Photo Challenge: Macro Plastic

This week's PhotoChallenge.org challenge is to take macro (close up) pictures of something made of plastic.  The idea is to take something common-place that we would normally not notice and see what it looks like blown up and close.

I took a little walk-through of my home and discovered that I have many plastic toys, trinkets, etc. sitting around on my copious shelves.  So I gathered a handful of these pocket-sized models and got to work taking some portraits!

First up was my model of Brandon Lee as The Crow.  This was one of my favorite movies (and graphic novels as well) during my college years and I've been hanging onto this little trinket since then.   I did my best to get his face in some shadow during the shoot.  I changed the tint to a blue cast to match that of the movie, then added a vignette to focus more on the face.  I think it turned out pretty good considering it this guy's face is about a half-inch in size.

Next up is a plastic miniature of a mummy.  I painted this little inch-tall fellow when I was about 15 years old.  Mostly these old miniatures were for playing Warhammer tabletop battles, and they now sit in boxes or in a small display case on my study wall.  I miss the days when I had time to do this intricate work and then spend 8 hours with friends trying to get through a whole game...

Here's a size reference picture...

Next I pulled out my old dice bag from decades of playing Dungeons & Dragons and many more role-playing games.  I don't get much use for these anymore, but can't get rid of them.  This was a good excuse to put them on display again!  These little bits of plastic and I have been through many a vicious battle with dragons, werewolves, and more…

And last but not least was to showcase the new meeples I ordered for the amazing board game Lords Of Waterdeep.  The game was designed in part by my old schoolmate Peter Lee and is one of the most fun games I've played in years.  You should buy it now.  In an attempt to be a little more like the European board games, the player's hirelings (wizards, clerics, rogues, fighters) are represented by different colored wooden tokens--usually called "meeples" by gamers.  Nothing says "fighter" like an orange block!  My wife refuses to call them by name and instead calls them carrots.  So I purchased a pack of tiny meeples shaped like the characters!