I have a new photography setup and some greeks and orcs to show you

Before resuming my Warcon report, I'll show off my new toy. I bought a Canon 1000D DSLR on the cheap and finally built that lightbox I've been meaning to make for a long time. The new camera will serve as an astrophotography tool but I can use it for my miniatures just as well. With two daylight bulbs (the third one and last at the supermarket fell on the floor and broke after I bought it) I'll also have good lighting to work with.

It'll take me a while to learn to get the best pictures possible with it, but I'm already noticing a marked improvement on the depth of field available compared to my old camera.

First, I have completed a bunch of Greek casualties and an additional pack of hoplites for my ancients project. I think I should paint up one more pack of hoplites to unlock the possibility of playing warmaster ancients with this set, but doing those shields really is getting tiresome.

Freshly painted Greek hoplite casualties. I think the whole set is pretty well in focus.

All of my 6mm Greeks still fit in one shot. Getting mighty weary of painting those shields!

Next, I'll show off the first of my "improved" warmaster orcs. I bought a half-painted army and I decided to finish them rather than remove the old paint and start from scratch. Let's say these count for a half of a painted figure apiece in my painting stats :)

Two units of Boar boyz

The models on the right before my touchup work.

Marauder Giant

This is the 28mm scale giant by the late Marauder Miniatures. Back in the day it was the "official" giant figure for Warhammer Fantasy, and in my opinion is a great figure which makes the ugly plastic monstrosity they have today cower in shame. It is a big piece, standing some 12 centimeters tall and is all metal, giving it some weight.

I had one of these in the 90's, and in the folly of my youth, sold it away. I've regretted the decision for years, but managed to secure one last year. I'm not completely happy on how it turned out, the drybrushing on the shirt doesn't look good or neat, but I suppose it's just because I suck at painting miniatures. Anyway, I got a nice, warm feeling from getting to paint this one again, and it will be towering above my night goblins from now on.

Trolls and more

The dismounted cavalry remain lost. I have no idea where they are and have turned the place upside down. I wonder if I've managed to dump them in the trash alongside the mess I cleaned from the dollhouse project. If so, it is a sad loss.

It's snowing so I can't undercoat stuff to paint so I decided to try my hand at getting proper photos of those stone trolls I mentioned a while back. I think they turned out ok. I used the largest aperture value available, an exposure time of about half a second and ISO80. White balance was measured against the background. There's also a shot of the fresh Lutheran Seminary and of Skarsnik who would be commanding the trolls if I would ever want to play Warhammer Fantasy again. Let me know if you have hints on how to improve my photos. The scene is lit by two LED lamps with a screen of baking paper taped in front of them to diffuse the light. The pictures are clickable.

I have a new camera!

Ok, so I finally bought a new camera to replace the one that broke down in Cuba last year. It's a Canon PowerShot SX 210 IS and after a day of toying with it it seems to be worth the money. I've never really gone through the trouble of finding out how to get good photos of miniatures before so now I'm reading tutorials in the net and talking to fellow wargamers on things like lighting, white balance, aperture factors, ISO values and so on. I've started out a bit clueless but I'm getting there. Here's a sample on what I've managed to snap so far:

The figures are based 6cm * 3cm  which is popular with Baccus miniatures. The blue highlight looks excessive but I think without it the figures look too dark when viewed from afar.

This one I was quite happy with:

Practice, practice!