STAR WARS LEGO PHOTOGRAPHY

Watch on YouTube – LEGO Star Wars Toy Photography

The new Star Wars film “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is in cinemas this December, so we wanted to find some inspiration in the saga and bring it to our own macro photography. In this article, we are looking at some tecniques to shoot some LEGO Star Wars toy photography!

LEGO Star Wars Toy Photography

Toy Photography is a really fun pastime, especially if you already have figurines or Lego Mini-Figures. Models can be easily posed in all kinds of positions either inside or outdoors. Finding some creative ways to light and shoot your figures takes them from simple images of toys, to portraits and cinematic scenes. All of the images in this article were shot using practical lighting and effects, therefore no Photoshop is required!

Complementary Colour

Star Wars toy photograpy is particularly interesting, due to the saga’s rich lore and symbolic use of colour. The use of red and blue often denotes the light and dark side of the force. Here we have used an orange light with a single white key light to highlight Boba Fett and his green mandalorian armour.

Don’t be afraid to use coloured light in your images. They use coloured light in the movies after all, including from the lightsabres! Pay attention to where shadows fall. This dark and moody shot of the emporor has his iconic shadowed hood, because the main light is above his head. With red light in the background, it makes his silouette stand out from his guards.

Lighting Lightsabers

Shine light through the translucent LEGO lightsabers to make them brighter. Next, make sure to add a coloured glow to the surrounding area. The blue glow from this lightsaber can be seen on the mini-figure. This glow is important to make our shots look real!

Grievous was shot using a white and green light pointed at the lightsaber and the Mini-figure. Make sure the lightsaber is much brighter than the model so it looks like the blade is glowing!

Using Lasers

The last way we found to create a lightsaber was to use one of our Laser Lighting Arms and some Atmosphere Aerosol to make the beam show up during a long exposure. Line the laser beam up with the end of the lightsaber and cut out the ambient light. An exposure of 2s was used along with the spray to make the beam glow!

The same effect can be used to make stormtroopers fire their blasters. Make sure to line up the lasers perfectly, or the beams will look like they are firing at a strange angle!

The creative possibilities are endless when you begin shooting LEGO Star Wars Toy Photography, or any other kind of model, miniature or franchise. Check out the shoot we did using Warhammer 40,000 miniatures.

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more macro photography tutorials, ideas and inspiration!