It’s quite popular nowadays to build a cool minifigure to take a decent photo of it. And why not? Building minifigures is one of the most satisfying things that LEGO has to offer, and mixing and matching is just so much fun (which I’ve mentioned before in previous articles) But some builders take it up a notch like Vangelis Katsikaros did with one of his latest creations, by placing a minifigure in a setting that is amazingly well put together.
Vangelis was so kind to take us through the process of making this cool upsidedown shot.
Chatting with VangelisBricks
Marco: Hello there! Jumping right in, how did you come up with the character in the photo? Do you have a favorite style of characters, as I can see you use a range, from City to Star Wars on your Instagram feed?
Vangelis: I like building immersive worlds with LEGO minifigures, particularly in medieval, fantasy and sci-fi settings. Plus, I have a soft spot for cyberpunk. I also like Star Wars—I like focusing on background characters like stormtroopers in everyday scenes.
When it comes to this particular scene, a few things happened around the same time. I always found BrickCentral’s “monthly theme” photo contests intriguing, but I’ve never had the time to participate. I really liked their last monthly theme, “You must create your own hero or villain. They can be alone or both in the same photo! Important: no known heroes or villains.” And I finally had some time to participate!
I am also a huge fan of movies, and I especially enjoy film scripts and behind-the-scenes content. Recently a YouTube channel I really enjoy, CinemaTyler, started a series on Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” This classic film explores war and the themes of power and influence in a lawless and unstructured world. With these two seeds in mind, I knew I wanted a character who blurred the lines between good and evil.
stormtroopers on patrol
Marco: Is there a deeper meaning or extended story behind the upside-down photo?
Vangelis: I’d like to attribute a deeper meaning to my work, but I think it just reflects my feelings after watching “Apocalypse Now” and the protagonist’s descent into a moral vertigo, chaos, and darkness. However, I consciously avoided integrating such complete darkness in the photo. I wanted a character who is both a hero and a villain. I didn’t work so much on a particular backstory, as the static medium of photography isn’t ideal for conveying a lot of details. But I knew I wanted hints of war, an evolution, a glimpse of the character’s dark side, and its consequences.
Marco: How did you come up with the idea of the mirrored shot? Where did you get your inspiration from?
Vangelis: As I was playing with the hero/villain idea, I remembered a photo from Jordi Koalitic. Both the “behind the scenes” and the end result impressed me.
This photo and “Apocalypse Now” merged into a mirrored world in my mind, and I locked down the idea. My character (whose name is Rowena, by the way) would be shown in a cheerful day shot surrounded by lush, spring-green scenery. And the second shot would be at night, hinting at war, destruction, skulls, and fire.
I then got sidetracked (as I usually do) by a faint connection I made up for my character’s backstory. I recalled Macbeth’s words when he realizes he has gone too far to the evil side and says: “I am in blood. Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more. Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” I played with Shakespeare’s words (well… probably butchered them, but I didn’t mind as I was having quite a bit of fun ????) and came up with a verse to capture the character’s situation: “Hero or villain. I wade through crimson, perhaps too far gone. Rowena.”
Marco: How did you take and edit the photo?
Vangelis: I started with the tree. Since it’s for a photo and not for display, I could make it look good only from one angle. If I can make my life easier, I will!
gaps on the side, because it’s built so the front looks good.
I also wanted the tree to look big, so I could only have branches going up and then independently have a thick layer of leaves falling down. So again, I made my life easier by not having to connect the foliage to the branches. The foliage is attached to a LEGO structure that keeps it hanging in the background, and I took test shots to ensure that the structure is not visible in the final cropped image.
Marco: How long did it take to get the shot, and what was your set-up like?
Vangelis: I worked on the shoot for about one week. I experimented a lot with the build, the camera setup, and the light (especially the night shot), so I needed some consistency. The following helped:
I went hands-free and used a mobile phone holder part of a tripod to keep the phone stable
I built an extension (the black plates on the side) to ensure that the adapter and the camera were always in the same place. The smartphone in the pics is for demonstration, and the extension is not the exact one I used for the shoot. But you get the idea.
Photo set-up
Photo setup
Marco: Did you take your photos indoors or outside, since I see blue sky in the background?
