Popular Post sgmustadio Posted July 23, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 23, 2021 I wanted to try something easy for OSL, so I gave the Bones Death Shroud a shot. The idea was to create a night scene and have the “face” be a glowing bluish-white orb. Here is what I came out with (1st photo). I kept the colors simple to make it fairly quick to paint. After looking through various photos of OSL jobs (to be inspired by much more talented painters 😁), I noticed a trend: they’re almost all photographed against a dark background. From what I could tell, using a dark background, controlling the lighting, and adjusting the contrast so that the painted lighting source is “white” seems to help sell the scene a lot more than just looking at the mini in a well-lit room. I attempted to do this in the 2nd photo (with my phone…I could have used a better setup and camera, but I think it illustrates the point). I’m curious what other OSL painters have found: do you need a dark background to sell the scene, or can you offer any tips for making OSL work in any lighting? 27 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalchaos Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 The dark background definitely helps enhancing the effect. Nice work for a first try. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darcstaar Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 Great attempt. In general, the light source should be much brighter than you think. White glazed with a little blue in this case. And the objects very close to the source should be very bright, with a rapid drop off of brightness the farther away from the source you get. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zloyduh Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 Nice job! A quality photography job always amplifies the paint job (great or poor - doesn't matter). I see this online all the time. I see it in my own work frequently. Correctly pointed light source highlights and darkens all the right parts, even if the paint job doesn't. On OSL - I just had my first attempt a couple of days ago. I think yours went much smoother 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgmustadio Posted July 24, 2021 Author Share Posted July 24, 2021 13 hours ago, Darcstaar said: Great attempt. In general, the light source should be much brighter than you think. White glazed with a little blue in this case. And the objects very close to the source should be very bright, with a rapid drop off of brightness the farther away from the source you get. Thank you for the feedback! Are you saying that the face area should have more of the bright white (or bluish-white) in it to make the light source pop? I just did a small dot of pure white, but I can definitely go back and cover the hood inside with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Chaoswolf Posted July 24, 2021 Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2021 I can't give advice as I'm still trying to do a good job on OSL myself, but this is a very good attempt. Keep it up! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darcstaar Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 3 hours ago, sgmustadio said: Thank you for the feedback! Are you saying that the face area should have more of the bright white (or bluish-white) in it to make the light source pop? I just did a small dot of pure white, but I can definitely go back and cover the hood inside with it. I think the inside of the hood could be punched up to a bigger area. Consider casting some light on the shoulders (even though it might be blocked by the hood, it could help sell it). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Davis Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 I really like the overall sort of ethereal look of the glow. its really enhanced by the faint glow coming out of the sleeves. I think you are on the right track. Here are some OSL hints that I hope will help. Saturate the light colour. That means repeat the application of the blue colour several times to make it really intense right around the white dot at the center of the light source. Make your shadows really dark. Make them darker again. More dark. A bit of colour theory will also help. Try painting the shadows of the cloak with a very dark orange colour. Orange is the complement of blue on the colour wheel (its opposite). That will create a contrast that helps make the blue pop more. By very dark orange I mean mix orange and black and use that in your shadows. Here is an example of what I mean. The blue here is Surf Aqua, the orange is Auburn Shadow. Light level and saturation manipulation with the camera software is not needed for the photo if you achieve a strong contrast with the paint. A uniform background behind the figure will help a lot to make your effect look better in the photo, though. Also take a close look at the top photo and identify the natural shadows (look at the base and find the shadow of the figure on the background). No extra direction lighting was added (meaning no flashlight or similar was pointed at the figure for the photograph) to increase the apparent brightness of the light source or to make the shadows appear artificially deep, but the effect is still clearly visible. Also still clearly visible when the figure is held in the hand. This is the effect of the strong contrast between light and dark paints and the colour contrast between orange and blue. This figure was from a class on OSL theory we did here in our painting studio a few months back. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilJames Posted July 26, 2021 Share Posted July 26, 2021 The dark background absolutely helps in the photo, as minis are tricky to photograph, but I've seen it work in person as well at convention contest displays which are usually not very dark and often brightly lit. I like what you did there. I might try this with my shroud. I've been trying to figure out how to do this properly myself and this seems like an excellent mini to try on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitterwolf Posted July 26, 2021 Share Posted July 26, 2021 Well done! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgmustadio Posted July 27, 2021 Author Share Posted July 27, 2021 @Geoff Davis That looks amazing, and thanks for the tips! I've seen the warm/cool contrast used on other OSL works, but it's usually the OSL light source with the warm glow. I didn't think to flip it to have the darker ambient lighting be the warm/orange light. Genius move...I'll have to try it 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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