Post #582783 by bigbrotiki on Thu, Mar 31, 2011 6:50 PM

On 2011-03-31 07:46, Unkle John wrote:

On 2011-03-30 16:20, bigbrotiki wrote:

Uncle John, those really wanna have colored light bulbs in them! :D

Hey, that's a good idea! LOL
That is actually something I'm working on for all of these wooden souvenir mugs I have.

OK, I am officially confused: How do you light up WOODEN Tiki mugs by putting light bulbs in them?

I was so confused I decided that in order to better explain what I had in mind, I would experiment a little with MY glass mugs. As a lighting cameraman my philosophy is always that the actors and objects should look like they are glowing from the INSIDE, not like light is being thrown on them. The same goes for Tiki Lounge lighting in my mind: Everything should GLOW softly! Like the Beachcomber lamps on the ceiling.

I started with my SMALL, CLEAR Disneyworld goblet, by using a red, frosted X-mas light bulb:

Conventional lighting wisdom tells you that to get a glow, softer (frosted) light sources are better, but when I used a CLEAR amber bulb in the same clear glass:

...the harder light was refracting in the edges and corners of the molded glass much more effectively, giving me a better rendition of the outlines of the mask!

The same proved to be true for the BIG, FROSTED Disneyworld goblet. Here's a frosted, purple bulb:

...and here an amber clear bulb:

Although not as even, the facial features are clearer defined. Here is the bulb I recommend:

A 15W amber flame tip

You should be able to still get some colored TUNGSTEN light bulbs at your local hardware store.
Now the WHITE frosted and clear goblets take any color bulb, from red to blue to green or yellow, but for the green and amber colored mugs, don't use the COMPLEMENTARY color, because the two opposing colors will cancel each other out:

A red bulb in a green glass mug for example just creates a red hot spot, but makes the rest of the glass almost black in parts, instead of making it glow. I know in the photo it looks like flames, but it doesn't in real life, it just breaks up the facial features. A green, clear bulb will work much better (I didn't have one).

For all other mugs, I like using X-mas light strings for my collection -but not like this!:

This kind of X-mas lighting destroys any authentic atmosphere in a bar.

The cords have to be hidden, and the bulbs should work like foot lights on a stage:

My favorite X-mas string bulbs have these PEARL bulbs:

When not lit, they look like South Sea pearls lying around! :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2011-03-31 19:04 ]