Remember that little lightbox photo studio thing I made a few years ago? It’s just cardboard and tissue paper with a posterboard insert, but it does the job nicely. On small items at least. When it came to my recent Transformers reviews this wasn’t all that sufficient. Masterpiece Optimus is too big for the box and he’s not even my tallest Transformer. There are other items that don’t work well there either to come I’m sure. I also don’t think I have enough lighting right now to pull it off and I usually have to lighten the photos in my photo editor. I need something else to help me out.

Needing projects for the winter my dad decided to build me a larger photo studio for the toys and whatever comes later, but I was worried I’d still have the same problem. Some of the video-based toy reviewers I follow on YouTube like TJ Omega, Pixel Dan, and Vangelus use more of a stage approach. While TJ and Vangelus use a “chain base” backdrop (which led to my testing the Block City “warehouse” in the recent Alternator reviews) Dan uses a simple stage. Since my toy reviews are in article form (for time mostly) I don’t need anything that elaborate. It just has to be visually interesting in the articles. So we went a very simple stage, and with the limited space I have to set such a thing up he made it portable.

The case you see below my cardboard lightbox is an old toolcase. I don’t know what he did with the tools–possibly putting them in a toolbox or something–and what he planned to use the case for fell through, so that was the base he decided to use. And that’s one thing you’ve seen before here at The Clutter Reports, re-purposing old items for new uses. And this may work out for me.

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