Tranquil Ape

I have to agree with Rec here... this thing is awesome... i only wish we all lived close to each other so we could get together once in awhile to watch each other paint...99 percent of the questions I come up with are in while im sitting in the "studio" working on something and I just muddle through it.

So I'm determined to take better photos of my my minis, despite having them revealing my utter lack of painting skill. I figure I can still play the newbie card a little while longer. Up until recently I have been using the macro setting on my camera (nikon D5000 for those interested) when photographing my works. I was always unhappy with most of the results so i decided to read up a bit and actually try to learn a lil bit. I took some more pics today using what I had learned and i think they came out much better. Things I payed attention to this time were: Lighting: Made sure to move the light tent to a good spot and have lights on either side. I also borrowed an LED macro ring that mounts to the front of my lens; makes me look all pro. lol White Balance: rather than leave it at auto or set it to a preset I set up my lighting and light tent and then had the camera set the white balance based off of the white background. I saved this setting so that I can always go back to it. (does anyone know... will i need to change this if i change the backdrop? If I'm understanding correctly, as long as the lighting is the same - the setting can still be used without the need to change) Aperture: While I completely love the bokeh effect in most photos I found that having an aperture too small (opened up), and this close up, left portions of my mini out of focus. For the pics below I stopped down to f22 and it looks like it helped immensely. Distance: I also noticed that on a few photos, if I got the camera too close, the the resulting photo would have a fisheye effect, so here I backed the camera up until i could just get things into focus; however this limits how close-up I was able to get. I do have some of those close-up filters but I';m not sure if i can just slap those on with everything staying the same, and get the desired result... I need to play with them. Tripod: I found that I absolutely needed to use a tripod here, and i was lucky enough to have a wireless remote to further reduce any potential camera shake. So enough of that, here are the pics, please don't hesitate to comment or criticize.

Thanks... I had seen that topic and searched for it again and couldn't find it for some reason... appreciate it.

Some times there is and sometimes there isn't which is why im confused... Maybe the different forums have unique settings? But im posting in the shutterbug forum, i would think uploading pics would be easy :)

upload photos easily sometimes. Sometimes when starting a new post I see a button below the text area that allows me to upload really easily, and sometimes I don't... For example right now I was writing up a new post in the shutterbug forum and the only way its letting me upload is via the 'image' button rather than the upload thing.

Granted I'm a newb but when i look at the bottom i think it looks a wee bit cartoony with the highlights so stark... toning them down slightly may result in a different look...

As long as I don't get any hate mail after the fact, count me in (I still have my painters lerning permit). This sounds like a hoot.

Likewise... i just started playing pathfinder a few a weeks ago (first table top rpg... finally, after 42 years, getting around to it) ... would be great to start collecting a bunch of these

I thought about using vaseline but i wasnt sure if it would interfere with the curing process... good to know it won't.

Thanks much... I usually have difficulty with eyes and faces in general. This mini is kind of wide open, no obstructions really so I was able to get in there better.

After I added the little bits of leaves I was really a little disappointed in how everything turned out. I grabbed some green stuff and decided I would try to make some additional vines and such, how hard could it be right? Working with greenstuff turned out to be more challenging than I thought. Making vines was pretty easy, the difficulty arose from just the handling of the material... very sticky. Water seemed to work on my fingertips every few moments but I had to continue to dunk my fingers every few minutes. Overall I think it turned out closer to what I wanted in the first place... And I haven't found the hideMyNewbishness filter for my camera yet.

I'm with lips over there... my step dad was a lot older than my mom and his only hobby, if you want to call it that was hunting. so a couple weeks each year we did that... otherwise nada. I just got lucky and happened to stumble across coolMiniOrNot a few months ago and said holy $(#& i gots to get in on thats... went out and bought the reaper HD line the next day.

He'll be 7 on jan 1st. Tried to get him into painting... Got him some little wooden snake to paint but he lost interest... But I figure hell, he's only 6...

Here... Finishing up the wood elf mage as seen in the WIP forums... I also stripped the paint off of the Archangel that i started and am re-starting it, lets hope hes done this month..

very nice... I think im going to let my son pic out the palette for a project soon

dam KS all to hell... sigh... if i wasn't tapped from my previous venture (ahem) I'd be all over that apocalypse and those bases...

Hey Bug... when you deselected it you mean you "added" it right? It was a teeny bit counter intuitive in that you had to Add the trade in...

had some time the other day and filled out my area... off to the left i also have 18"square light box and my camera set up on the tripod in front of it... not terribly proud of the box on the wall I got the screws into studs but the only thing holding it aloft is the back of the box's adherence to the box walls... i need to add some additional support soon to ease my mind

Dammit... I want a reaper hat and shirt now and already locked in all my pledge stuff....

lol, no those are roots/vines sprouting up from the ground... sheesh... my wife said the same thing

poker chips?... those are perfect... I have crap tons of the ceramic ones laying around

I like those checkers (on the same page... the raised edge could be useful...

this is fantastic..., the weathered armor look is well done. I need to go out and find a mini with some plate and try this out...

I have been using the reaper brush on sealer, but I've only been at this whole painting thing a few months... I may pick up some dullcoate and see how it works

Lips makes me think... Maybe I should go out and pick up a bones mini and paint it...I've been working with a couple resin minis recently and I really kind of like them... Should see how the bones stack up...