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Dear all,

This is an article I was thinking of doing for quite sometime now.

Is a simple explanation on how to make great pictures of our models, without any special or (too) expensive asset.




Here is what we need:

A digital camera that must have the manual White Balance setting and maybe a macro lens/capability.

A tripod

2 table lamps, (you can use the one you work on your models)

2 smaller lamp

oven paper

background paper (A3/A2 coloured bristol paper are perfect)

a white sheet of paper

a room with all your lights off except the one above

Place the camera on the tripod.

Let's start with the camera settings: try to use the higher stop from f.18 to higher, let the camera decide the exposure time, with your tripod it won't be a problem.

Now, check the user manual of your camera and check how to measure and set up manually the White Balance.

The concept is that different bulbs or environment have different light temperatures, where human eye can understand and judge the white under different lights sources for the digital camera is not the same. White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. I've found a better explanation here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Usually, you need to go in your settings menu, look for White Balance>manual settings; switch on the lights you will use to take the pictures, place the white piece of paper under the lights and take a picture of it while in the WB menu, the camera will elaborate and your white balance should be now set. Anyway, check your camera user manual.

Trust me, this step will improve your pictures dramatically!

Ok, let’s set up the stage:

Place the A3/A2 bristol paper of the colour you like (avoid to use the same colour of the subject i.e. if the uniform is red, avoid a red background..) try to make a soft bend when rest on the table, something like the drawing below (Sorry I’m not Leonardo…)



Place a box/stand where you are going to place your figure at least 30cm from the background. This box stand should be as high as the 2 small lamps you are going to use, better if taller.



Now the set up of the lights:

As a general notes, I use very cheap ikea lamps, I haven’t spent more that 40 euros for all the 4 lamps. I use, for the main lamps, 30W energy efficient bulbs with 6400k light temperature (they are equivalent of 100/150W incandescent lamp), normal 25w lights for the small lamps.

Place the 2 table lamps, 45° in front of the figure and at 45° angles from the top of the figure, again the following drawing should explain better.



Also place one or two piece of the oven paper in front of the lamps, to soften the light.

Now place the 2 small lights on the back of the stand resting on the table and pointing towards the background, they should light the bottom part of the background and give a gradient tone to it.



The gradient tone is a nice touch, look at the following picture, bare in mind that the backgroud is a piece of black cloth, see how nice id the gradient effect with the small lamps on.



That’s it, place the camera in front of the subject, choose a stop above f.18 and shoot; because the exposure time will be long, better if you use a remote control to shoot, if you don’t have one, no worries, just use the self timer.





You can adjust the exposure compensation value, if you notice that the picture is too dark or to light, usually I adjust mine to -1.3 but you need to check with your camera/lens/lights.

Take as many pictures as you can, every time take notes of stop, exposure etc.etc and check which one is better, if yur camera allow it, save these settings so you can reuse it in the future.



I hope this article make sense and will help you with your photography.

As usual any questions, just ask.

Ciao

Giovanni

Hi all,

As I promised here I'm again with a small update, Ive dexided that I'll try to produce video tutorials on how I paint my figures.

Here you can find the first one, more to follow.

Please let me have your feedback.

Ciao

Giovanni

Il lavoro, mi porta via troppo tempo, ed ultimamente sto andando a rilento e nella pittura e nell'aggiornamento del blog, comunque, eccoci qui, all'incarnato.
Per prima cosa, stendo varie mani molto diluite di un color carne scuro (in questo caso molto scuro, visto che volevo dare un aspetto abbronzato al nostro marine nella guerra del pacifico.
I colori che uso, sono Vallejo e Andrea, uniforme inglese, rosso vermiglio, sunny skintone, una punta di verde e di nero. Dato il fondo al viso ed alle mani, lascio asciugare per qualche ora il tutto, intanto inizio a preparare la tavolozza (un semplice piatto di plastica) con i colori ad olio.

Lately I'm working way to much and I've no time to paint neither to update my blog, anyway, here we are with my way of painting skin tones.
First of all I paint the skin tone parts with several, very diluted layers of acrylic paint mixing Vallejo and Andrea colors, english uniform, vermilion, sunny skintone, a very small amount of green and black; I always make a darker, than final effect wanted, skin tone base, in this case even darker to simulate a tan skin of our marine in the pacific theater.
I will then let the paint dry for several hours, and in the mean time start to prepare my oil colour palette (using a simple plastic plate).


La mia tavolozza colori e' composta da: Nero d'avorio, Terra d'ombra bruciata, Terra di siena bruciata, Giallo di Napoli scuro e Bianco di titanio, al centro aggiungo un rosso di garanza, un viola e a parte il colore per gli occhi, in questo caso un blu cobalto.
Fatto questo, inizio a mischiare i colori tra loro, partendo dal Terra d'ombra fino al bianco e poi al contrario dal terra di siena bruciata al nero. Aggiungo poi i colori centrali, ma e' piu' semplice mostrare la palette che spiegarlo.

My oil colour palette is made of: Ivory black, Burnt umber, Burnt Sienna, Naples's yellow deep, titanium white, in the center, garance red, violet and aside the colour I want to use for the eyes, in this case cobalt blue.
I then mix the colour, left to right from Burnt umber to white and right to left from Burnt sierra to Black, I then add the central colours. But I think is easier to understand from the pics than explain.


Stay tuned!!

Il primo articolo del mio Blog e' dedicato al mio metodo di preparazione e pittura di un soldatino in 54 mm da scatola.
Per prima cosa inizio con il pulire il pezzo, eliminare le linee di fusione, inserire dei perni in acciaio dove necessario, facendo fori con un trapano a mano ed infine incollando quanto piu' possibile i pezzi.
A questo punto, aggiungo sempre qualcosa di personale, per differenziare il soldatino, aggiungendo particolari anche minimi.
In questo caso, una t-shirt sotto la camicia.

My first article on my blog is a SBS on how I prepare and paint a 54mm miniature out of the box.
First of all I clean the parts, file the casting lines; with a manual drill I make holes to insert, where needed, steel plugs and I glue together as many part as possible.
Any piece I made, has to have something personal, in this case I added a t-shirt under the shirt, as seen in many photograph of the period.





Nelle due foto precedenti, potete inoltre notare che il fucile BAR e' ricoperto, per le parti metalliche di una sostanza viola, un mascherante liquido, per evitare che la vernice di fondo attacchi.
Questo accorgimento e' utilizzato perche' per dipingere i metalli uso una tecnica che sfrutta la lucentezza stessa del metallo, una volta spruzzato il primer, basta intervenire con un paio di pinzette ed asportare il liquido mascherante che portera' con se la vernice, come si puo' notare dalle foto seguenti.

In the pictures above you have noticed that the BAR rifle has a purple coats on the metal parts, this is a masking agent to avoid undercoat paint to stick on the metallic parts.
I use this technique because I like to paint metallic parts, using the shine of the bare metal itself.
Once the undercoat is dry, with a pair of pliers, you can easily remove the masking agent, as you can see from the pics below.







A presto con il prossimo capitolo sull'incarnato.

See you soon with the next chapter on painting flesh tone.

Ciao!

Giovanni