is I GIMP\'d the hell out of ALL my submission pics. The light tent was 40 bucks CDN right to my door. I call it a bargain, once I get to using it right that is.

 

[supervike]

So bloodbowl is like American football?

Hell, I figured it was Rugby-ish in nature.


Maybe I need to get into this more.

 

[Springbok]

Speaking as a bit of a novice in the picture taking department, the only advice I can give is to get some daylight bulbs, then to position one lamp on the top of the mini and one on other either side of it...... after doing that, I took some sample pics, whilst moving the lamps further and/or closer to the mini between snapshots.
But you being a clever fella, would probably have done the same thing already............ feel free to tell me to clear off if i\'m just annoying youlol

 

[ScottRadom]

Originally posted by supervike
So bloodbowl is like American football?

Hell, I figured it was Rugby-ish in nature.


Maybe I need to get into this more.

Truthfully it plays a little more like Rugby, but it\'s meant to echo NFL play. It\'s a pantload of fun! Hard to take it seriously which I like as well.

Springbok- I\'ll take any crit\'s and advice I can get. Nothing too obvious for me to have overlooked compketely before!

 

[GreenOne]

Skin is nice, I like the scar, and the teeth too. Maybe put a little yellow/white dot in the eye to give it some \'life\'; it\'s a little thing that helps a lot.
Main crit is.. that helmet, it looks like you stopped trying to improve your metallics, It\'s very junky, rough an depthless.. everything you don\'t want it to be... I am very, very disapointed in you :no:
(Okay I overdid it that part)

Nice to see you got the light tent, there is still a bit of a glare in it, maybe you could try to lower the exposure, or sumthin like that.

 

[ScottRadom]

Originally posted by GreenOne
Skin is nice, I like the scar, and the teeth too. Maybe put a little yellow/white dot in the eye to give it some \'life\'; it\'s a little thing that helps a lot.
Main crit is.. that helmet, it looks like you stopped trying to improve your metallics, It\'s very junky, rough an depthless.. everything you don\'t want it to be... I am very, very disapointed in you :no:
(Okay I overdid it that part)

Nice to see you got the light tent, there is still a bit of a glare in it, maybe you could try to lower the exposure, or sumthin like that.

Nah, that\'s cool. Thing is the metals are WAY better then I\'ve ever done, there IS a bright dot in the eyes (I mixed red with very pale flesh color) and generally my pic\'s are washing away hours of hard work. These last two blood bowl figs are easily ten times better then anything I\'ve ever done and there scoring at low 5\'s. The pic\'s are that crappy.

I know in my soul that better pics need to happen here. So that\'s my project now. When I can get better pics I\'ll upload them and you\'ll see that the work isn\'t that bad....

Anyway, you notice glare. Me too! How did you rectify this on your vampire pics? They\'re really nice, crisp and without glare and that\'s what I am shooting for as well.

 

[GreenOne]

Originally posted by ScottRadom

Nah, that\'s cool. Thing is the metals are WAY better then I\'ve ever done, there IS a bright dot in the eyes (I mixed red with very pale flesh color) and generally my pic\'s are washing away hours of hard work. These last two blood bowl figs are easily ten times better then anything I\'ve ever done and there scoring at low 5\'s. The pic\'s are that crappy.

I know in my soul that better pics need to happen here. So that\'s my project now. When I can get better pics I\'ll upload them and you\'ll see that the work isn\'t that bad....

Anyway, you notice glare. Me too! How did you rectify this on your vampire pics? They\'re really nice, crisp and without glare and that\'s what I am shooting for as well.

I wouldn\'t only blame the pics here. I think the models and the color choice don\'t help very much either. whilst the white is pretty well done, it don\'t fit very well with the orcs green. And the models are not very inspiring themselves. I don\'t think you could do much on this to improve scores.

As for glare. I dunno, maybe the lighting is a bit too strong even for a light tent. I use 100watts on top and 60watts on each side personally.
I also use a varnish that\'s so matt it would stop a mirror from reflecting. Maybe try to do another coat of what matt varnish you use.
First pics I took with my tent where so bright we couldn\'t see the face, so I reduced the exposure to -1, it worked.