Vangelis: I used a monitor to get a background I could easily change and tweak. For example, for the night shot, I could easily position the moon exactly where I wanted it.
setup with monitor backdrop
For the backgrounds, I used a monitor and these two images under the Pixabay license.
Marco: What program do you use to bring it all together? And what kind of lights do you use?
Vangelis: For all the test shoots, I use Adobe’s Lightroom app (the free version). It’s one of the apps that allows complete control over some critical settings:
ISO—I wanted a small number to avoid grain, especially with the night shot.
Shutter speed—I wanted a slow speed to allow a lot of light to get in the camera, again for the light shot with the low ISO.
Focus—I wanted to focus exactly on the minifig face.
Having these settings on manual meant I had fixed settings and specific numbers I could tweak, so I could iterate on these settings (or the build) to improve it one thing at a time. Since iPhone cameras have fixed apertures, the depth of field is fixed for the same lens and focal point. That means you can control how blurry things look behind and in front of the subject, only by moving the phone closer or further away from the subject.
If any of the above technical terms (ISO, shutter speed, etc.) are not familiar to you, don’t be intimidated. It’s not rocket science. Go read Four Brick Tall’s Exposure Controls or Focal Length Effects articles and try it out for yourself. (Or this handy BrickNerd article!)
The night shot is lit by two Godox LED6R lights. These RGB lights also allow for specific settings (color and brightness), so I could easily maintain consistency and iterate across different days.
Finally, having the Lightroom app meant I could easily take a photo and then edit it directly on the phone (test my cropping, fix the light conditions, etc.). I am still not very familiar with Photoshop, so I used Gimp (a simpler, open-source and free software) to perform the final editing of the mirrored shot.
Marco: Do you have any other specific tips or tricks that you use when taking photos of minifigures?
Vangelis: I started LEGO photography when I bought a used iPhone 13 Pro at the start of 2024. I am quite new to the hobby, and other more skilled photographers have described tips and tricks better than I can possibly do. So, I’ll point you to Four Bricks Tall’s material on photography, which has been crucial to improving my skills. More specifically, check out the Phone Photography Tips for LEGO Photographers post where Four Bricks Tall, alongside tongwars and edgy_mando, describe a few basic but important steps that help you make more mindful photographic decisions.
I’ll simply echo the “practice, practice, practice” part. You see one final photo from me that looks good, but you haven’t seen my other 99 mediocre shots or the photo setup dead ends I ran into. My home studio process is roughly the following:
Take a photo.
Improve one thing either in the build or the photography setup.
Repeat 100 times.
Ultimately, end up with one photo I’d call worthwhile.
For outdoor shoots, I usually need to work faster because the light changes or because the environment simply doesn’t allow me to spend a lot of time in one spot. But the principle remains the same.
Obviously, an experienced photographer could achieve the same result faster. However, even professional photographers, who carry the experience of thousands of photographs and test equipment shots, still perform many tests and take dozens, if not hundreds, of photographs during a photo shoot, only to pick a handful in the end.
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View fullsize
View fullsize
Marco: Looking back on this project, do you have anything you would change next time?
Vangelis: While I am happy with the result, I’m always seeking ways to improve. This shoot offers three lessons for future projects:
For the daylight shot, I worked indoors as I lacked a clean outdoors sky backdrop. The main tree and the character are lit well. I’d keep the tree trunk and foliage dark to simulate light under a big tree. However, the background could be improved by targeted lighting on the background props.
For the night shot, I would try a less dark photo so that details are easier to discern, yet still keep the feeling that it’s night.
If I do a mirrored setup again, I’ll use an actual mirror. I want to test if it will make editing the border (the layer of part 68211 in reddish brown) easier with a better-looking result.
An experienced photographer would likely spot more critical areas for improvement, so I always welcome feedback! I have no idea which parts of my (somewhat random) thought process and inspirations made it to the photo, but I don’t think it matters that much. At the end of the day, I’d be happy if I managed to get across a character who blurs the boundaries between hero and villain.
Marco: Thank you so much for your time and such a great, in-depth look into this creation!
Not sure what background to use? Start experimenting with backgrounds on a monitor!
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