Framing your Figures

I've seen a lot of interesting photographs of models recently, and one thing I wanted to draw peoples' attention to was the way in which they take photographs of models.

I don't have the nous to set up an elaborate lightbox for my miniatures, though this Blogspot post makes it sound very easy to do:


I was reading a thread by Daemon-Forge over on the Ammobunker, concerning his Arkham City miniatures, where he used a nice backdrop of Arkham itself to give his models some "grounding" - this links with conversations I've had with Tammy (TearsofEnvy) and John Blanche, about how a model's base can in some ways operate as a sort of "frame" - and if you consider the figures we work with as pieces of art, it makes sense. (On that note, check out the latest work from Jeff Vader - something very impressive indeed.)

Here's one of Deamon-Forge's figures:






This is something that obviously can be taken to extremes, as these pictures by Jon Law demonstrate - though that's obviously something that's out of most of our leagues! Something interesting I've recently seen has been people in the INQ28/Inquisimunda communities using books and artwork that reflect their figures - something I find compelling, and would like to replicate myself.

This image by the poster Githalas on Powerfist.dk shows what I mean, using the Inquisitorial Sketchbook as a backdrop:


And recently Andy Hoare posted his latest retinue member, the agent known as Amber Gris - but if you look at the picture, she is actually standing on two pages from the Inquisitor rulebook.

It's funny when we talk about how people within the INQ28 community have crafted models that look as though they've just jumped out of the pages of the 40k rulebook - well these models have!

It's something I certainly want to have a think about when I post pictures - how can the "frame" alter what's inside?