Art Reference Through Toy Photography

I love action figures. I have loved them since I was a little kid when I had my first TMNT and Star Wars figures and would bring them everywhere with me. I still do this when I'm packing for a trip, I make sure to leave enough space for at least one figure. But my reasoning has changed slightly, since becoming an Illustrator, I think about the setting I will be in and what kind of reference photos I can get with certain figures. City settings: Turtles, back-alley fighters, Spider-Man, Batman. Desert Landscape: anything that looks western (Cad Bane works well here). Forest: Link from Zelda, The Mandalorian, and TMNT all work nicely. You get the idea.

Artists are usually only as good as the reference that they have, is what most of my professors would say. For example, Norman Rockwell took lots of photos and used them to create some of the best Illustration work ever. But we don't always have people or the outfits to accomplish this, so action figures can work wonders in these types of situations. Side note: if you do have the people and the clothing, utilize this. With photography, we can control the environment, the lighting, and the poses. With toy photography, this is still the case, but better articulation on figures works the best, and I do get pretty picky when it comes to articulation.

Some of my favorite toys are either blanks with massive amounts of articulation, or figures like Hot Toys, because they are larger (providing more detail), and they have different types of reflective material since they utilize fabrics--the only problem here is the price. So, Mezco Toys can be a good alternative, smaller in scale, with great articulation and fabrics. When I need a certain figure for reference, I make sure to pick one of them up. I also save all the pictures I can from Toy advertisements in case I can't afford a figure at the time, but need to know specific details about their outfits.

When I'm taking photos, I generally have an idea in my mind about the scene I want to draw. I set up the lighting, pose, and start working on my angles. The process can vary in time, depending on how things go, but I haven't really had any problems other than technical issues like the figures falling over right when I was taking the shot---bummer dude. But then you just get back to it and finish the job.

I have some photos I took this morning for the blog, so you can see what I'm even talking about. Now get out there and have fun.