Pikachu, use thunderbolt!

6/9/2020

You know, sometimes less really is more. I felt like I was driving myself crazy trying to fill the entire background with lightning in this shot. I kept trying different ways to put as much lighting in the shot as possible, but nothing was working. Everything kept falling over until one lighting bolt was left that looked like it was originating from Pikachu's hand, and then I decided to just build off of that.

I used the three single lightning bolt pieces that came with the Tamashii Nations lightning effect, and I attached two of them to a Tamashii Nations flight stand and used a small ACBA flight stand for the third one. To light the effects, I angled two LumeCubes directly at the effect pieces, and made sure not to get any of the light from the cubes on Pikachu. I used my two LumeCube Panel Minis on 5% brightness to light Pikachu.

I was originally going to go with this shot for my final shot, but I wasn't happy with the shade of yellow for Pikachu in this one. I adjusted the white balance to day white fluorescent instead of cool-white fluorescent, and I was much happier with the results after that change.

Camera settings for this shot:

ISO - 100

fStop - 3.5

Shutter Speed - 1/25

Picture Control - Vivid

White Balance - Day White Fluorescent