Monday, March 12, 2012

Lead Painters League Round 1

We have just wrapped up the first round of the sixth Lead Painters League (LPL) over on the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF).  This years 46 contestants facing off on a weekly basis...and let me tell you the quality of the competition this year is quite intimidating...there are many heavy weights on the roster and they always pull out all the stops for the LPL.

Round 1 of this years LPL was a themed round...this time its was "Old Lead"...and to acquire the bonus points for matching the theme the team submitted had to date from before 1991.  Luckily for me that includes almost ALL my figures....that said I picked some of the oldest ones in my collection...a team of Marauder MM20 orcs.  We saw one of these in my Brush Slave League first entry...like those these will form a portion of my Evil Skirmish band that I am working up for Skulldred and/or other skirmish games.

This contest is also one that really appreciated the use of terrain in the photography.  This is a new area for me to explore and I'm learning a lot (mostly the hard way...:)) about what it takes to make an effective shot using terrain.

Here is my entry picture:

Click the picture for the larger version...

It looks like I could do better with the lighting...the guys on the right are a bit shaded for my liking....and the gap from where the hill meets the table annoys me...but other than that I'm pretty happy with how my terrain shot worked out.  One thing I have figures out is...I NEED more terrain...to mix things up and make more interesting pictures.

When it was unclear whether I would get the terrain shot done in time I also took a more traditional "studio" type shot...here is a copy of that.


Sadly these guys did not secure me a victory for round 1.  I was matched up with Drachenklinge's wonderful entry which shows a group of knights in training...complete with training dummies and all kinds of other wonderful little details.  His entry really told a story in a single photograph...mine is more of a studio shot with some stuff in the background....I'll file that lesson away for future use.  It was a very close contest with the final count coming out at 219 to 211 votes...pretty close for such a large voting poll.  Cheers to you Drachenklinge!

Anyway...back to the painting table...LPL round 2 and 3 are already submitted...round 4 is taking FOREVER to finish but I'm almost there...then its on to Round 5...which is the Tolkien themed round...I have 10 figures to complete for that round...and a new terrain board to photograph them on...so back to the grind stone!

Cheers,

Blue

2 comments:

  1. Really lovely group Chris, pity you didn't win. I'm having a rough 2nd round myself, hoping for a draw but currently I'm down 6 votes. That's one vote too many for a draw! =(

    I haven't even started on my team for round 4 yet, still struggling with completing the base team for round 5. Then I need to do the opponents! Gah!

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  2. Cheers Phreedh...thanks for the kind words...yea tough first round for me but such is life. I see you pulled off your Draw...so thats better than a loss....(BTW you had my vote).

    I've just finished up round four...and put the first paint on round 5...but I see the extra time I had stockpiled by getting the first 3 weeks in at once quickly dwindling away!

    Cheers,

    Blue

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