OSL: When is it too much?

[Hieronymus]

I\'m doing a terrain piece with an altar in front of a large demonic idol. I\'m going for a first printing first edition AD&D Players Handbook look. There are braziers with flames giving the idol an evilly underlit look to my idol with object source lighting, as the kids are calling it these days.

How do I know when I\'m over doing the OSL? OSL looks the best when used somewhat sparingly, but since this is my first attempt, I\'m afraid I\'m going to overdo it.

I\'d be more helpful and post a picture, but my camera has a lens retraction problem at the moment and refuses to work.

 

[vincegamer]

I don\'t know what you mean by \"sparingly.\"
I think OSL looks best when most dramatic.
Here\'s my humble take:

However, if you actually plan on using it in a game, with minis not similarly lit, then you may want to tone it down, add a secondary light source so they work together.

 

[MathewBaich]

when there is too much OSL is when the parts in the light are almost completely white with little or no shading and the part thats not in the light is almost solid blacklol

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Does the OSL help the overall piece or is it there simply for it\'s own sake. Too, it\'s a matter of preference. Some like OSL and some dont. Follow your own preference. That said, it is helpful to you to learn any new thing you can. Aquired knowlege has a funny way of finding a place and use.

 

[Ritual]

There are a couple of things that you should think of when doing OSL that will help you getting a realistic look and not overdoing things.

- Think carefully about what areas are actually visible from the light source. Light reflections that are located where light wouldn\'t reach are a good way of spoiling the effect.

- Don\'t focus too much on the colour of the light reflections. The most important thing is that they are actually LIGHTER than the unlit areas. Sometimes the colouration of the light reflections can lead you to painting them darker than the surrounding areas and then it will look like smudges instead of light. Consider what the effect of the colour of the light will be on the colour of the surface in question.

- Make sure the effect of the light source decreases with the distance from it. Areas close to the light source should have stronger reflections than areas further away.

- Make sure that the light source is brighter than the reflections.

These are some of the points I have found crucial when working with larger OSL effects. Hope it is helpful.

 

[Ogrebane]

Its all a matter of taste really. Paint it till you can say enough is enough. Oh and post some pics even bad ones help.

 

[Hieronymus]

Thanks, everyone! I\'ll take a picture of what I have with my phone. My regular camera decided to crap out on me. I like the dwarf mini with the shadows from the candle. It reminds me of an old AD&D illustration from waaaaay back when. What is really nice about the OSL method is that it makes painting minis closer to painting...paintings.

 

[EricJ]

If you\'re just learnign the technique, I say overdo it! I\'ve seen enough people try something new but are so shy that it barely looks like what they were trying, and more importantly, they learned nothing from it. If you overdo it, you\'re at least risking to get it right, and while you may get it totally wrong, when you do, you\'d learn much more. Remember, every piece isn\'t a masterpiece, but every piece is a chance to improve, so risk it!

I agree with most of what anders mentions, although there are some cases where a reflection is brighter than the light source, which can be hotspots on metals/nmm\'s, and other reflections which aren\'t diffused. There is a sciencey explaination for it, the bottom line is there are points reflections appear brighter than the source. This means don\'t fear taking your metals/nmm\'s all the way to pure white

I also agree the biggest problem people have is focusing on color of osl rather than brightness/contrast. It\'s FAR more important to show a change in brightness moving away from the source than a change in color.

 

[sniffles]

Originally posted by Ritual

- Think carefully about what areas are actually visible from the light source. Light reflections that are located where light wouldn\'t reach are a good way of spoiling the effect.

This is the one I\'ve seen that most often destroys the effect. Painters get carried away with putting OSL effects *everywhere*, without taking into consideration how light really works.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by vincegamer
I don\'t know what you mean by \"sparingly.\"
I think OSL looks best when most dramatic.

Hieronymus, if it\'s a choice between being too bold and too timid go with the former. That\'s some advice I wish I\'d gotten a long time back when I first started painting models.

Einion

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by EricJ
There is a sciencey explaination for it

I\'d really like to see that! :]

 

[matty1001]

I think its got something to do with Reflection, Refraction and diflection. Or something like that, can\'t remember exactly.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by Ritual

Originally posted by EricJ
There is a sciencey explaination for it

I\'d really like to see that! :]

My guess would be that a curved surface would compress the light into an area smaller than is natural...kind of like a lens directs alot of light onto a small area thus making that area brighter.

