Friday 29 January 2021

Lightbox Background 2.0

 


Greetings Hivers!

As I mentioned in my previous post I wasn't entirely happy with the backdrop I created. It looked fine as a stand alone piece and it worked for photographing single models but it distracted the eye too much when photographing full gangs.

Here's the latest version....


As a stand alone piece it isn't as eye catching as the original but a backdrop shouldn't take centre stage. I took Skerples advice from my last post and dulled down the metals on the steps with a few washes and some weathering powders.

Rob mentioned using the original as a piece of terrain to play on, so it seemed natural to use a full sized underhive tile to facilitate this. Now we can just replace one of our existing tiles with this piece if we want to use it.


The piece still fits nicely inside my lightbox so you'll be seeing it on a regular basis now....hopefully 😉

Here's a reminder of what the original version looked like with the Voodoo Dolls of House Escher....

....and here's how the backdrop looks now.

While not perfect, I think it's a distinct improvement. The gangers are much more prominent thanks to the bokeh effect and the steps don't compete with the models as much as they did before.
Overall I'm much happier with this version as it's easier to see the Voodoo Dolls....Speaking of which, my next project will be updating my Escher gang and bringing it in line with their new rules.

Until next time.....may the Hive Spirits watch over you!


12 comments:

  1. Oh, you blew my mind. I thought the previous version was awesome, but this is simply perfect :O

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Suber.
      As a photo backdrop I think it's far from perfect and if I was to start from scratch I would do a lot of things differently but I'm done with this project and I feel it's adequate for my needs.

      Delete
  2. It certainly seems to do the job much better with version 2 Gary.
    So have the new rules meant much conversion work to your gangs current load-out then?
    Always annoying when GW muck things around.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I think it's an improvement.

      Don't get me started on the new books! I could write an entire new article on them but it would come across as too negative and I don't want my blog to be a place of negativity, so I'll try to keep it short.

      The books are woefully unbalanced. The Goliath book is far too powerful, especially compared to the weakling Escher book. Rob has had to seriously tone down his Goliath gang just for us to have a game last more than 4 rounds. Obviously this isn't a massive problem for us because there are only two of us and we're both of the same mindset. All we want is game that offers us a framework to explore our universe ;)

      If the books had been released when the game was first came out they'd be fine, but this is the 3rd edition of the gang lists! (so you can understand why I feel GW are up to their usual 'Let's gouge these suckers for a bit more money' trick)
      They do help to address the games power creep over the original (N95) slightly. The power creep I'm talking about is the easy access to supposedly rare weapons. When I played the original, it was rare that I had a gang with more than one Boltgun and a Las-Cannon was virtually unheard of. N95 was all about Lasguns, Autoguns and basic hand to hand weaponry, not so with N18 (the current version of the game). This initially wasn't a problem, we knew from the start that we could take Bolters and that a gang could include a Specialist at creation who had access to pretty much anything from the Trading Post. Now the Specialist has a limited arsenal, as do the regular Gangers and Juves. Which is fine and dandy if you're building a gang from scratch, not so if you have already built a gang. It does add more individuality to the different Houses but it increases GW's penchant for imbalance ;)

      My main issue with the books though is neither of these things. It's the fact that third edition gang lists are not needed yet. I feel that GW should be focusing on an Outlander style book (or set of books) that introduces Ratskins, Mutant tribes and anything else that can be found in the Ash Wastes....such as vehicles or riding beasts....drool.

      Don't get me wrong Rob, Necromunda is a wonderful setting and a very enjoyable game to play (this is despite GW's inability to write clear and concise rules or to fix things like psychic powers) but it's a game that is unlikely to encourage Necromunda events and will always be a framework for like minded people who care more about the adventure than for winning.

      Delete
  3. Great work dude. You've certainly given me the inspiration to start something of my own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or you could just borrow the one I have if you need to take photos of your gangs?
      I mean surely this bloody lockdown can't last forever?

      Delete
  4. Smashing work on this. I thought the first version was great, but this is a massive improvement too. Your weathering is brilliant btw!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ross.
      I've got to the stage where I prefer painting terrain to miniatures these days....mainly because these old eyes are going ;)

      Delete
  5. I must acknowledge that you were right from the start, if before it already seemed beautiful to me, now it's a thousand times better! Complimenti!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know about a thousand times better but it certainly does its job better of working as a backdrop for gangs ;)
      Cheers Marco.

      Delete
  6. Yep. Definitely works better. It's also a more interesting piece of scenery now. You could even fit larger models/scenery in the background to add to the story. Excellent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers mate.
      Adding more scenery to help tell a tale is a good idea.
      I'm pretty much finished with 40k these days (although never say never), so I'm unlikely to show off anything larger than an Ambot....but you never know, a Heretek Warglaive could stumble out of the Ash Wastes to terrorise the Underhive ;-)

      Delete