While taking some pictures of recent ship paints the other day, I thought I'd try experimenting with some chroma keyed backgrounds to make it easier to pop in a star-field background so I thought I'd share the results.
I'll start off by saying I'm an extreme neophyte when it comes to all things cameras, and my equipment is cheap. My camera is a Samsung WB35F. My lights are just what I use to paint with.
To start off, I grabbed a chroma key of the traditional green and blue varieties from an image search and set up a little area on my table to snap some shots. Since I paint my miniatures on toothpicks and stick that in a rubber eraser to hold, it made getting a good '45 degrees down' angle easy without having to fuss with raising the camera too much.
I taped parchment paper to my lamp to act as a diffuser because there was some glare.
I then proceeded to fill up my memory card snapping pics using different ISO settings and just about every other setting to see if they made a noticeable difference.
Three-quarters of the way through I remembered to paint the toothpick to see if that would make it easier to key out later (it did a little).
Because of the yellow scheme on the scorpion, I shot it in front of blue as well...
This was actually closer to the original color (but a bit too bright) and I was able to blend both in layers to best match up the color of the actual model.
The rest is just a matter of removing the backdrop and adding a background in your editor of choice.
Of note is the colored light from the chroma key bleeding onto the miniature. A little color bleed is to be expected, but I think I had my miniatures too close to the monitor and got some excessive color bleed, so I just adjusted the background to make it appear like it's a natural effect of the light cast by the nebula in this deep pocket of space. Works for me!
I added ship names in 'Silent Death font' (Napoli-Serial-Heavy), and factions to my images, threw them in a folder and have my desktops rotate between my painted ships since they're stuck in a box most of the time.
I added in some ship debris and light effects for fun to the scavenging Scorpion II, but in hindsight, the lights probably emit from those pits on either side of the observation window. I'll have to correct that.
I think they turned out pretty well for a first attempt... kind of remind me of old model box art. It makes for a nice way to present the ships. I'm wondering if I could pull off a space battle with multiple ships, pulse lasers, torps, explosions and the rest. That would be interesting considering I normally don't detail the undersides of ships (for shame right?) but would have to for the odd angles required in a multi-ship composition.
Hope you enjoyed my experiment. If you have any ideas or suggestions that might improve the quality, I'd be happy to hear them. The camera just AMPLIFIES every mistake and makes something that looks tight to my naked eye look like a mess when enlarged, so I try to reduce them down in size as much as I can to counter that effect. I've even started to check my work with a magnifying lens while painting to see if any adjustments that would show up in pictures should be done while I have that color mixed & wet. Any minor surface blemishes get corrected with the clone tool.
House Colos ships (2x Salamander HCR/2x Death Wind HCR) for an upcoming game vs the Sigurd ships posted here are painted up and ready to photograph just as soon as squadrons of Pit Viper II's & Thunderbirds get done in Sigurd/Colos colors respectively. I'll throw them all up soon* in the "Your Works' section.
Is there any interest for quick tutorials on:
What I'm looking for: Does anybody have any good 3D space mine counter techniques they'd like to share? I've been scouting small buttons, but haven't settled on anything yet. I'm waiting for news of the future release of a 'Coridian Crisis' supplement and want to be READY with those QVP minefields when it drops sometime in the not too distant future... cackles in Evil Midnight Minelayer What Mines at Midnight:
"And so he says to me, he says, “You want to be a baaaaad guy?!” and I say, “Yeah, baby! I want to be bad!” I says, “Surf's up, Space Ponies! I'm making gravy without the lumps!” Ah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!"
Until next time: Be good to your maintenance crews and may the reverberations of your quad splatterguns not disturb any Clutchworlds in your sector (but if they do, pass along any intel on them maggots! )
* not to be confused with: soon, /so͞on/ adj. 1. in or after a short time. More the Sloth "soon ...ish" meme variety ...Ya know.
I'll start off by saying I'm an extreme neophyte when it comes to all things cameras, and my equipment is cheap. My camera is a Samsung WB35F. My lights are just what I use to paint with.
