EPIC Fantasy Cosplay Photoshoot Ft: Katarina LOL VS PUBG

Morgan

4 years ago

Today on the Slanted Lens I’ve got 2 great cosplayers here with me. I’ve got @armoredheartcosplay and @rockus and I’m Jay P Morgan. We’re going to take a look at great cosplay photographs with Godox strobes!

We’re going to have some action shots with them jumping on a trampoline, have lots of smoke from machines, because I believe all good images have lots of smoke.

Let’s take a look at our lighting for our setup here today. Your view is where the camera is going to sit. So we place each of the lights in context to where the camera sits.

1^st light

First set up was way up behind them. A Godox 400 Blue Gel ¼ Power, and it’s going to rim everything in the shot. This sets the stage for our entire image because it rims everything from behind.

2^nd light

We added a light on the moon. It’s got a grid on it, it’s a 20 degree grid and it’s going to light the moon and light the entire backdrop. We put the grid on it so it’s going to be hotter on the grid and it will spread out across the backdrop. When we had the light on the side, it was highlighting too many wrinkles, but when we set it up straight on with camera angle, it looks great and gets rid of all wrinkles.

3^rd Lights

Godox 200 w/ blue gel from the side, to rim them from behind. So when one of them will turn into the light, it’s going to give them a nice rim from the side. It gives a little bit of drama, feels like the moon light. And obviously this is all fantasy lighting, but it gives you a good strong light from the side.

4^th Light

The last light we did is up front here, small box, it’s got a grid on it so it keeps the area of coverage really small, and this is to have a light from underneath to just open up the shot! It mostly lights them from the waist up, and we can move it around depending on their positioning.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Let’s talk about the special effects we have going on set today.

Smoke machines

First off we have smoke machines on each side. I’ve done this for years where I take a fan and blow the smoke through the fan and the fan can direct the smoke. With outside elements, its’ good to have control of the smoke and direct it where you want it.

Action images

To get some more action images, we set up a trampoline back here, and it’s super stable, doesn’t shoot you very high. To get a good action shot, you don’t have to go very high, you just have to get your legs off the ground, maybe up to the side and it’ll give you an incredible sense of motion.

Props

I love Hollywood, because just about anything and everything you could want you can find somewhere in Hollywood. These are fake rocks we brought in from Green Set, brought them back with a truck. You just pick out the ones you want, load them up and bring them to your set. They are not light. You’d think a fake rock would be light, but these are not. In fact this one is on wheels because it’s pretty heavy to move around.

And of course the trees we have here are some dead trees we found in the back yard that Julene said we should cut down.

There’s our entire set! A couple rocks, a couple trees, and we’re good to go.

I love this about the Godox system. All of my strobes are on the same channel, so when I fire this here, it’s going to fire all of my strobes. But I can have them in different groups. This is great because I’ve had other systems where I can’t tell where my power setting is and here I can see exactly where it’s at, I can fire from here, I can go up and change through my different channels.

I’m using them on manual, not TTL because I have the manual setting on my camera – I know exactly what I want them to do. So it’s just a really nice system. Very turn key.

I don’t know how many we shot, but we shot a lot! If we didn’t shoot 1000 images I’d be surprised.

Let’s take a look at some of those images now!

There you go! Did you guys have fun?

“Very fun! It was the first cosplay shoot I’ve ever done with a trampoline!”

As you know, we had them jumping in the air, and it really made for some exciting shots!

So I’d love for the two of you to tell be a bit about cosplay. I know characters make great costumes, as you both do, so how do you create these?

“Basically, we have got very good at foam work, 3D printing, painting, wig work and makeup – so we are basically our own film studio rolled into 2 tired people!”

Do you do this for shows, events?

“Kinda for everything! We like to go to conventions so that we can meet other people and fans and be a part of the community. We’ve also done cosplay for movie premieres and other events in LA!”

Thank you very much for joining us on this crazy cosplay shoot – more of this to come really soon.