Monsters In My Head

My Monster High Fanblog | Photography | Original Characters | Customization | Reblog All You Like

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Made It!

Well, if you give me a Lost Boys doll and a smoke machine, CLEARLY an ode to the train trestle scene is going to be on the 'to do' list! This was one of those shots that I thought was going to be difficult...

...and was more difficult than I thought! Still, where there is a will, an extra soft box rod, electrician's tape, rubber bands, and some string, there is eventually a way.

I am really pleased with this set. Couldn't mimic the film exactly due to doll flexibility, but it's close enough to be Very Pleasing.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Where there is smoke, there is Heath Burns. I mean, really, once I got the smoke machine, this one was inevitable. Despite the high ISO-grain appearance, I'm really pretty pleased with how these came out.

Only today's left. Do I know what I want to do? Yes. Will I get it done in time? We shall see...

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

I swear, I need a vacation from my vacation. Still not caught up! One day left and two more shoots. Can I do it, or will 2025 win? I thought I was done with the shiny mylar background, but then I unexpectedly got an optic fiber lamp and just had to play. Since it combined with the mylar to give me alien landscape vibes, I grabbed Neila as my model and used it as a tree. First shot? Perfectly in focus, but too much in front of her face. Fixed the pose, fixed the focus... ...still somehow blurry. Bah. It does give a very fun idea of how colours work, though.

After the portrait shots, I switched to landscape and went for some backlighting. Unsurprisingly the 1/10 shutter gave me the best silhouettes, but the first one is fun - it's 1/30. Why is this fun? Because those lights went through at least half of a colour rotation and, because of how light works, the end result was pretty much white. Science in action!

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Still one day behind. Was going to fully catch up today, but the exhaustion says no.

Since yesterday's light experiment came off as kind a cyberpunk to me, I decided to play with it some more with the lovely Elle Dee as our model! I started by fixing the stand for my actual LED panel which, with no gels, gave me....green? Colour correct fixed that, but I posted the original version for fun here. Since I couldn't get low key enough to play around with shutter speeds with the panel, I switched to my hand held panel/torch thingy. Turns out that even with the spot I can't go down to 1/30" without blowing out the picture (something I CAN do with the Halloween lights) - but it's still a fun effect!

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

More catch up!

Marea Canterbella is a custom I've been working on since 2014. I. Am. Slow! Today she was supposed to be completely finished, but then her necklace went missing between my house and Mum's (she has the jewelry making supplies to actually put it on), so now I have to order the parts for a new one. I was tired of waiting, though, and really stoked to do a photoshoot with her, so I did this anyway! Take that, Murphy!

This was 100% me just playing. No plan at all. Just watched a video playing with mylar, went "I don't have the setup for that! Let's see what I CAN do!" and had fun. The first shot is normal lighting so you can actually see what she looks like. The rest are a combo of reflective mylar, Halloween lights, and a regular spot with auto ISO and varying shutter speeds.

It was fun. I'll finish catching up tomorrow.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Playing catch up! I sort of wanted to hold off on doing Posea until I had something new for her to wear since I elongated her torso, but I wanted to take one last crack at underwater lighting again for the month and I was tired of holding off on her.

Do I like the results? Yes.

Are they remotely what I wanted? No.

I don't know how I managed to get the light positioned perfectly the first go around and never again, but I'm 99.8% certain it's because I need a different light. I will revisit this concept in the future.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

I decided to see if the underwater effect could look like light through trees in a forest. The answer is yes, but I failed spectacularly to actually capture the effect. Again, aggravating. So while we have some lovely, moody shots of Jane, they are not what I was seeing either in real life OR on my camera.

I really need to start breaking down and hauling my laptop into the studio so I can use tethering... Or buy a second laptop. Hmmm...

(j/k Don't have the money...)

[novelconcepts]

Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.

You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Decided to retry the Mariana shots. I was doing better with the lighting, so I decided to mix it up and bring Lagoona into it - just two besties hanging out, ya' know?

Unfortunately I dialed in close enough that you can't really see the background, so it looks more like a night shoot than underwater. Still, have confirmed this works wonderfully for the moonlight vibe!

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

I've wanted to do a Black Velvet themed Operetta shoot for the longest, but first I needed to make the dress, then find a guitar, then relearn how to make friendship bracelets and get some floss and make a guitar strap and then it was all taking too long so I just took these.

I may reshoot them once I have a guitar strap.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

River Styx, latest in my line of 'well, the lighting didn't do what I wanted, but I got some cool shots?'

One of these days I will find a way to remember what I did right and replicate it! In the meantime, smoke makes anything better.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Today was spent trying to master the underwater look and figure out what I managed with the first shoot than I promptly forgot for all of the rest.

The results were mixed.

I did find myself wondering if reflecting off of the mylar could give me the moonlight effect I'd been looking for earlier in the month, and the answer was yes! Add in the smoke machine and you can get some pretty nice effects.

And if everything goes just right? You can see Lenore's glow-y candle!

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Decided to play with the underwater effect again, this time with my lovely CAM girl Mariana. For some reason, I was having an absolutely miserable time getting the light to reflect in a worth while manner, so except for the first "so this is what she actually looks like" shot, the ISO is through the roof and the watery effects are...not really there.

Still too new to the effect to know what happened. At least it's some nifty, dramatic lighting, but I may actually redo the whole shoot at some point to try and get it better.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

To make up for the earlier, crummy shots, have Ghoulia fanging out at Necrocon and collecting that sweet, sweet Dead Fast swag. I love my lights, but they really are designed for a larger room.... Still trying to figure out what to do about that.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Lamest unboxing shots ever. I did these to hold in reserve until something with Critically Wrong...

...and then yesterday happened and I didn't even have the energy to post these. So. Super sloppy catch up post, there will be something better later I promise!

No, really, I've already taken the shots, I just need to edit them.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Skipped the actual box pictures and went to the posing-in-front-of-box-art pictures. Finally unboxed my Holiday Clawdeen. And I'm too tired to think of anything more to say on that point. G'night.

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2025

Yup, unboxing shots, because oi. Sleepy. Not a bad day, but long, so.

More Emily and her very pretty box art.