To start off, I grabbed a chroma key of the traditional green and blue varieties from an image search and set up a little area on my table to snap some shots. Since I paint my miniatures on toothpicks and stick that in a rubber eraser to hold, it made getting a good '45 degrees down' angle easy without having to fuss with raising the camera too much.
I taped parchment paper to my lamp to act as a diffuser because there was some glare.
I then proceeded to fill up my memory card snapping pics using different ISO settings and just about every other setting to see if they made a noticeable difference.
Three-quarters of the way through I remembered to paint the toothpick to see if that would make it easier to key out later (it did a little).
Because of the yellow scheme on the scorpion, I shot it in front of blue as well...
This was actually closer to the original color (but a bit too bright) and I was able to blend both in layers to best match up the color of the actual model.
The rest is just a matter of removing the backdrop and adding a background in your editor of choice.
Of note is the colored light from the chroma key bleeding onto the miniature. A little color bleed is to be expected, but I think I had my miniatures too close to the monitor and got some excessive color bleed, so I just adjusted the background to make it appear like it's a natural effect of the light cast by the nebula in this deep pocket of space. Works for me!
I added ship names in 'Silent Death font' (Napoli-Serial-Heavy), and factions to my images, threw them in a folder and have my desktops rotate between my painted ships since they're stuck in a box most of the time.
I added in some ship debris and light effects for fun to the scavenging Scorpion II, but in hindsight, the lights probably emit from those pits on either side of the observation window. I'll have to correct that.
I think they turned out pretty well for a first attempt... kind of remind me of old model box art. It makes for a nice way to present the ships. I'm wondering if I could pull off a space battle with multiple ships, pulse lasers, torps, explosions and the rest. That would be interesting considering I normally don't detail the undersides of ships (for shame right?) but would have to for the odd angles required in a multi-ship composition.
Hope you enjoyed my experiment. If you have any ideas or suggestions that might improve the quality, I'd be happy to hear them. The camera just AMPLIFIES every mistake and makes something that looks tight to my naked eye look like a mess when enlarged, so I try to reduce them down in size as much as I can to counter that effect. I've even started to check my work with a magnifying lens while painting to see if any adjustments that would show up in pictures should be done while I have that color mixed & wet. Any minor surface blemishes get corrected with the clone tool.
House Colos ships (2x Salamander HCR/2x Death Wind HCR) for an upcoming game vs the Sigurd ships posted here are painted up and ready to photograph just as soon as squadrons of Pit Viper II's & Thunderbirds get done in Sigurd/Colos colors respectively. I'll throw them all up soon* in the "Your Works' section.
Is there any interest for quick tutorials on:
- making asteroids from Sculpey
- torpedo marker stands using wooden hex bases, toothpicks, & beads
- ship debris counters
What I'm looking for: Does anybody have any good 3D space mine counter techniques they'd like to share? I've been scouting small buttons, but haven't settled on anything yet. I'm waiting for news of the future release of a 'Coridian Crisis' supplement and want to be READY with those QVP minefields when it drops sometime in the not too distant future... cackles in Evil Midnight Minelayer What Mines at Midnight:
"And so he says to me, he says, “You want to be a baaaaad guy?!” and I say, “Yeah, baby! I want to be bad!” I says, “Surf's up, Space Ponies! I'm making gravy without the lumps!” Ah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!"
Until next time: Be good to your maintenance crews and may the reverberations of your quad splatterguns not disturb any Clutchworlds in your sector (but if they do, pass along any intel on them maggots! )
* not to be confused with: soon, /so͞on/ adj. 1. in or after a short time. More the Sloth "soon ...ish" meme variety ...Ya know.
"Make the spaceships rounder but more square!"
I can't change this sig. until I paint a longboat & post pics.
Mission Accomplished: 1/3/23
I can't change this sig. until I paint a longboat & post pics.
Mission Accomplished: 1/3/23