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Well heres the test paint, what do you think?






Heres one a but farther



Now on to the question of light boxes, I just made one out of a card board box and some tissue paper, but I am having a hard time getting enough light so that I don't need a flash. Right now I have a 300w Halogen on the top and two 100w Reveal light bulbs on the sides. When I take a picture without the flash it comes out dark and on the yellow side.



*edit* I to some advice and cropped the pics a bit

I just noticed that I need to fill in some of the "ribbed" areas on the gun tube and legs. Also the tail needs blended, touched up.

It looks like you have plenty of light. For my lightbox setup, I use about what you have. Have you tried playing with the white balance settings on your camera?

not yet, but I doubt it will do anything for my dependency on the flash.

Your bug looks amazing! Very nicely done. They are very impressive and can't wait to see more.

Your camera work is just fine. It could use some cropping on your computer to increase the size of you mini on our screens. At the moment it is too much white and not enough bug. But if you are looking to improve on you shots or really really want to not use flash see the steps below. By the way flash is sometimes better than existing lights for use in a light box as the flash fires at a consistent color temperature over your subject. While light bulbs from your house can and often are different color temperatures. Even 2 different 100 watt bulbs from different companies can be different color temps. The naked eye will have trouble seeing the difference but your camera will and it can cause problems preserving your original color.

First question is what type of camera are you using? The following steps are helpful if you are using a SLR camera.

1.) You should take a picture of your lit light box without a mini in it. Better yet just one flat surface with out visible edges.
2.) Set your camera to custom white balance. Use the picture you just took as the custom white balance. That will help keep the color consistent.
3.) Mount you camera on a tri pod. It is easier if you have a macro lens but it is not needed.
4.) Set your camera to P (Program) mode. It should read as a longer exposure if your flash is off. It should say 1 second or longer.
5.) Set your iso to 100 and set your stop to 11 or higher if you are using more than one mini. It will help preserve your depth of field.
6.) Set your focus manually not automatically this is important because of the critical focus on a small mini.
7.) Set your camera to delayed picture. Usually SLR's have a 3 sec and a 10 sec delay option. This is to help eliminate camera shake and blurry pics.
8.) Take your picture.

ADL. If you are not using a macro lens then crop the picture to the size you want on your computer. Generally it should fill the entire "box" of your picture. If you have photoshop you can take a few more steps to preserve the original color. I can give some pointers on that if you have it.

See this thread to see some pictures taken with this method. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/225557.page

Keeping in mind I didn't use all the steps above as I was in a hurry.

Thank you Sha1emade, your advice is very informative.

I really like the blue carapace and the skin is a nice tone to match it. But it just looks so.. blah.. static if you will...

Im not sure howd youd fix that. Maybe a brighter base. But I imagine your going to go with a ice planet from the colour scheme. You need to put osmething on them to mkae them stand out.

I have not started to base it yet. I think I will go with either snow and ice or a ruins of a hive planet.

You didn't mention how you painted the figures, but you could use a black wash in areas like the mouth, where the teeth kind of blend in with the flesh. The black wash before doing the teeth would add a dark line against which, the teeth would stand out.

Also, I'm not wild about the eyes. It looks like the gaunt is looking off at the side. Either go a solid color, or move the iris forward. The eye socket could also use a black wash before laying down the first layer of yellow.

I use the light preset option on my camera and measure the light in my lightbox first.

Ifurita wrote:You didn't mention how you painted the figures, but you could use a black wash in areas like the mouth, where the teeth kind of blend in with the flesh. The black wash before doing the teeth would add a dark line against which, the teeth would stand out.

Also, I'm not wild about the eyes. It looks like the gaunt is looking off at the side. Either go a solid color, or move the iris forward. The eye socket could also use a black wash before laying down the first layer of yellow.

I use the light preset option on my camera and measure the light in my lightbox first.

if i have to guess by the pic. ( i just like to guess hehe not been nosy sorry :x )

white undercoat, flesh wash, bleached bone high light.

carapace: midnight blue, skull white stripes with blue wash, with minor skull white high lights

if you want to know how just ask the guy dont be shy

great job on the armor Clthomps it really looked like its hardened .... mineral crystals shards

The eyes look great. Never seen a Tyranid's eyes done like that, which is kind of surprising.

The plates look good, but something about the skin just throws it off.

Chrysaor686 wrote:The eyes look great. Never seen a Tyranid's eyes done like that, which is kind of surprising.

The plates look good, but something about the skin just throws it off.

i agree, personally i like the raw reptilian look to it.

like those liz skinks?

The pictures look much better cropped. I can see the eyes now and I love them. Great paint work and I really like the color scheam. Will look rockin on a snow base if you can pull it off. They are a bit tricky so I've heard. Nice work.

if i have to guess by the pic. ( i just like to guess hehe not been nosy sorry :x )

white undercoat, flesh wash, bleached bone high light.

carapace: midnight blue, skull white stripes with blue wash, with minor skull white high lights

if you want to know how just ask the guy dont be shy

great job on the armor Clthomps it really looked like its hardened .... mineral crystals shards

1. Sprayed them white
2. painted the armor plates Midnight blue, then made a lot of tiny lines with ultramarine blue, followed by enchanted blue, ice blue, %50 ice blue/ %50 white, then pure skull white. After that was done I when back and did some midnight blue lines over the lines i painted before to break them up a bit.
3. Dipped them in some hardwood floor stain. and spun them with a drill to get the extra stain off.
4. then I had to re-do the armor because it was way to dark, so I repeated step 2. (not as many colors / lines this time because I got lazy)
5. painted the teeth white
6. panted some highlight areas in Bleached bone
7. painted the eyes white
8. painted the eyes yellow
9. painted the snake-like pupil

called it a day because its not even my model!

If you're dipping straight from the primer, then you might want to look in Rustoleum High Heat spray in almond. I think it will complement the color of the dip better and it will be just as easy to paint the blue over it. I still think you need to give the eyes and mouth a quick Badab Black wash before painting the eyes and teeth.

I was planning on using GWs Bleached bone primer for them but the can I own is still clogged. I think I like the teeth the way they are right now, on the other models I was thinking about laying a black circle down and then painting the yellow on that for the eyes.

I like the color scheme but the blues on the carapace look a bit chunky. One thing you might want to try is highlight the edges of each scale, especially the edges that overlap. Basically the idea is the further you get from the edge of the scale the darker the color should be. To accomplish this paint in layers darkest first then progressive smaller lighter areas. Then tie the layers together with the new gw blue wash and you'll have a nice blended look. I did this technique with my carnifex below. Check out the link in my sig to my gallery to see more examples. I'll also take some pics of some gaunts I recently did and post them here later tonight.