Background Interest ...

For a long time I kept the photography of the figures and models I paint pretty simple with plain white backgrounds, just out of easy more than anything. But as time went on I wanted the photgraphs to look a little more - dare I say - professional. So I started using an open source graphics package called GIMP. With this software, I was able to remove the backgrounds to the models and add in an equally plain, but more regular one. Sometime a light grey, then a faint old paper effect. I still do this with the photographs I take for my reference portfolio. But when posting them on the shop or Instagram, they looked a little anemic. Looking at other people who added scenery and various bases to show off their figures in their photos intimidated me a little but I finally took some tenative steps with some very basic set-dressing to my model photography. And while this isn't a complete run-down of my photography set-up, it will hopefully show that you don't need go crazy with scenery and terrain to make your models look a little more dynamic.

One of the first Bases I made just for my miniature photography; a simple styrofoam board, given a light covering of sand, painted brown/tan then given a coat of static grass flocking.

This was a step up for a bit, but looked a little odd with more sci-fi or modern style figures, which was when I made a small selection of mix-and-match pieces.

Here, like the grassy base, I used the same method as before but without the flocking.

For simplicity I figured that most sci-fi models wouldn't look too out of place in a more modern loking setting, so a generic pavement with a plain filler-painted back wall does the job for now, although - as of writing this - I do intend to make a more sci-fi specific background.

The street base was, again, just styro foam, but stepped to make a kerb and road. Like the other, nothing too fancy here. The additional detail came in scoring a piece of thin card with squares to simulate paving slabs, painting dark grey and lightly dry-brushing over the top. Simple, but I do like the out-come of the photos. You don't want it to distract too much from the figure, but (hopefully) enhance it.

Now, these two pieces started out as terrain to go on my shop, but it din't turn out quite how I wanted it too, and sat on the bench for a week before I figured it may work as more background colour.

These were two thick blocks of styrofoam from some past delivery, which I'd started carving up to be rocky hillocks. I just carved out a few more channels and chunks then carefully applied a heat gun to it. This not only melts the foam into more natural craggy shapes, but also hardens it, making it easier to paint without those styrofoam balls popping off. The heatgun I used is a small card craft one, used usually for embossing powder. While the result may not be ideal for gameboard terrain, I found it more than acceptable for a background rockface or plateau ...

Teaming up some basic decoration for your models with a little creativity in the framing of the photograph can result in surpringing good photos. The examples here are super-basic, but I surprised myself at how different a figure can look by adding the simpilest of background interest.