Making a Light box for under $25 US

[Cruor Vault]

Making a Light box for under $25

Everyone sees those really nice pictures of miniatures on the gaming sites and PLogs of vets all across the interwebz. But how do they get them you ask? Well, they have light boxes; even with a crummy camera you can take some really nice images with the help of a light box. Today I’m going to talk about making one from scratch for under $25 US.

First I found a cardboard box in my closet. A leftover from when a roommate got a new computer. Luckily it was a Dell box so it was already white inside, a bonus for me as it meant I wouldn’t have to coat the inside of the box with something white.

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_155842.jpg

I went to my local grocery store and purchased some duct tape, a sheet of glossy white poster board, 3 daylight bulbs and a double headed power cord called a couch cord.

I also went to my local Jo-Ann fabrics and purchased a yard of white polyester.
(Pro-tip: Don’t piss off the old women who work there with questions like, “can I ask a question?” They can keep you waiting for nearly half an hour by cutting string very very slowly!)

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_155928.jpg

After I got all my supplies I was ready to get started.

3x Daylight Bulbs $5 each
Couch power cord $5
Duct tape $1
Polyester $3
Poster board $.79

Total $24.79 + Tax!

First I drew out the holes I wanted to cut in the box, top, left and right, roughly 2” from the edges of the faces. This leaves enough material for the box to be stable once three faces are cut out of it.

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_160322.jpg

Then I used a fresh Exacto blade to neatly cut out the panels, like so.

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_160923.jpg

[Cruor Vault]

With the panels cut out it is time to put on the fabric. The yard of Polyester I bought was folded in half. I draped it over the top and let it hang down the sides; it fit exactly over the shape of the box! I taped it down along the front and rear sides and stretched it to make sure there were no wrinkles in the fabric once I put the tape on.

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_161605.jpg

After doing that I took the piece of card stock and dry fit it to see if it would fit in the box. I wound up needing to cut off about 1.5” from one of the long edges. After that it slid smoothly into place.

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_161924.jpg

Originally I planned to only attach it at the top using tape, but I got ahead of myself and didn’t leave a way to hide the Silver tape, so instead I chose to super glue the board into place. That didn’t work well as you can see from the marks on the board in the above picture. At the bottom I left it free hanging to I could change the positioning and angle of the backdrop at will.

And with that the box was done, time to set it up!

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/IMG_20110127_162447.jpg

I have 2 lamps on my painting desk, little $5 arm lamps I got from Target or something. I used those along with the couch cord to provide light to the sides of the box. For the top light I took my desk lamp and attached it to the table behind the light box so it could shine through the top. The couch cord was a nice touch here too. It is basically a single plug with 2x5’ extension cords coming off it. This meant I could have all 3 lights plugged into a single wall outlet!

And here is the result. I took this picture with my Android phone and the light box I had just made!

http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx268/CruorVault/goodspeeder.jpg

[Mike X]

Not too shabby! I might have to make one of these myself. Thanks for the post!

[Force21]

wow thats great.


Thanks for the Info.

[Duke]

Sweet! Now go build me one, lol.

In all honesty the picture looks great! I seriously need to get ine if these made or just go and buy one.

Duke

[isotope99]

Very helpful, I'm getting tired of struggling with one light and a piece of polystyrene, will have to give this a try.

Now I just need to find one (or three) of these so-called daylight bulbs in the UK at a not ridiculous price.

[rustbucket]

Thanks for the tutorial, ideas like this one are pure genius! For sure have to make one of these so I can start posting some of my work up here - that and keep the camera out of my toddlers hands - works better that way:)