ROUND 6 Miskatonic University, 1968 vs The Order of The Red Fez

[Mancha]

The Miskatonic crew is obviously very well painted, as evidenced by the closeup views.  However, as someone else mentioned, the color balance of the photo makes it difficult to judge the colors, making the entry somewhat less attractive.  By the way, how did you do the grass on their bases?  That's the most beautiful, uniform, mowed (mown?) grass effect I've ever seen.

I love the Red Fez group, especially the mini selection.  (I so wanted to use that guy on the left in an earlier entry.)  I also really appreciate the repetition of the red details throughout the group.  However, I cannot like that trick of highlighing fezes by painted bands around them, which makes the fez look crumpled to my eye.  To my way of thinking, while the top and bottom edges might be highlighted, the other highlight should be a vertical bar running down the fez.  I could overlook this minor problem in an otherwise great entry, of course, but their name just calls attention to the single detail that...drives...me...nuts.

[Heldrak]

how did you do the grass on their bases?  That's the most beautiful, uniform, mowed (mown?) grass effect I've ever seen.

I'm a bit handicapped for the LPL, since I don't have any access to scenery/terrain. That being the case, I try to turn every base into a little scenic backdrop by itself (that's one of the reasons that I use the dished scenic bases). In this case, I treated the main entry photo like it was a posed photo taken for the yearbook or some other such official record and that as such it would be taken on the lawn outside of one of the administration buildings. Normally, I find GW static grass too artificially green for the battlefield and I use a specialized mixture of Woodland Scenics grasses, but in this case since I wanted the effect of a manicured lawn, I went with the straight GW static grass (my first time using it). All I did was glue it down with a mixture of white Elmer's glue and water and then tap/gently brush off the excess. I was thinking that I would have to actually trim the grass with a tiny pair of scissors, but the raised sides of the scenic base helped act as a guide to get the grass to grow uniformly and I didn't have to do anything to it, other than the be sure that none was spilling over onto the rounded edge of the base (one of my own pet peeves...).

The Miskatonic crew is obviously very well painted, as evidenced by the closeup views.  However, as someone else mentioned, the color balance of the photo makes it difficult to judge the colors, making the entry somewhat less attractive.

I was concerned with the color balance on the photo that I used for my entry myself, but of the literally dozens of photos I took, that was the one with the clearest detail and the truest colors on the models (although the background does indeed have a more greenish/yellowish cast than I like). I try to correct the color balance manually on my photos, but my primary criteria is always sharpness and accuracy of color detail on the models, not so much of the background (which is almost always a neutral backdrop anyway). In this instance, my guidelines were a realistic, natural skin tone and Louise's cream-colored sweater and plaid skirt (and incidentally Wolsey's blue jeans and black T-shirt and Professor Beattie's white lab coat). Most of the colors (apart from the backdrop) came out pretty "true", the one that's the farthest off is actually Louise's flaming red hair- It's a much more mousy, naturalistic color on the actual model, but I rather liked the effect anyway.

[gamer Mac]

I got that slight yellow effect when using normal light bulbs.
I have since switch to daylight bulbs.
Very nice painted figures.
Better lights would have made them stunning!

[cwchmc]

The ape is from Pulp Figures.

Chuck

[Heldrak]

I posted some pictures of my figures on the Forum of Doom this morning and a helpful fellow there color-corrected my group shot for me:

[Mancha]

The new picture looks a lot more voteworthy.   

[Overlord]

It does illustrate how much of a difference photography/manipulation can make to an entry.  There is no way around it, as the LPL is a visual medium.  I still struggle with my pictures at times, though good lighting and a steady camera (tripod/ books/ etc) seem to make a big difference.  Its an unfortunate fact that if you are a brilliant painter and a poor photographer your results will suffer.
Fortunately(?) its not an issue for me as I appear firmly entrenched in mid-table mediocrity/ability. 
At least the League gets me painting more miniatures than I probably would otherwise. 

[gamer Mac]

WOW
That really makes a difference.
Can you tell me how he did it?
I could do with his help.
Buy the way you can now see the very nice plaid skirt (Speakeasy ) cracking job

[Heldrak]

WOW
That really makes a difference.
Can you tell me how he did it?
I could do with his help.

I assume he color-corrected it manually using Photoshop or Picasa (the poor man's photoshop). I color-corrected the original photo myself using my Macintosh, but not enough apparently...

Buy the way you can now see the very nice plaid skirt (Speakeasy ) cracking job

I guess "monkey" still trumps "plaid skirt" though