 

[Ritual]

Yeah, but the area would be small and still the total amount of light being reflected from that area is less than what comes directly from the light source (the opposite would violate the laws of physics). It also would depend heavily on the shape of the surface as it could also be the other way around. Most areas we paint are either flat or bulging outwards and an area bulging out in the direction of the light source would spread the light in a lot of different directions, thus making the amount of light that reach the viewer quite small.

Let\'s not get into a debate about physics here, though. I think it\'s pretty safe to say that the light source should be the brightest thing on a mini when doing (at least larger) OSL projects. Otherwise the thing you paint brighter would seem to be the light source. I\'ve seen that plenty of times and it\'s confusing.

I always paint the brightest spots pure white on metals anyway, regardless of if I do OSL or not so I\'m not arguing that point, though.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.

Originally posted by Ritual

Originally posted by EricJ
There is a sciencey explaination for it

I\'d really like to see that! :]

My guess would be that a curved surface would compress the light into an area smaller than is natural...kind of like a lens directs alot of light onto a small area thus making that area brighter.

Exactly.

Einion

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Einion

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.

Originally posted by Ritual

Originally posted by EricJ
There is a sciencey explaination for it

I\'d really like to see that! :]

My guess would be that a curved surface would compress the light into an area smaller than is natural...kind of like a lens directs alot of light onto a small area thus making that area brighter.

Exactly.

Einion

Sorry, that really doesn\'t make any sense to me. Even if a surface was 100 % reflective (which no surface is in real life) and was angled in the most optimal way with regards to the viewer so that most of the reflected light was directed straight at the viewer, the only possible way of something reflecting more light than the light source gives off would be a quite large parabolic surface (smaller ones would make a quite small effect which would hardly be visible at these small scales) and how common are those on minis? Then it is the matter of light intensity decreasing with the square of the distance which would mean that the reflected light loses more intensity since it has to travel a longer distance before it reaches the viewer.

Then, there is the matter of no surface being 100% reflective (there\'s always a small amount of light being absorbed) and that imperfections in the surface (which will always exist on real objects) will send some of the light off in other directions.

One tiny spot on, let\'s say, an armour part could be extremely bright and reflect basically as much light as the light source gives off, but that would not make the entire object look brighter than the light source.

 

[Avelorn]

Ok this just gets my nerdgenes going! lol Interesting debate, I\'m more with Ritual on this one.. I don\'t quite see the way you\'d imply it on a miniature even if it is theoretically possible.

It\'s like the yellowness of Gold as people always say in tutorials. As Gold is one of the most reflective metals A bright white lightsource will still be almost white and the surroundings on Se-nmm will still have the hue of the natural colours. A snow surrounding will naturally have the most yellow reflection in gold a more coloured surface will just be tinted. It of course depends on how polished the gold is, but still many people\'s gold look like brass because of that mistake imho.

 

[Ritual]

I\'m sorry about going off in a science rant (against my own suggestions before), but that\'s just what happens to you after studying physics for 5 years! lol

 

[EricJ]

Ok, here is what happens. When light is emited from a light source, in comes as photons of course, which travel through space as a wave. However from the light source itself these wavelengths are all on different axis, some are horizontal, some are vertical, or any other angle in the 360 degrees of options. This makes wave amplification less common since these waves aren\'t lining up with one another.

Once all this light hits a brightly reflective surface however, this changes, and the waves off this surface all align to become perpendicular to that surface after reflection. Now since all the light waves are on the same plane, there is much more wave amplification thus resulting in a hotspot off the reflective item which appears brighter than the source of the light.

Essentually this how something like a polorized lens is able to work. The basic function of a polarized lens is to cut down on these harsh reflections. The way it does this is that the lens is basically just a bunch of very thin horizontal strips. What happens is that this then blocks light waves which are perpendicular to this. Since the sun beams from above, most of the bright sun reflections will be just that. However it lets through other light. (The way it was explained to me is to imagine a wave heading towards a window blind, if that wave is vertical, it can\'t make it through the blinds because it will hit the horizontal blinds as it moves up and down. But horizontal waves easily slip through).

That is the basic theory at work here

Showing this in miniature I think really takes nothing more than making sure your hot spots on highly reflective materials are all the way to pure white. Hopefully this gives a good rational not to be shy about doing that!

 

[Ritual]

If a material has polarizing qualities (and far from all materials has that) then it\'s just the light with a certain polarization angle that gets reflected. The other light will be absorbed. Thus, only a portion of the incoming light will be reflected.