FOLDIO OH FOLDIO

Ok so Xmas is now out of the way and 2015 has begun. with any luck i can have a better success at finding time to post more blogs, but we shall see on that matter.

for xmas i got me a foldio. what the hell is a foldio right?

well if you have read any of my posts you will often read my grumbles about photography. im constantly looking for ways to improve in that area so long as it doesnt cost me an arm and a leg.

well a foldio is a portable photography studio.

FOLDIO

Cheap and affordable. and based on the above instruction gif.......its easy to set up too.

so for me was this my miracle worker for taking better photographs? surely not!

no longer would i have to set up multiple clunky heavy lamps, making sure everything was perfect for a shot..all i would need to do is unfold and go.

so first thoughts taking it out of its box.

in the box i got 

1 foldio. with sleeve to pack away into

3 soft rubber photo backdrops (white, grey and black)

instructions

(NO BATTERIES) i thought everything came with batteries these days??? clearly not lol

its kinda flimsy. but i can live with that. its portable so flimsy makes no difference whatsoever.

I bought the 2 LED strip version thinking, well more light is clearly a positive thing right?

needs 2 batteries of course, now I know why they aint free! lol

anyways this thing is super easy to set up. It fits together with magnets. and once the 2 batteries are fitted they also click to the magnets. I felt this then game the Foldio a little more stability and made it a more solid box than I had initially thought when I first set it up.

so. plug in your batteries and on comes the 2 led strips. pretty good lighting for a little box. things are looking promising from this point. of note, there is no switch to turn on the lights. you have to plug and unplug the batteries to to on and off. I think this leaves potential for wear and tear, but I guess only time will tell on that front.

so from the set up..initially I was a little dubious. But for what it is. its good and I think this is definitely a better option for me. the ease of set up is a definite plus point. the fold away amd easy storage is a mega plus point as opposed to some bigger more solid structures used for photography.

so now was time to put it to the test!

i decided to go with the white background to start with. I tried various exposure settings. with flash and without flash. so here are my results along with other trial and tribulations.

Generally i take my photos with a mid to low exposure setting, the above image used these exact settings, with flash turned on...i cant say im that happy with the result. so next i turned the flash off to see what came out there.

Ok..if dark and moody is your thing then this is great..but not for me. i think the image is way too dark. however from this I'm seeing the benefits of not using a flash (as my flash always seems to bring unnatural colours out of my paintings) but its too dark. so i then go for a higher exposure with no flash

definitely an improvement. bit still lacking somewhat..what am i doing so wrong as opposed to the wonderful images i see taken on the foldio website? anyway. I persevere.

moving on from the white background as i feel its brightness is sending my digital camera onto wobbly hell!

onto the black background

back to flash on for this one and low exposure...the results....just no no no. an unnatural shine is created from the multitude of lights, and again the unnatural colours seem to spring forwards. so time to turn the flash off and give it a try.

hmm...we seem to be getting somewhere. those eyes look deep and sunken as they are supposed to. shine on the model is substantially reduced. however im noticing less focus to the image. maybe i need to tweak with my camera a little but when i turn off the flash. it takes super fast images that dont even seem to want to focus first (unlinke when flash is turned on)

so this is looking better right? the mini stands out bold and natural, and very close to how i see it when i hold it in my hand and view it. this for many is a massive problem with digital cameras as they very often seem to want to create things that are not there in order to "enhance" the image. here..no enhancements are going on. the picture is far from perfect. but its a definate step in the right direction for me. so on we move. next up..the grey background.

NO NO NO. back to the flash on this time and my mind is made up...the flash combined with these LED lights just isnt working. i understand background imagery etc can effect a digital camera and thus various methods are required. generally when setting up with a light setup, pre foldio, i would always have flash on..but from this image above. it just doesnt work. so process of elimination is kicking in again. and its time to turn the flash off.

ok now we are getting somewhere. again due to my shaky hands and over eagerness of my camera to take a photo with flash off. its slightly out of focus...but the image itself looks good i feel. it captures the figure exactly how it is needed too....so from that image i was happy to go ahead and produce a final image.

this was simply cropped in photoshop and having auto levels adjusted on it. again as per the original..its slightly out of focus but i can work with that.

From here I decided to see if i could take another shot of something else and get an image that mirrored the model perfectly to the human eye.

looks pretty good if i might say so!! it seems that the grey background. no flash and lower exposure settings suit my camera much better. inturn i need to stop drinking coffee or figure out how to slow my camera down so i can get those no flash shots a little more focused

i also wish to work more on producing better photos with the white background. because my initial shots above just dont cut it, and are by far the worst batch from my initial tests above, I prefer working with a white background for most show and tell sort of photos and so this is something i wish to improve on. ill go back to the drawing board and focus on white background and various settings and so on until i can get some pictures that actually look like they have a white background and show the image in a bright natural looking light.

at this point my camera batteries died on me and with no spares around i packed away in no less than 5 minutes. much quicker than previous setups. again i wasnt comfortable pulling out those batteries. i sense one day im going to pull a battery out and the fitting it is plugged into is going to disintegrate in my hand...

so my thoughts on the foldio?

i like it.!!!!!

i do need to work with it more, most definitely. and whilst i feel some of the promotional shots for this can be a little deceiving in leading you to believe you can become a master with simply a foldio and a mobile phone. i also think there is (as always) a lot more to it than how they try to simplify things. but the foldio works and im looking forward to using it more. testing and trying to get even better photos than my first initial trials.

