Lighting Experiments - (Video Companion)

My last video covered the fact that I've been experimenting with lighting the Assault Carrier for X-Wing and my angst surrounding the fact that I am really outside of my comfort zone. I've had a lot of really good feedback but I also got a request for some photos of the project - which sounded like a great idea to me. If you want to really follow along, be sure to watch the video. 

The inner workings of the Assault Carrier

When I decided on this project in my head I thought that this large model would have a ton of space to work with to do what I wanted to do. Once I opened it up the amount of available space wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. That's mostly because of the number of supports holding the thing together. Still, it should be more than enough to do the lighting that I want to do. There's certainly enough room for LEDs and fiber optic filaments. It's really only the power that is at issue.

In a perfect world I want this to be powered by rechargeable batteries that could be charged by plugging in something like a cellphone charger that plugs into the receptacle that's mounted on the model so you don't need to open it up. Bonus points awarded if the model could remain plugged in so that it could sit on a shelf while lit indefinitely. That's in a perfect world. I know that I could power it with large, watch-like batteries. That solves the space problem. It means that they won't be rechargeable and I can live with that. What I still need to determine is how long those batteries will last before needing to be replaced. If they last for an hour that seems less than ideal. This is something I can test, though.

My current components.

So, I bought most of this stuff more than two years ago when I had determined that I wanted to try a lighting project. Then they sat in my shop doing nothing... At least they didn't cost much. Actually, that was a cool discovery, that you can grab the stuff to do this kind of project on the cheap. Take a look:

• Breadboard
• Assorted LEDs and resistors
• Jumper wires for breadboard
• Rechargeable batteries

Of course, that's just the bare-bones. Enough to play around and prove to yourself that you can make light - like a god! I'm still going to need some switches, a different power supply (I already have a soldering iron) and.. I'm not sure what else.

That's really the big takeaway for me on this project. I mention it in the video but I think it's worth mentioning again. I don't know what I don't know and that's what makes this simple project so difficult for me to move forward with. Every decision has me questioning myself. It's tough. I imagine that anybody getting into miniature painting for the first time feels much the same way. 

Baby steps...

Kingdom Death: Monster - Thoughts on the minis

Yesterday as I was building my first batch of Kingdom Death: Monster miniatures I was struck by a couple of thoughts. First, that they were really nice minis. Second, that I can imagine a large number of boardgamers who are going to be incredibly frustrated as they attempt to build these things. These thoughts were so strong I recorded a video about it:

After I recorded the video I continued working on the models. What I decided after completing my first batch is that overall the minis are actually harder to build than I first thought.

One of the minis that I hadn't gotten to yet was the Watcher. This has similar problems to the Phoenix that I mentioned in the video. Lots of small pieces and not instructions to help. Now, I don't think that this one is quite as impossible to assembly without assistance, but I think that you'll end up having to do what I did and really study how other people have put it together. You'll also realize that while many of the pieces have a clear home, some of them are open to interpretation as no two photos of the Watcher seem to agree on placement on some of the pieces. In the end it's no big deal as there are any number of ways you could put the detail pieces on and have it look good.

The White Lion ended up requiring a lot of sanding to get rid of the seam lines between the pieces. Even with as careful as I was in assembly and gluing there were a couple of decent seams in the back end. Not a lot of work, but worth mentioning anyway. The more annoying seams were actually around each ankle where the feet attach since those pieces have a lot of recessed detail.

The Butcher, the Hand and the King's Man all had some fairly challenging bits. My biggest problem with all of the models is the use of joins with no positive connection points. That is, when two or more pieces can go together in an effectively unlimited number of ways. The King's Man's legs are like this. The rear half of the White Lion had this issue as well (which is why it needed so much sanding). The difference with that is you could easily see where it should go even if there was nothing in the design of the pieces helping you to get it into position.

The survivors are probably the easiest to assemble overall. I mentioned the small feet and the possible problems of those connection points on the base. Well, it was worse and better than I thought. Worse because the models are meant to be mounted to special bases that have sculpted faces on them which makes trying to find good connection points for the feet a little tougher than normal. Better because the plastic cement seems to hold them to the base just fine (even with the tiny feet and sculpted bases).

I'm probably going to be doing more videos on this project because there seem to be a lot of interested people out there. Not surprising considering how well the Kickstarter did.

On Object Source Lighting

I recorded this video on OSL yesterday and I feel like I just touched on the subject. Sure, you get to see how I approached this model's glow, but the subject itself is pretty huge.

One of the cool things about doing the videos is it forces me to really think about what I'm doing - and that's not something I do on my own. When I'm painting my thought processes aren't really analytical. I'm mostly just feeling around for what I want to do next. I don't always consider why I think something looks better one way vs another way. It just does. At least to me.

One thing to note here is that this model (and many of the models I've painted in the last week or so) were painted primarily with Warcolours paints. You might recall that I did a review of them recently. Well, I'm still using them and I still love them. They fit with my painting style (layering and glazes) perfectly. It's the first paint brand that I felt like I wanted to just go ahead and buy the entire range.

Show Notes: WIP Dropzone Commander Scourge Army

This wasn't really a planned video. I had just received my new cellphone (a Droid Ultra) and wanted an excuse to try its video capabilities. My very first videos were done with a cellphone and the results weren't great, but they got the job done. This is kind of a huge improvement over that camera. 

What I found most surprising was that I was actually able to do reasonable close-up shots with the camera. That's always been one of the harder things to do with the cameras that I've used for doing my videos. Even my current DSLR, while I can get in close with it, it is one of the harder things to set up.

