Gollum

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Well done on the Gollum! :) It\'s fun that you had basically the same idea as I had on my gollum, and luiz gomez pradal on his (the one depicted in the picture by Tooshy) And still the results are so different.

I like the effect you\'ve made, but IMO the style you\'ve picked don\'t think suits this mini as good as other jobs you\'ve done. But that is of course very much a personal preference. 8.5 for me.

Eric, I think the reason your photographs looks better than GW\'s pictures are probably from some things. That you use the same lighting as you paint under(?) which makes the mini look like it was intended to. The lighting used at the GD is very strong and revealing.. so in fact they used better lighting that you did.. :) but not for miniature photography i suppose. Another thing is that the lighting is mainly from above which gives some natural shadows that are not visible on the GW shots. The way you place the lights can wreck optical illusions which many forms of blending rely on (try putting light from under the mini). And finally that you haven\'t got a camera that produces as sharp shots as GW\'s do.

Most of the points probably goes for 99% of the people that post on this site. I read somewhere rescently that we are spoiled on this site as a reason for why we thought that the rescent US gamesdays where not of as high quality then we would expect.. sure. But we are also spoiled with nonrevealing pictures, it\'s not fair comparing like that.

Gollum was a pain for me too to get a good photograph on as the autofocus refused to focus on the head (on your pictures the focus is on the feet on the last picture for example). What you could do is either use manual focus, focus on an object like a pencil which you put at the same level as the head or.. just pull the camera back a bit after you\'ve locked the focus (demands some trial and error).
 

Klute

New member
\"The lighting used at the GD is very strong and revealing.. \"

Exactly and so it should be.
Im starting to get pissed off now at the thought of certain users posting over enhanced images of their figures to achieve better scores. Toy soldiers and all that you might say but this is a website based around a system of voting on miniatures and that system is a fair one as long as people dont cheat it.
 

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
It\'s not about posting overenchanted images. What is more true to life. How it looks indoors under normal lighting, how it looks outside a sunny day, how it looks under the lighting you painted it under or how it look under certain photographic lights? How large would a photograph be that is true to life?

Do you want your mini to look the best, or the worst? I take my photographs under the most revealing lights I have, the ones I paint under, but I think I could take less flattering images mainly by litting the images in another way. :) I\'m looking at my gollum right now under some usual bulbs and the transitions of paint is almost invisible (but on the other hand the colors are scewed). Under my paintinglight I can see pretty much all mistakes, but my camera can\'t produce sharp enough images to point them all out.. even if I consider my last two post being pretty good with large and pretty sharp images.

Most of us can\'t create shots as good as the GW ones as we don\'t have the equipment to do it. But the question is.. are they even fair? It also depends on the viewingdistance.
 

BanJo

Member
Hello eric! Great paintjob! I love the concept and execution! The moonlight both works and looks great! Superb, congrats on a well deserved prize!:D

Take care

Torstein
 

EricJ

Active member
My problem with the GW shots is NOT that they are more revealing, but it\'s that they are not accurate. There are 3 ways in which this becomes very clear to my eye.

First and most obviously is color. In the GW photo it looks like there are bright blues, almost up to something like GW ice blue. This is not true to life, the only blue I used on the mini was shadow grey. I used white highlights, but I don\'t think you can take shadow grey and white and get the colors in their photo. Also this funny bright blue is very splotchy in their photo, and I am guessing a result of when the light hit surfaces in a particular way.

Second is the glare that happened on the dark side of his face and other darker parts of the mini. Under the bulbs they used, we are seeing more the result of glare off the sculpt than the paint job in this dark area. Again the color looks like a neutral grey which has nothing to do with the paint I used, in this case the dark side is basically a black with shadow grey. The more neutral grey in the photos must be from the undiffused light glaring off very small surfaces (if you remember how small the gollum mini is here).

The last point is how broad and uniform the highlighting is. To me, it seems their lights washed out any minor differences in the entire upper tonal range. Again making the photo not more revealing, but rather more inaccurate.

I could be wrong, and my eye could be just seeing what it wants to...

But thank you everyone for the nice words about the piece! I appreciate it :)
 

Legacy Account

Active member
Originally posted by Avelorn

Most of us can\'t create shots as good as the GW ones as we don\'t have the equipment to do it. But the question is.. are they even fair?

Photographic equipment that\'ll take blistering shots is probably the cheapest it\'s ever been. GW won\'t have anything that is markedly better than many people use here at CMON.

As for how \'fair\' the shots are - of course they\'re fair! Everyone is in the same boat and they pick up every nuance of the paintjob - exactly what you want to see with GD pics. :)

Has to be said that a quality mini will be a quality mini under any circumstance. I don\'t know what the problem is with the first GW shot Tony posted. I think it shows the mini off far better than Eric\'s pics.
 

Klute

New member
\"I think it shows the mini off far better than Eric\'s pics.\"

Posted pics the size of the ones Eric has posted of Gollum will very rarely score above 7 from me on the basic fact that I cannot tell how good a paintjob it is. I can however tell how \"cool\" the mini is and thats what gets the score.
 

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
@Eric: Well I definately see some of your points. I think the lighting they used, is not very good for miniature photography from the points you\'ve stated (and the ones I said earlier). Technically their photos is sharper, larger and thus shows more details. But from your last post I\'m interpretating that you don\'t have a problem with more transitions showing.

If you\'re as nerdy as I am and want to do a small investigation and figure out what\'s happening on the GW shots. You can try to take some shots of it in different lighting conditions. Like outside, and with a light from under and such. As I\'ve mentioned many illusions that we painters are trying to create, is lost when the lighting is \'wrong\'.

@Spacemunkie: Yes sure they are cheaper than ever, but that doesn\'t mean that everyone, uses that equiment.

\"GW won\'t have anything that is markedly better than many people use here at CMON\"

Liar liar pants on fire!! :D Most of the painters here seem to be either using compact digital cameras or are they unable to fully use their dslr with macro lenses? Or maybe perhaps deliberately choose to not make their images as sharp as they can? :)

What I ment with the \"fair\" comment is not if they are fair between each others in that competition, even if it\'s of course a fact that certain styles will work better under certain lights. I agree with you that it is the best possible arrangement however. :) And it would certainly be very fun to see these kinds of shots of all golden demons. But what would happen then is that it would be a large discussion why the quality of golden demons suddenly has dropped... ;)
 

bragon

Member
good idea...

yes, its a good idea hihih
I copied it on a friend in 2002.. 4 years ago:

http://bragonart.free.fr/francais/galerie/fantastique/gollum.htm


and look at this one bye allan. Sure there is no photoshop, just a full time week for paint:

http://fr.games-workshop.com/evenements/goldendemon/palmares.asp?annee=2006&pays=france&cat_id=8&place=2

this one is an effect similar as you (quasi):

http://fr.games-workshop.com/evenements/goldendemon/palmares.asp?annee=2006&pays=france&cat_id=7&place=2

so much better in true to...
jeremie
 

Ian Newbold

New member
Hi Eric. Congratulations on getting your first GD. I always think it`s a good thing when internet painters get out there and show they can do it in the real world as well as in photographs. Removes a lot of the uncertainty that the cynics amongst us might otherwise attempt to play on.

Now that you`ve got your first one under your belt I hope you`ll press on and win lots more in the tradition of the top painters here.

You appear to think it`s not one of your best jobs and your peers here seem to agree judging by the slightly mean score they`ve given it. I know I`m no painter but for what it`s worth I like it .

Voted & commented. :)
 
Back To Top
Top