LIGHT CANS

Painter Cans are usually used in construction sites to clip onto the scaffolding and provide temporary light during work.  They’re sold at any hardware store and compared to household lamps are cheaper to buy in quantity for lighting dioramas.

My light cans always have energy saver bulbs that don’t get too hot in them because they’re usually placed on top of plexiglass or corrugated plastic board or other things that could potentially catch on fire if the bulb was crazy hot. Even if I didn’t place them up against these things, hot bulbs heat up your room, which makes it difficult to work in.  So keep the temperature down for your sake and that of your dolls. They can’t sweat.

Light cans are light weight, flexible to be placed on top of things, clipped to walls, etc. 

To use these over the top of a three-wall diorama, place two or three over 30″ dowels across the top to rest on the wall tops.  Then place a transparent, corrugated plastic board on top of the dowels to cover the diorama.  Place the lit can on top of the board pointing down and your room is lit. 

If you want additional light, point a floor lamp at the open area while photographing.

A bonus to the dowels across the top of your room is that you can hang various types of lamps or other ceiling hanging items from them.

They’re also useful for hanging wire to pose your dolls in the middle of the room without leaning them against furniture or using doll stands.  Of if the dolls will need to do extreme posing such as dancing or fighting.

LIGHT BULB COLORS & STRING LIGHTS

Color light bulbs are a marvelous way to set a mood, or establish specific scenes: like being at a club, Halloween or Horror lighting, etc.  I recommend getting all the colors offered: Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Yellow, and Blue.  Mix and match them to get different effects. 

I’ve tried Black Light bulbs, but they’re very difficult to get the real effect without pitch-black surroundings, then you have to take extremely long exposure shots which still might not be focused.  

 String lighting is another fun way to not only get different colors directly in the diorama but to be part of the diorama as ceiling lighting.   When using string lighting try not to show the power cords between each lamp.  

The top photo to the right shows my first attempt at using them and the photo clumsily shows the cords in the middle making it look unrealistic and strange.  Human sized lights wouldn’t be that super light weight lamps that big, they would hang down. 

Make your the lamps look heavier for the 1:6 scale by stretching them out, or not showing the cords at all like the 2nd photo on the right.

Below are photos of what different color lights can do in your dioramas. 

FLOOR LAMPS & LED STRIPS

FLOOR LAMP:

The Hampton Bay 66 inch Satin Nickel Floor lamp with 5 plastic bell shades from Home Depot is my personal favorite floor lamp. I purchased a couple of these last year.  With 60 watt LED bulbs these two give off an astonishing amount of light for huge dioramas and don’t get half as hot as my old floor lamp did.

CEILING LED STRIPS:

The new LED light strips for ceiling or wall lamps just keep getting better. The apartment I live in has no lighting in my room, so I had to install ceiling lighting myself with two plant holders, some masking tape and two LED plug in strips.  The light is more yellow than I’d like, but it does the job. 

When both ceiling LED’s and both floor lamps are on, my room is blinding, but multiple dioramas can be lit and ready to be photographed in quickly. Plus, I don’t have to worry about the pole sides or ceiling of my light rig getting in the way anymore.  My diorama height is less limited and my freedom to move around my sets is greater.