Diesel DM

No new post this week as we mourn the loss of our dog Callie.

She will be greatly missed.

It was with some trepidation that I approached the painting of the Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team.  There is no doubt that these three gun mages are a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.  There are few lists that don’t make use of this 4-point unit.  Painting arguably the most elite unit in the Cygnaran army was a big deal for me.  I wanted their models to look as awesome as they are on the battlefield.  The sculpts themselves are finely detailed and they are the best posed unit I’ve seen.  Unfortunately, the sculpts have one flaw: they are not to scale with the rest of the WARMACHINE models.  They stand a full head shorter than Stryker and other similar human models.  It’s not just their height, though, the entirety of their model is scaled down.  I read somewhere that while most models are crafted to the “heroic scale” for proportions, they Black 13th were sculpted in a normal scale.  All of these factors combined together lead to some additional pressure in getting a nice paint job.

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To wrap up the photography series I wanted to recap the keys to success on one page, sort of a cheat-sheet for photographing miniatures.  Click the item to go to the blog entry for a more detailed description of each.

If you missed the full entries, check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

1. Background
   • A clean, smooth, draped background
   • Sketch paper works well
   • Keeps focus on model
2. Lighting
   • No flash!
   • Two bright lamps shining at front of model from 45-degree angles
   • Provides even illumination
   • Eliminates shadows
   • Optional diffusion of light
3. Macro Mode
   • Allows the camera to get up close to the model
   • Better captures fine detail with close-up image
4. White Balance
   • Lets the camera adjust for any tint the light may cast on your model
   • Easy with white background
   • For colored background get a white card to focus on
5. ISO Speed
   • Use the lowest speed available ( e.g. – ISO 50)
   • Gives high quality image
   • Longer exposure time
6. Exposure
   • Compensate for amount of available light
   • Use some test shots to get the exposure just right
7. Aperture
   • Want a larger f-stop value (e.g. – f/6.3)
   • Find the “sweet spot” for your lens

Photographing WARMACHINE Miniatures

(Part 1) | (Part 2) | (Part 3) | (Part 4)

Today we continue our look at miniature photography with more camera settings for getting the best WARMACHINE images possible.  As in Part 2, I’ll be using a Canon S2 IS as a reference camera.

If you’re just starting, check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Exposure

Setting the Exposure Compensation is an easy way of making sure your image is bright enough.  Since we’re not using a flash, depending on the brightness of your lamps and the overall room, it’s easy to end up with an under exposed (dark) image.  A longer exposure will cause more light to be collected by the camera giving you a brighter overall image.

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