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This Website Contains Product Affiliate Links. We May Receive A Commission If You Make A Purchase After Clicking On One Of These Links At No Additional Cost To You.Taking Photo Reference
Photo Reference and Scale Modelling go hand in hand in my opinion and as a scale modeller, avid scratch builder and Architecture model maker taking photo reference is essential for inspiration, texture reference and overall detail in a future project. Good reference can be the difference between a projects success and failure. My phone is packed with photos and these consist of brickwork, old doors, electrical boxes with cool graffiti. Old phone boxes, dumpster/bins and rusty metal! The more I take the better and I always find a use for these pictures in projects.
Taking Photos
You don’t have to have any experience when it come to taking images and mobile phones have amazing cameras in them. I use my phone (iPhone 13) for all my images and can always edit when I get home if needed. I would recommend putting all your reference pictures in folders if you can because it really comes in handy when you want to use any images and to be able to have a folder with all your rusty metal images in (for examples sake) can save you a ton of time when you need them for a project which is what I do.
I also always try and take images of the object from multiple different angles as this gives you a great 360 of the subject and lets you see all of the different textures and colours etc to for a whole. this isn’t always possible but try and take a couple of images of a subject to give you a better overall perspective.
Why Take Reference Images?
I take my own images for lots of different reasons but the main one is that it gives my projects a unique look and saves me having to use third party websites for images which is fine but when I use my own images I will never run into any issues with copyright etc. You also never know when the image that has just caught your eye will come in handy and sometimes I can have a project on the go but go out one day and take a picture that is so inspirational that I have to make it next!
How Best To Use Your Reference Images
I like to pick a picture that I can use in my project and then zoom in and write down things I see and make a calculation on size of the object for scaling down purposes. For example if you have a building front you want to replicate and scale down that has a brick front. You can use Google to find out the measurements of a brick then count how many bricks have been used in your image, then take that measurement and put it into a scale calculator then you have the size of the building when it comes to making it. I use these reference points all the time when scratch building.
Third party images
If you really don’t like taking pictures or just forget then you can use third party sites like Unsplash or Pexels or even Google earth is a great tool! They all have great reference library’s and lots of different textures. Just make sure that any image is royalty free and you are good to go.
Photo Reference and Scale Modelling Share on X