Speaking of my DSLR. This camera won't replace that one. It's still my go-to camera. On the other hand, having something as convenient as this will mean that I might be able to increase my current output. The DSLR takes quite a bit of setup to get things moving with it where as the phone can be pulled from the pocket at a moment's notice. I might just do more WIP videos again.

Show Notes - Cheap Tube Paint Storage

As I mentioned in my last show notes, I haven't been entirely happy with the results of my recent videos and had spent some time learning what I needed to know to move things forward. Part of what I learned was that I needed more light (okay, I already knew that) and how I could make that happen on the cheap.

I made a trip to Home Depot and picked up some 100w (equivalent) daylight fluorescent bulbs for my existing two lights. I also picked up a cheap clamp light (and another bulb) to add even more light. The results are pretty amazing. All of a sudden the camera isn't fighting to get a decent shot. I have more options in terms of settings for the aperture that don't involve seeing what the upper limits of the ISO are.

One of the other things that I discovered in my explorations of the basics of videography was that the settings that I use for sharpness, contrast, saturation and such for my still photos may not have been the best option for video. So I made some adjustments there as well. I think that the differences between this video and previous videos with this camera are pretty dramatic. I still have a ways to go before I'm completely happy, though. My focus could be better. I think I need to get something to stand in for my on the chair so that I can better set my focus point.

Oh, as to the subject of the video, I when I was out shopping for lighting equipment I found some super-cheap, stackable, organizer trays that work really well for holding tube acrylics. This gave me a good subject for a short video to immediately try out what I'd learned... and the stuff that I bought.

Show Notes - Building Custom Paint Racks

With this video I was killing two birds with one stone. I had actually received a question about my paint racks so this was a good way to answer that question - which sharing that information with everybody. I was also feeling like I needed to do a video - any video - since I had been avoiding doing a new video ever since the Diskwars videos were completed. So, this was a quick and dirty way to get something out there.

This video does the job I wanted to do, but I was really unhappy with the look of the video when it was all said and done. After completing it I realized that I just wasn't getting everything out of the camera that I wanted to. I figured that there was a good chance that treating the camera like a still camera (which is something I know) as opposed to a video camera (which is something I really don't know) was probably a bad idea. So I did what I usually do when I want to learn something. I searched YouTube for tutorial videos on shooting video with a DSLR. I also looked at some videos on video lighting on a budget. I think my next video reflects some of what I learned.

Show Notes - Warhammer: Diskwars Review

I've been wanting to do a video with more of my family for a while now. When my son picked up Warhammer: Diskwars I suggested that we do a review video. This was the result.

My intro was done in two takes. We didn't use take 1 because it turned out the sound wasn't recording properly. This was fortunate because we didn't know until later that the video didn't record either. Kind of a happy accident there. Take 2 was okay so there we go. I don't tend to script stuff on paper, but I do tend to go over it in my head for days before I do something like this. I like the sound of myself in conversation mode more than me reading a script.

I think that Tim did a pretty good job explaining the game. I had him do that part because I've always been impressed by his ability to teach other people how to play games. We probably should have broken this down into several segments to give this part of the video more structure and to give him time to breathe. This was not scripted at all. I essentially said "go" and off he went.

The opinion portion of the video was just us talking. I already knew how Tim felt about the game in general and we talked a bit about what elements to bring up, but this really was just sort of a conversation that we had off the cuff, It was fun. When we were done I was more excited than I'd ever been on completion of shooting a video.

In my enthusiasm to get the video up I ended up cutting some corners on stuff that I had wanted to do. Specifically, more close-up cutaways to see specific elements of the game. I should have held out until I could get that b-roll shot, but I just couldn't contain myself. This was all on me because Tim had brought it up multiple times and I decided to just go with the stuff that I had shot earlier in the day.

The feedback on the video has been super positive. It's already has the most day 1 views of any video that I've done previously by a large amount. It also has more views at this moment (3 days in) than any other video that I've created in the last five months. 

We've already decided to follow this video with a Let's Play video. I'm very excited.

Show Notes - Mongolian Horse Commander Video

This video is a bit of a mess. I had a plan, but at the same time I was in a hurry to get started on the project. Add to that the fact that I'm still wrapping my head around the controls for the new camera and we have the results in the latest video.

It starts out well enough. Or, at least I thought it did when I was editing it. For some reason I am not sharp. Like I'm slightly out of focus. There are two possible reasons for that. The most likely is that I had forgotten to turn on autofocus. I've been trying to use autofocus more when I record myself because it seems to be the only way to make sure that I'm actually in focus since I do this all on my own. In theory, anyway. I can't recall if I did or didn't have it on. The other possibility is just that since I had also set it on auto-everything that it decided that it was dark enough that it needed to crank up the ISO to the point that the whole image is fuzzy. Either way... not ideal.

The other disaster was that the next portion of the video was supposed to be an overview of all of the projects that I'll be doing for Chapterhouse in the coming weeks (cause there are a bunch). Apparently, I just wasn't feeling it at the time because as I was listening to myself in editing my only reaction was "I can't let actual humans listen to me drone on like this". So that got cut.

To top it all off, I was so into getting the painting done I ended up doing 0 wip video. None. WIth that in mind I decided to cram as much into the wrap-up as I could. And then, for some reason, the photos aren't sharp either. No idea why not. ::sigh::

Anyway, I'm going to do more notes like this in the future as a way of breaking down what I thought I did right and wrong on my videos. This seemed like a good place to start since it all seemed to go so horribly wrong.

I'm going to try to spend more quality time with my camera so I can get more familiar with it so these kinds of things don't happen in the future - well, the camera-related things, anyway.