if you are like me and also have problems taking photos and are never happy. i would highly recommend the foldio and going at it as i have above. trying various settings etc, until you are getting better results. im happy with my final 2 images above and this was all with a cheap camera and a foldio...so if i can get good results. im prety sure anyone can! 

peace

THE HEROES

so another long standing project that stems way back to mid last year where I set up my own challenge to create/sculpt the heroes that I wanted for heroquest. having used various proxy figs over the years, I basically wanted my own, in my view. and with that i first created a kit bashed barbarian
BARBARIAN

and then i set about sculpting my very first ever full miniature in the Dwarf
DWARF

and then proceeded with the others. next i finished up on the wizard
WIZARD

and very swiftly followed up by the elf
ELF

at this point i sent them off to be cast. with quite a few members of ye olde inn nabbing the limited run of these 3 brand new figures. i believe these can still be nabbed over at zealot miniatures for a very reasonable price
http://www.zealotminiatures.co.uk/

with that came 2015 where my hobby tie got stripped right back. having these sitting round for quite quite a few months with me unable to find the time to paint these up, sitting on my shelf waiting for the day i could finish them off. and showcase them all as a group as i am doing so here.

so anyways, now they are done. and im quite happy, my first project into full miniature sculpting as well as finally completing my own personal collection of Heroquest Heroes.
so heres a few more shots to showcase them a little.

i also gave my skellies an additional wash of seraphim sepia to give them a more of a old dirtier look

well there you have it..hope you enjoyed :)

SNOTLINGS EVERYWHERE

and I'm back in the house!! sort of...........

ok so its been a long long while since i posted anything up. but truth be told. ive simply had no hobby time what so ever. all the real things a husband and father has to do have been much more important for me to tend to throughout 2014. that being said. i do sometime get a smidgen of time to sit down and paint. and believe me im learning new things...paiting whilst a 20 month old little girl is trying to climb up your leg to see whats going on is no mean feat i can tell you. along with that and my hiatus for some reason i decided to pick the smallest frikken critters in the warhammer bestiary to tackle....i know right no sense in that whatsoever.

i did however discover a nice little way to get these painted up with relative ease.
so without much ado.

i had painted more than this but only realised after id taken the pictures that id left a couple on the shelf.
i painted these with a simple wash over base colours, due to me not painting much i felt my skill were somewhat lacking (even at the best of times) so wanted to take the shortcut approach with these.
the skin was simple basecoat with Ogryn Camo and then washed over with Biel-tan green. simple and very easy.
ive always viewed snotlings as the lightest of all the greenskins so this seemed to work a treat right here.

that snotling right there at the front picking his nose was actually from the first blister packet i ever bout way way back in the 80s. he came from a bloodbowl blister pack of 18..all for the grand price of £1.99........now it costs 6 times that for the rest of the snotlings you see above...
actually i paid 8 quid for mine from an ebay batch of amazing proportions (something like 80 figs for that price)

anyways i dont think they turned out too bad. my first project for a while that i had actually completed all of. so im happy. and happy to be able to finally post something on the blog again.

so there we have it. bunch load on snotlings. packed full over character and ready to bite you ankles.

a little more
.
whilst ive been toying with teh whole greenskin flesh tones. ive also been toying with the idea of using gnoblars instead of goblins (an idea i saw on this amazing thread over at warseer. HERE)
on that great little thread hes taken the same approach i like to take to dungeon fodder and the likes...and thats to give as much character as possible.
now ive not liked the look of goblins for a long time. not sure why, but to me they just lack character. Kev Adams is still the master of the goblin.
  so with that i needed new gobbos, ithink the 80s is stuck with me on this front. because I kind of get the vibe of David Bowies little buddies from the flick Labyrinth

these little twerps had character and would swipe a baby right from under your nose.
and Gnoblars kind of have that same feel about them. not quite as sinister looking as GW current goblins. but still have character and look kind of nasty in a "stab you in the back" sort of way.
i claim no ownership of this idea. Seb did it before me. and i wanted to do the same.
so below is a WIP on my new Seb inspired goblins using various greenskin bits and bobs.
gnoblar heads
goblin regiment bodies
night goblin arms
and various shields i have in my bits box

so far. im quite happy how number 1 is turning out (paint job not quite finished yet)

also im trialling some new skin tones. when i have finished them all . expect a much bigger update..

anyways that it for now. my first blogpost in a long long time.
hope you enjoyed :)

Dungeon furniture kickstarter - by zealot miniatures

every now and then i like to plug any of the cool stuff i see around, and this one goes without saying much really.
but you want some nice new dungeon furniture??
and dont wanna take the massively long winded route i do of trying to sculpt them all from scratch then check this KS out today!!!

Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter

having some mild association with zealot minis (where you can pick up my previously sculpted hero minis) id like to wish them the best of luck with this kickstarter. however luck im not sure is going to be needed, because this stuff really is awesome!!

i simply dont have enough page space to feature all of it. so if you like your dungeons to have that something extra. go check them out and throw a pledge their way :)

I AM STILL ALIVE

things have been quite in the dungeon for the last few months, but ill be back very soon. just digging out all of my gear ready to get painting and modelling and glueing and all other nick knacks i seem to do back together. hopefully ill be back in the game very shortly with some nice new shiny things to post about.
things have been pretty hectic for me this year. not really allowing for much hobby time. but with any luck that will be changing soon and the dungeon will be back alive :)