Day 153- Dark Lighting The Tribal House

I did not do much mini work since my last post until yesterday that is, when I decided to cram seven days worth of work into this one Sunday.  Needless to say, by the time I finished, I was seriously pooped. T'was not a day of rest for me, neither was it a really satisfying one.

I usually do not post about work in progress because the pictures are really depressing and everything is not quite how they should look. I made an exception today because I would like to  discuss "dark lighting" with anyone who will indulge me.

You see, my tribal house  is to be without electricity , too poor, too remote, not invented yet, being some of the reasons. Inspired by how Ronan-Jim Sevellec used invisible light points to create the right mood for his scenes, all dark, I thought I would try it too with this house.

I bought the Dioder lights from Ikea for about S$75.00. It was slightly more than what I paid for the LEDs in the tent but I thought this price to light up the whole house is not too bad.

These lights are long and tubular, easy to hide and  great in all aspects except that they are white and very bright.

Thank goodness for  Small Stuff Digest , someone suggested that you can paint the cover with yellow glass paint to change the hue of the light.

When it was still too bright, I went one step further and smeared black leading and it worked! The lights dimmed considerably.

This is the before picture of the house. I glued 2 of the smeared-lights against the wall behind the part of  roof parallel to the floor. I think the lights for the ground floor would probably be placed the same way after I figure out how to hide the wires properly. You can see from the picture on top that I have removed the staircase, ready to be bashed and re-positioned.

At this point, the house is not exactly what you will call pretty. Perhaps you can tell, barely, that  on the walls of the 1st room are naive tribal depictions of proud peacocks, once vibrant and colourful.

Now, they are faded and sooted from baskets of coal burning to keep the occupants warm while they work in this room.

Thatched roofs are notoriously bad for braving the elements and the tell tale signs can be seen on the once perfectly turquoise walls in this 2nd  room.

Somehow even the colours on the 3rd wall cannot seem to lift the gloom. Could the dark lighting be too effective? 

I must have been influenced by what I saw when I was in the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum in Innsbruck. There were Gothic and Rococo parlours  on display. These rooms were dark and gloomy and rather scary. Doesn't that lady in black who can be seen only when you enlarge the picture, send chills down your spine? She sure scared my friends, even though they knew she wasn't a ghost.

And in this other gloomy dining room, even the lady of  the house seemed troubled, perhaps planning a difficult dinner seating arrangement for four? 

I do think though that the  floor, dark though they may be, are not tired and worn enough for the house.

I compared them to my almost 80 year old floor and thought my real floor looked older. Perhaps I should scratch those floorboards with my miniature cabinets and dining table and see if that works.

I doubt though that  my Banjarans will allow the gloom to last. Once they move in with their colourful embroideries and personalities, you won't remember these before pictures. Definitely no lady ghost in black allowed....

Hey! Hang on....wait a minute here.... that was no ghost! That was ME! My friends were right, I even scared myself. Can you believe that for a moment there, I did not recognise who that was?