Softboxing: Miniatures

Well, the soft box is mostly a success. I think I need more light in some cases though. Will be working on that. In the meantime, I am starting to document my Warhammer miniature army. Fantasy battles for those that are curious. Don't ask how many. There are just a lot. Some I have had fun with.

A Do It Yourself Project: Table Top Soft Box

Okay, this post is a little technical but I just had to share. I got a little ambition this past weekend and went on a whirlwind tear cleaning my apartment. I know, I know, not even close to the annual spring cleaning. Up shot, I found some foam core board that had been gathering dust and I had a clean table to work with...



So what do I do? Mess it up by making what's known as a soft box. A device that diffuses light and reduces hard shadows with strobes. At least that's what I think it's supposed to do. So a bunch of cutting and bending and folding later this is what I ended up with..




A quick little test to make sure my strobe fits...


Just a few more details and it was almost ready. Tinfoil and a cloth front.



So a little bit of effort, ingenuity, and use of trash junk SUPPLIES that have been hanging around my place and I end up with the following. First is with my places "natural" light then the soft box, with a white back ground and finally with the cloth cover in full soft box mode.











I think I will be having a bunch of fun with this new device. Expect a lot of shots of my Warhammer miniatures in the next little while. An old hobby meets the new passion.

The Year 2007: Part The First

Well 2007 was a year where I started to take some more pictures. By this time I had also picked up a proper tripod for my camera. A small portable one that was sufficient for what I was doing at the time. Now I will be going back and forth here, there's a bit more to show and I am going to be working on themes rather then a chronology. Works better for displaying what pictures remain that I didn't delete.

Yes I deleted a fair amount of pictures. They were really bad, super blurry, or other things. I changed my mind later on about this policy. So now on with the show.

As I said earlier I bought a tripod. I wanted something to hold the camera steady while trying to take pictures of small stuff and self portraits(that will be a seperate post altogether). Before I had taken pictures of my miniatures in singles or small groups. Well this time I figured I would take pictures of larger groups.



As you can see I have a lot of toy soldiers. As well you can see an issue that was starting to irk me a bit. If I stood about several feet away while taking the picture it blurred, no matter if it was a portrait or landscape setting. If I got close...


I got some great detail, in the center and front, but the background started to blur. Mind you some of the shots I took have a certain look to them now that I look back on it.


Now when I started using the flash, thinking that might solve the problem...

Metallic paints and a bright flash just don't mix too well.


Now this miniature is one that I am proud of. Made of cast metal, it had to be pieced together, holes filled in, primed, then painted. This is the finished piece as it stands.


And finally a shout out to my "namesakes".



So that's it at the moment for my army, I may go back to them someday and try to take some better pictures. That will all depend on a few things.

PaladinPhil

Pictures Tuesday: 2006

Okay, finally some picture content. Be warned though, most of these pictures are…interesting. Some bad, some fuzzy, and well lets just look at them.

Let’s take them in order here. Oh course I don’t have any of the pictures I took for my job, irrelevant to be honest. This first picture was taken at a barbecue I was invited to. In this picture is of my friends wife Holly and their daughter Nikkole. As you can see it’s a little blurry.



Well it was a family get together so I was shanghaied into taking all the pictures. There I was draped with and holding more cameras then I thought possible. Some one else took this picture with my camera and yeah, it needs to be held really steady.

From Year 2006

Well that was the summer. I wasn’t snapping that many pictures, or I didn’t really need to keep them. I tried taking pictures of my miniatures when I was heavily into that hobby. I actually tried to take some to create a story line when I was at a friends place doing some miniature battles. The scenery was crude, along with the players, and I found more issues with the camera I was using.

From Year 2006

Well I tried to see if it was the situation or the camera. At home I decided to try to take pictures of some of my other miniatures that I thought I did some great detailed painting on. Once again, camera frustration arose.

From Year 2006

From Year 2006

From Year 2006

Well, finally there’s a time in every persons life that they will probably play with self-portraits when they have a camera. I was also trying to get a good picture of myself currently for my brother and my sister-in-law. I didn’t have a proper camera stand, so I had to do a jury rig to achieve the proper height. It took a lot of messing around till I got it right.

From Year 2006

Needless to say the jury-rigged stand was…ingenious.



Now for Thursday’s pictures, a final set from 2006 that requires a whole post all by itself.

PaladinPhil