Dollarstore magical circle in Playing with matches.

Another cheap and cheerful thing considering DIY lighting.

 

After coming to the conclusion that I had wanted to do a slightly more funny introduction for Melty, I came up with the idea of having two of the little one's perform some magic that backfired.

 

The centerpiece would be the magical circle, which by default would have been most easy to do with post photoshop, but I started to consider could it be possible to conjure one up with practical lighting on a budget.

 

So this is what we are producing:

 

As a visual trick, this is quite simple, and folks that are more versed with photography probably know how it was made, but for those who dont, here is the recipie:

 

First we need a lightsource with a desired color. Id recomend those LED-discs they sell at Ikea, where you can select a steady color, but for this, I didnt want to do the three hour drive to the nearest one and back, so I decided to use this:

A cheap and cheerfull few dollar knick-knack glass ornament I picked up last christmass, with a illuminating base, that has three leds that allows it to change color.

 

Then we need a magical circle. I was on a bit of a tight schedule, so I didnt have time to design my own, so I rudely took the first one that I found with google.

 

Printed on normal copy paper, and cut out the edges, and used a black felt marker to dye the edges:

 

So how it all works is pretty simple, just have a beam of light that just lights up the paper circle, and nothing else, and for that I combined the ghetto-snoot concept with the light base:

 

The only problem with this cheaper alternative, as opposed to the ikea one is that if I wanted a specific color, I had to wait for it to show up, and hope I caught it in time.

 

Setting it all up was another thing. Again pitch black surroundings, black velvet to absorb all excess light so the two dolls would only show up on the photo.

 

I used the two ghetto-snoots in a criss-cross style, so that the edge of each beam would just illuminate their own doll, and strung up the colored light source above the paper circle just so it only lighted it.

 

A slightly poor shot of the rig, (slightly cramped quarters, but its the only place in my house I can get into near darkness at noon):

 

After setting up exposure with the camera, this is the end result:

 

And a few examples of the wandering color from the base:

Great write up! Thanks for sharing. Learned a few things! haha

Cool idea! I would like to see bigger circles too!

Great write up! Thanks for sharing. Learned a few things! haha

Thank you very many, and you're welcome.

 

Cool idea! I would like to see bigger circles too!

 

mmm, unfortunately this is probably the biggest circle you can do with this gag, without having problems with the lights going over eachother, unwanted shadows or discoloration.

 

I have a few ideas for a bigger circle that you could place dolls into, going along the lines as the makeshift circle in Chuunibyo, but the main version I have in mind is quite labor intensive, and im not 100% sure how it would show up in photos.