Dragon Statue
This statue has been a favourite of mine for years having sat guarding the fireplace at my late parent-in-laws house. It’s now found a home with me and was crying out to be scanned.
I wanted to get the maximum level of details so opted to use the best camera and lens combo available to me at the time.
Refining my process further, helped me figure out the optimal way to use the turntable, arrange the tripod, and ensure I got full 360-degree coverage, including the underside of the base.
This model is available to buy on Fab if you like it: Click Here
Capture Process:
To accurately digitise the statue, I set up a controlled indoor environment designed to minimise lighting inconsistencies and background distractions.
The dragon was placed on a raised platform against a neutral black backdrop to help with clean masking during processing. For lighting, I used a cross-polarised setup — a linear polariser on the flash and a circular polarising filter on the lens — to reduce surface reflections and reveal fine surface detail.
The camera was mounted on a tripod and paired with a RIKO400 ring flash, delivering consistent lighting.
A motorised turntable automated the process, rotating the statue by 10 degrees and triggering the camera shutter at each step. This ensured precise, evenly spaced coverage around the full 360 degrees. To capture the underside, I simply laid the statue on its side and continued using the turntable, ensuring a fully watertight 3D model.
Why scan this?
While this is just a household or garden ornament, it nevertheless provides a great case study to test out scanning techniques and setups. I’ve always loved this statue and it made a perfect test subject here.
The main purpose of this session was to really hone the “void” setup with black backdrop and cross polarised ring flash. I use the turntable to automate and optimise the imaging process, and achieve consistent image coverage.
