$10 DIY LED light box prototype

Over at puttyandpaint.com there are some sculptors who produce pretty amazing work. People like Patrick "The Small" Masson, Gautier "Graphigaut" Giroud and Luc "Thantor" Pinganaud in particular are some of my favorites.

The thing they all have in common (apart from all being from France?) is that the photos of their finished work is great. Really good lighting, everything in focus, and some of them use a background that really draws the eyes to the mini.

So I got me a 2m LED strip + power from ebay for $10, and taped some white paper into a cardboard box, temporarily fixed a piece of the strip to the inside, then downloaded & printed out a nice background from Massive Voodoo and snapped a photo of Ms. Jet:

Not too bad. I used the neutral medium background, I might try something like the neutral dark next time, maybe print it out with heavy toner, but other than that I think it works.

Here is a shot of the dodgy setup

and here it is in action.

Not bad for $10 and about 15 minutes of work.

I'll be making a proper box soon, and securely install the LED strip. I'm thinking of using a larger box, maybe with the option of putting an extractor fan in the back so I can use it to airbrush too.