Lighting For Modelling. any suggestions????

I use a combination of flourescent and incandescent lighting. The lamp on the bench is from my Dad's A&T area at work and then the flourescents are your typical shop lites. Although I have to say that often times I go with as little direct light as I can. It's an art thing, I guess.

D'ya'ever notice that when you take your model out to a club meeting, model show or whatever, that it never looks the same as it does in the workshop? I joke to the guys in the club that I use what everyone considers to be bad lighting because most model shows are poorly lit. But in reality I use sparse lighting as a matter of preference and only when it's most appropriate.


Fade to Black...

I supplement my ordinary room lighting with one of those clamp lights attached to a redwood tree stake in my living room. (You won't find my apartment on the cover of "House Beautiful.") Unfortunately, if I'm modeling at night, sometimes the shadows bother me, so I'll simply plop a small incandescent desk light (picked up at a rummage sale for two bucks) on my workbench to eliminate the shadows. Unfortunately, the cover on this lamp doesn't shield the bulb real well, so now I've got a light bulb glaring in my eyes. If I don't feel like dealing with that, I'll wear a hiker's head lamp.

As long as it is flexible there are alot of lamps to choose from. I have one that my parents bought at Sears for my 16th birthday and that was 20 years ago and it is still working great

I made an "A" frame out of PVC pipe and hung a flourescent shop light ('bout 10 bucks) from it. For additional light I just bought a magnifying lamp (the same one MicroMark sells for $69) from Harbor Freight for $30. We use color corrective flo lights here in the Art Dept. at work. They're a little more expensive, but if you want accurate color from flourescent fixtures, it's the way to go.

To be honest, 100% color accuracy probably won't matter. As soon as your model leaves the bench, the lighting will change, and so will the perception of it's color.

build 'em in the dark. s'more fun.

-fish

Nigel,
I like to use a combo of flourescent and incandescent lighting. Make sure the light is placed where you wont create your own shadow. Most incandescent bulbs will give off a yellowish glow which is very soft. The flourescent lamp will give off a few different hues depending on the type used but is a more harsh light. The two most common being warm white and cool white. The cool is bluish and the warm is pinkish. There are others which are used for store displays and give different hues also.

For kicks and grins, go to www.micromark.com They sell Ott lights. Things are pretty pricey, but according to Mircromark, the lighting is more "natural"--I'm assuming that blue has been re-inserted. The one I kind of liked looked to be quite portable--sort of a fold and go, but for around $80 (I think), I could buy a couple lights (like the GE Reveal, mentioned above) and a couple more kits.
Gip Winecoff

I use two 75 watt G.E. "Reveal" lights in clip-on lamps, attached to micriphone stands. These bulbs are incandescent, but they don't have the yellow tint of regular bulbs, nor the heat of studio lights. A Bauch & Lomb magnifier fits neatly into the mic clip.

I use a standard extension arm magnifying lamp with an incandescent bulb plus an Ott Light for color correction and one of those funky Wal Mart lights that Demono69 is talking about. You can never have too much light, until your breakers start to blow then you have too much light..

Hey Demono69, What was the brand of that Wally World light? As for the the brand of light I use now, they are just those cheap goose neck lamps with good bulbs. I mainly just want light shinning onto my work area from at least two directions. This eliminates shadows, which I don't like on the piece I'm working on.

HEY,
I went to sears and bought a jobsite hanging light. It has two hooks that you can attach to anything, and best of all a retractable extension cord.. It is not too bright but is perfect for modeling.

Randy

Here are some pics of different modeler's work spaces, and you can see what kind of lighting they have: http://www.naplak.com/modeling/Modelers/workspaces.htm

And here's my work space: http://www.naplak.com/modeling/Modelers/neil's_page.htm

My lights are from IKEA, and were fairly inexpensive while being high quality!

I picked up something similar to that at my local Wal-Mart. In fact, it's almost identical, and it only cost me $19. Sometimes the cheaper stuff is more than enough to do the job.

demono69