Utopiales Poster, Part 3: Lighting

One of the benefits of maquettes is that you can experiment with lighting ideas that would otherwise be hard to invent.

Here are four lighting ideas. The last one is shot outdoors in overcast light with an incandescent light filling the shadows. The other three are shot indoors with two lights of contrasting color temperature.

Number two uses a technique called light painting, where I handheld a small LED light wrapped in an amber gel, sweeping it across a small area during a four second time exposure.

In night scenes, localized lighting that falls off rapidly away from the source can be an effective way to suggest scale.

All of these are shot with a self-timered Canon Digital Rebel single lens reflex camera on a tripod. The pole in the middle is supporting a Mole-Richardson Tweenie II Solarspot (about three feet above the top of the photo), which is washing the back wall with orange light.

Now I’m ready to move ahead with the line drawing.

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight

Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting