Lighting mini\'s - a question

[Baz]

I was looking at the post for Salute \'08 and I noticed this bit of advice -

Originally posted by generulpoleaxe
and if you want to see painting that shows realy high quality in good lighting conditions then get down to euro mate.
(only problem is, it\'s on the same weekend as gd uk)

This made me think about the conditions for GD and a lot of other painting comps. They generally are held indoors in a flourescent lit area. It makes me wonder if painting minis to look good under bad lighting would be an advantage?

Now I\'m not looking to cut corners or save time, because most minis are photographed under good lighting, but just wondering that if you say spent several hours blending and glazing skintones that were very gentle and subtle you\'d be pretty disappointed if a mini with more direct tonal changes beat you out.

I know most of you guys use a daylight bulb or have at some point. Just wondering if anyone has tried painting under the same lighting conditions that the mini is going to be judged under?

 

[Ritual]

You will have no idea what lighting the minis are judged under, so that would not be worth thinking about. Just take your mini into the kitchen or living room or whatever and see what it looks like in a normally lit room. This will give you an idea...

 

[Avelorn]

Both is generally a good idea. To both have them subtle and striking at the same time. As Ritual say.. you don\'t really know.

 

[QuietiManes]

You may not know what lights it will be judged in, but you can almost guarantee that it will be some form of crappy yellow light. So using that to your advantage can\'t hurt. I\'ve never heard of anyone doing that but it could explain some of those pictures you see of the top miniatures in competitions and the gold looks like crud compared to the silver or bronze. Of course, you\'d want to make sure it looks good under more natural, broad spectrum light though, because the pictures are all that most people will ever see.

 

[Shadzar]

my magnifying lamp uses flourescent tube light so when i use it that is what those minis look good under, but for others i use an incandescent lamp with a standard 60-watt bulb.

also a consideration may be that comp dont use the magnification or close-up inspection that can be gained from a photo. you may lose some tonal highlights in normal light form smaller parts because the naked eye of the judges just may not be able to see them.

gives me someting to think about the judging standards for comps.

maybe a quick fix would be using small LEDs on the display to light it or help light it the way it was meant to be seen. then no matter the conditions it would have some of the proper lighting it was intended to be viewed under.

that is unless you get crazy and place each mini in a revolving lightbox that prevents external light form entering too much and shows the mini in as closed an environment you can get it to what it should look like. :twisted:

then the mini can just spin in its box properly lighted under condition you control and viewed through the eye piece. like those images in fabrege eggs.