Lighten up!

1:12 diorama (eh?)

*groans at own pun*

The lights are IN! and ON! and....finally, I have a 'proper' roombox to take product photos in! XD

Ever since the magnificent Pepper of http://mitchymoominiatures.blogspot.com/
posted a very comprehensive lighting tutorial, I had been itching to give lighting a try. I thought I could get all the materials locally at Sim Lim Tower, alas, they had nothing to scale for 1:12 T-T. I finally relented and spent countless hours scouring greedbay and googling for the most affordable suppliers (shipping to SG is often higher than the items themselves garrrrghhh) and waited patiently for them to arrive.

and then waited somemore.

worked on the roombox/diorama/scene....

waited s'more.

then i gave up waiting. cos the electrical wire arrived first (although it was the last item i ordered), but the LED lights/resistors and battery casings just refused to make an appearance. frustrated, i decided to just go ahead with whatever i had.

since i'd already 'bashed' some IKEA Billy lights for 'the challenge that fizzled out', why not re-use them?

and since i had a couple of these keychain lights from Daiso, why not use those too? I googled for some paper lampshade templates and came across this one on Instructables. OOOOOOH it made me go on a desktop laser machine video rampage....GRAGH I WANT ONE SO BAD IT MAKES MY TEETH ACHE. alas, being broke and all, i went in search of an easier one. AND FOUND THIS AMAZEBALLS MODERN ONE.

of course it had to be made in mini :D the template provided in the instructable was for a life sized one of course, and so i came up with my own...since the idea isn't mine, i wasn't sure if it would be alright if i posted a tutorial on how i made it.....then again it's all kind of 'generic'...i suppose i might ask the author for permission to post my own version for 1:12 if enough people want to know how to make it (though it -is- DEAD EASY to modify from the life sized one!)

ANYWAY

working with the lights brought up vague recollections of  hazy secondary physics (and primary school) lessons...hazy because I'm one of those terrible students who sleep frequently during classes. :-/ so armed with a dodgy soldering iron, sheer tenacity and lots of swearwords, i put everything together and SURPRISE SURPRISE IT WORKED OMG OMG OMG (and i hardly even hurt myself!)

hurhur. the ceiling was the backing of an ikea glass frame thingy that i'd kept after the glass portion broke :X battery casing purchased from a neighbourhood hardware store....i'm quite new to building and bashing stuff from other stuff lying around so it took quite a bit of trial and error (and re-reading of Pepper's tutorial a gabillion times) to put everything together, BUT I DID IT.

and after all that, i walked out of my room to discover that the LED bulbs off greedbay had arrived.

*facepalm* i have the best timing ever.

i quickly tested them out, but 2 out of the 10 LED bulbs that I purchased were duds :( As you can probably tell, I'm more of a 'glass half empty' type person. But given my moderate successes with bashed together lighting, WHATEVER.

moving along.

 test shot under all the lights + my worklamp

aaaand, obligatory shot of bf's mom's birthday gift. made a similar one for my aunt too, but ran out of time to take pics of the two together T-T it's in 1:6, and Yotsuba seems to be wondering if the orchids are edible....probably me just projecting, since i'm hungry at 3.19am now.

the pitcher/jug was inspired by Marlies' easy to follow tutorial here:

http://marliesminies.blogspot.sg/2009/03/draw-pattern-that-you-want-to-use-on.html

re-drew and re-sized the template for this pitcher closer to 1:6, might blog a little more about it since i came up with my own template etc. but it's a pretty common sight anyway, so....*shrug* not quite 'my style' but i sure hope my aunt and bf's mom like it!!!!

i'm sure i've missed out some links and stuff, but i'm just so happy i wanted to show off like a little kid who has a new toy. meanwhile, here's a sneak peek at another project Asuka and i are working on :)

(btw, Sans, that's the magnifier lamp that my brother gave me, but i broke the clamp portion while shifting my workspace stuff around QQ)

it's great to be back! hope to update more frequently now that i have one less excuse for not taking pictures.....XD

(and THANK YOU SOOO MUCH PEPPER YOU ARE AMAZINGGGGGGG)