Messing with settings

Frustrated by last nights camera failure, I decided it was time to mess with the settings and see if I could figure out something. This camera had to be able to do a better job. I read some threads on TMP and followed some suggestions there.

I brought a florescent desk lamp out to provide better lighting. I also removed the white background. Normally, I paint with black primer. I figure the white primed models on a white background was a recipe for disaster. I set the camera to its lowest ISO setting. I played with the white balance until it looked right. Then there was an exposure option with 3 settings. I didn’t know what they meant, but that’s not the kind of thing that would stop me. :)  The first two, of course, didn’t help much. On the third, a neat little thing happened, no idea what it’s purpose was, but a little cursor went tracing around the models when I held the button down to focus. I let it run around for a little bit and then took the picture. I am guessing it was doing some kind of range finding to determine distance to the models. That’s my guess anyways. Here are the results:

Thanks,
Shawn

I thought I had a good camera

…it’s sad that my camera phone out performed. I don’t know what went wrong… I noticed this camera didn’t have a macro size function, like my old camera had. Sad that a newer camera is worse than the one it replaced…. but more so that the camera phone did better.

Any advice on mini photography is appreciated. I know I could do better with lighting, I didn’t go to a lot of effort when I set up this shot.

I didn’t get as much work done in the past few days as I would have liked, but I did spend a lot of quality time with my boys which is always far more important.

Anyways, I managed to prime my mini’s and I put a light brown wash on them to make the details pop out. I probably won’t bother with that step in the future, but for the first time painting 15mm, I wanted a good eye on where the details were, that and my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.

Here’s the crappy pic my camera took:

Feeling sad about my camera now… I had put some effort into picking this one out, but I wasn’t considering mini’s at the time. Maybe it’s just a low battery. Before I give up on the camera, I am going to try a little harder tomorrow with better lighting and backdrop. I researched a little on TMP and have some ideas.
Thanks,
Shawn

25 July 2011

I made some progress today, but not as much as I hoped. Although, trying to maintain at least an hour a day has yielded a lot more than I was getting before.

Today I cleaned up 8 models and mounted them on washers. This is my first time working with 15mm, so I am learning as I go. I like to experiment so we will see what kind of techniques I develop. I did do a lot of reading on The Miniatures Page and several of the members blogs and had some ideas going in.

I played around with my Dremel to see if I could shave down the thickness of the bases, as I didn’t want too much of a lump between the base and the models feet. I had put a sticker on the bottom of the washer and filled the hole in with Spackle. Probably not necessary but for some reason I just don’t like the idea of the whole. In the future, I think I will get bases from Lithko. Then again, washers are easy to get at the store and do add a little weight to the model.

When I applied my super glue it ran a little wider than I had expected on the washer. I figured this would be okay, as it might set up a little, providing a slope between the washer and the models feet. Of course, My ADHD wouldn’t allow me to just wait and see if that worked. I dipped the model in sand. I liked the way it worked, so I added a llittle more glue to bring the sand to the edges of the washer and dipped again. I also ran a nice thin line of glue on the flat part of the models base. I am happy with the results.

Tomorrow, I am going to scrape of any bits of sand I don’t like and then prime the models. Hopefully I will have at least 4 painted up if not all 8.

Below is pictures of my progress. Pics aren’t very good, they came from the camera phone. My real camera is out in the car and I didn’t want to bother with going out to get it.









Thanks for looking,
Shawn

24 July 2011

I got a little work done today. It doesn’t seem like much when I look at my work table. I began prep work on some 15mm Germans. I am basing them individually and am mounting them on 3/4″ washers. I spent some time gathering and organizing my hobby tools (remember, I just moved, so most everything is in boxes.)

Tomorrow I plan to have these mini’s based, primed and hopefully some paint on them. I have 20 mini’s to do, I am going to paint them in sets of 4. If I get 4 completed tomorrow I will put up some pics.
Until then…

It's a start...

Please read the About me section for a little more on me.

A friend of mine once said, “It’s amazing how much you can accomplish if you dedicate just one hour a day to The Hobby”. This was in reference to painting Warhammer models.

I have lost touch with my hobby for a number of years now. This was a result of a path in life I chose.

I had become burnt out on war-games. I had built some Tyranids back in 2006 and painted a few of them. By 2007 I assembled and base colored a 10-man squad of space marines. I had also started playing D&D again, a campaign that lasted about a year. It was good to make new friends since moving to the Midwest.

Unfortunately, my life would take an unexpected twist. The next few years were chaos as my marriage fell apart. Aspects of work and social life began to crumble. Okay, enough of that part of the story, back to my hobby. By late 2009 I assembled, and began painting about 1000pts of Space Marines (Salamanders Chapter). I had also found another gaming group and started playing D&D and Savage Worlds. It was also in this time that I played a war-game since 2005!

It was also in this time that my life would take another twist. I would never have expected to meet someone so soon after my leaving my first wife. So, my hobby took the back seat again as I explored this new relationship, got married, moved back to the Pacific Northwest and a year later moved back to the Midwest… again.

I did manage to introduce my new wife to gaming, we’ve played a few role-playing games together (Savage Worlds and D&D). She has also taken some interest in painting miniatures, but has not yet. Our living situation back west did not make gaming or painting easy.

So, here I am. Settled back down in the Midwest, ready to get back into my hobby.

I’ve got a pack of mini’s sitting on my table ready to be opened up. I unpacked my paints on last Tuesday. I still need to find the box with my other modelling tools. My goal is to put something together tomorrow, post some pics and tell you all about it. Ultimately, I aspire to the ‘hour a day’ philosophy. We will see.