It’s Valentines week/birthday week, so this is a multipurpose post where I get to make a new portrait of my sweetie and indulge in talking about things that make me happy.
I’m coming close to finishing the first in a new series, but there are still a few more problems to solve before I can move on to the final stages of that first image. I’m doing my best with that artwork, so it’s taking a long time, and (I think) I’m learning a lot in the process of trying, failing, and trying again. One of the things (I hope) I’m learning is how to avoid the major pitfalls I’ve encountered while working on the first piece in the new series so that the others that follow will take less time to complete. Taking a break from that project for a moment, I’ve gone back to a project from last year’s to-do list.
This is a portrait of Elizabeth MacDougald as Nightmist from Sentinels of the Multiverse. Some context may be necessary. The inspiration for this session came from a conversation with Sentinels creator Christopher Badell, who mentioned the possibility of creating some Sentinels cosplay photography at Gen Con, so I photographed these images as a proof of concept.
I’ll begin with the photography and follow with the context for those who are interested.
Photography
We photographed these Nightmist portraits on January 20, 2023.
We used a single large diffused umbrella camera left and a V-flat for fill, camera right. Camera settings were 85mm, f/8, ISO 100, 1/125.
This was a proof of concept shoot for a potential Distant Era Gen Con cosplay photography project, as well as a practice lighting test for a mentorship I was planning to take with art god Chris Koeppen the following month. I therefore used the simplest lighting I could.
I have only two things to say about this extremely uncomplicated lighting.
1. After a single small brightness adjustment, the photos looked far better than I expected.
2. I used the same lighting on an August 2023 shoot for Elizabeth in an alternate version of the costume, with a shutter speed of 1/200 and the same light slightly farther away and perhaps less feathered (the light slightly in front of the subject rather than directly on her)—I don’t see the stand in as many shots of the second session, and I didn’t crop in as close. Thus, moving the light slightly farther away, slightly more direct, and shooting at a slightly faster shutter speed made an observable difference in the quality of the light between the two sessions using the same setup, lens, and subject. I point this out because the difference is worth noting.
We actually did a third, very quick Nightmist shoot in December 2023 when Elizabeth obtained a Smoke Genie (handheld smoke device) for use with her cosplay. No digital effects here—these are practical effects using the Smoke Genie.
Editing
I didn’t get back to this proof of concept for a year. That particular Gen Con project didn’t materialize in 2023, most of the year was an insane rush, and after my February mentorship with Chris Koeppen, I wanted to do the project with different lenses on different backgrounds.
Here we are in February 2024, and I needed a break from the fine detail work of my current Distant Era project. I wondered if I could practice some of the lessons I learned from Chris and apply them to something I could make in a single day without being a perfectionist.
I’d already masked the image in 2023, though I don’t remember having done so. I didn’t go about this edit as I normally do. I used a background supplied by Photoshop and then jumped around, experimenting at random. Because the character has misty powers, I went heavy on the mist. It would be difficult to explain my random editing, so here’s a video.
And there you have it! Thanks for checking out this quick composite.
For those who wish to know the context, read on!
What is Sentinels of the Multiverse?
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative tabletop board game created by Christopher Badell (game design) and Adam Rebottaro (art) in 2011. In this game, each player has a deck of cards representing a superhero. Each deck plays emphasizes the characteristics of the hero it represents. For example, the speedy hero Tachyon’s deck has her playing card after card after card on her turn, whereas the crimefighting hero Wraith has a deck full of gadgets that help her overcome obstacles and bad guys. The players cooperate to take down a villain, which has its own deck of threats that makes trouble for the heroes, in an environment that is also represented by a deck that can help or hinder either side in the conflict (dinosaurs are dangerous, but can be helpful if they’re focused on eating the villains’ minions!).
Who Are the Sentinels of the Multiverse, and Why Do People Care?
First, the game was a great idea, and cooperating to take defeat a villain with friends was fun. But there was a deeper reason people became invested.
The heroes in Sentinels of the Multiverse are analogous to popular heroes from Marvel, DC, etc. In the example above, Tachyon is like the Flash. The Wraith is Batman. And so on. They’re familiar heroes people identified with easily.
But in addition to the game mechanics written on the card, there’s a panel of comic book art expressing what the card does; the bottom of the card features a quote from that comic book, along with the comic book series and issue number. In the current (2021) Sentinels of the Multiverse Definitive Edition of the game, the art on each card resembles comic art of the era in which the issue was supposedly published (1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, etc.).
However, these comic books do not exist!
The creators of the game have, over decades, mapped out a fictitious history of a publisher called Sentinel Comics and the lines of comics they published. They’ve even created (hundreds of) episodes of their The Letters Page podcast, in which they develop the stories that happened in particular comics, and then Adam Rebottaro illustrates a cover reflective of the style popular when that issue would have been published.
As a result, the (2021 Definitive Edition) game feels like an immersive experience.
I love immersive experiences.
Sentinels of the Multiverse doesn’t assume familiarity with its universe the way perhaps a Marvel or DC themed game might, so every element must communicate context, and it is that well conceived context that immerses us and invites our imaginations to wonder about these characters.
So Who Is Nightmist, and Why Does Elizabeth Care?
For years, Elizabeth has been a rabid Doctor Strange fan. And a raving Sherlock Holmes fan. For their Doctor Strange character, Sentinels of the Multiverse has Nightmist, a female private eye named Faye Diamond who inherited magical powers and dealt with all things mystical, from creatures of Faerie to Lovecraftian entities from beyond. When Elizabeth learned about this character, she was enthralled. She realized she could put together a Nightmist cosplay from the clothes in her closet. Soon she was a member of The Letters Page Patreon and on a quest to listen to every Letters Page podcast.
In 2022, Elizabeth put that cosplay together. Her ultimate wish was to present her costume before the creators. When Christopher Badell saw her Nightmist cosplay, his joyful reaction totally made her convention. Then he gifted her a copy of Nightmist’s deck to play six months before its release!
Meeting the Makers
In a small-world coincidence, Elizabeth wore her Nightmist costume to Origins 2023. At the convention, we asked questions about an upcoming Sentinels of the Multiverse-themed board game, which we learned was designed by Richard Lanius. As we stood in the hall idly looking at games, a man approached and said, “Hey, are you Nightmist?”
Elizabeth said she was, and the man introduced himself as Richard Lanius (of Arkham Horror fame), the game designer who had created Nightmist for the original Rook City expansion roughly ten years prior. So as a complete coincidence, Nightmist met her maker.
In a second small-world coincidence, when we photographed Laughing Stock’s commedia show in Chicago in 2022, the actor playing Dottore in that show was Andy Huttel, who just so happened to be Christopher’s college roommate!
That’s all for this week and a relatively quick Nightmist cosplay edit. But I might not be done talking about Sentinel Comics and how I’ve used it to practice compositing!
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