 

[ScottRadom]

Ha, okay, fair enough! I don\'t want to sound like one of THOSE guys who asks for crit\'s, then blames everything on something else....

....but having said that they ARE much better in real life. If I didn\'t need them to play the game with I\'d send you one to prove it! Factors....

-I need to hit it with dullcote again. No doubt

-The lights I am using are only 40w Daylight bulbs. I\'ll upgrade to 100\'s. Or maybe just 60\'s? Thoughts?

-Color choice..... don\'t friggin\' blame me! I\'m just copying a \"historical\" scheme for a team called the gouged eye! In hindsight I shoulda done something else but I am enjoying the challenge of painting the white. The white and the reds are blended way better then my other stuff. I mean it!

Now questions....

Background thingy. I got red, blue, and black. Should I consider using another one of those? I thought blue would interact the least with this model, perhaps I am ignorant?

And I gotta learn to use the new camera. I may have to dive into the spanish novel that came with it from a guy named \"Manual\".

I\'m not hung up on the scores for these guys, this is mostly just experimental. But I know in my heart of heart\'s the work is much better on these then on my models that have scored in the 7 range!

I\'ll show you GreenOne! One day I\'ll show them all!!!!

-Did the primer land your way yet? If not I might start to worry...

 

[GreenOne]

Well, since the minis are for gaming, don\'t worry about the scores and use whatever CoC that suits you.

You surely don\'t need brighter lights, so I\'d look into the dullcoat for an answer to your glare problem.

The background will vary depending on the mini, I prefer the black one as is but it make the task of removing it on PS impossible. You should try removing it (See Spacemunkie tutorial) and using something more neutral (The classic blue/gray gradient maybe).
Blue works best for this task unless you have lotsa blue in the colors. Red is pretty aggressing as is and white just flood the mini in light.

Back to the fig, the preparation might be in question in the helmet area, it\'s very bumpy... or maybe the primer got grainy, anyway this might hurt the scores also.

And no, no primer yet, I\'m starting to worry as well.

 

[ScottRadom]

OK I\'ll see what the dealy is with the primer. I fear there\'s an issue with the way I sent it then. I\'ll have to go kill the brother.

Fig- Yeah prep pn the model certainly could\'ve been more extensive. I\'d like the helmets to look smoother so i\'ll try buffing the pieces out with a little 600 grit wet sandpaper and maybe a quick buff with the dremel.

Thanks for all the input!

Background for the pics... Airhead is sending me a .pdf of a gradient (I think that\'s the term) backdrop. I\'ll give it a shot. Also, do you close up your light tent or leave it open from the front?

 

[Backstabbeth]

Hey scott.

As I said before Id just go a little higher on the highlights in the red and maybe a little deeper in the shadows in white.

I noticed that if I use a lighter background for my minis, then the intensity of light on the mini goes down a bit... try your white backdrop and see if that makes a difference at all. make sure there is no direct light geting into the from of the tent. Id also try to mix in a lower watt daylight bulb in there.

 

[ScottRadom]

Thanks BackStabbeth. Now, with lower wattage would you reccomend, 40 on both sides and like a 20 from the top maybe?

This pic was taken with light coming in from the front, so that is not desirable? The light tent itself came with instructions on how to unfold the tent (which worked like gangbusters) but nothing else. After checking all the photo articles I could I have to admit I am very intimidated by all the jargon.

And noted on the highlights. I think I\'ll try taking some pics of models I\'ve already submitted to do comparisons with scoring and new photo techniques, so as to work on one problem at a time.

You gusy are great!

 

[alextheartist]

What camera options setting do you use? And do you diffuse your lamps?

Alex

 

[ScottRadom]

This last pic was taken from inside a light tent, but I had a bulb shooting at it from the front not through a diffuser.

I just use the digital macro setting on auto with the flash off. I have no idea how to even set the camera past that. I didn\'t even know there was an aperture or f-stop ON a camera until I started looking through the articles last night.

I got lots to learn