I woke up this morning only to be updated with the passing of Ian Lawrence. Call it hero worship if you will but in terms of modeling and lighting, I really do admired him since his ideas were quite far ahead at the time. Despite his outlook and approcah on Life with humour, sadly, it was this latest adventure which was his last. Over the past few weeks, his condition deteriorated rapidly and eventually, in the last few hours, he has left many of us.
What gets to me was that here I am. unable to support myself much other than the daily life, and with such friends far away, I could only text words of encouragement, if I had the nerve. I could not be physically there to shake his hands or even share a drink. It is too late now and so, I bid you Farewell, Ian.
You’re one of the Guys who really got me fired up with Scale Lighting in the most unconventional ways.
WHAT IS THE RAYTHEON EFFECT
It was during the time of the Forums, in theRPF where I first discovered the term. Ian’s solution caught everyone by surprise and therefore, the term, ‘Raytheon Effect’ was born and also, because his forum name was… Raytheon. Many who has built the 1-metre long 1/350 Enterprise Refit had the problem of recreating the spotlight effects as seen in the movie. Talks of different using LEDs , mirrors and so on was being discussed. At that time, the bright White LEDs were not even on the market and even in 2023 now, their hotspot effect was ineffective over anything more than a few centimetres. plus you’d still need to fashion a light mask to create that shape. Ian came up with the solution of of using internal lightboxes and lightbleeds to re-create the effect which, to most, was quite convincing. On other words, you shine the LED from the inside and use tapes and paint to shape that light radiation pattern.
However, this only works if you have the original Polar Lights model instead of the Round2 which comes with the Aztec Decals. The Polar Lights plastic will glow white when shone with a white light source as compared to the Round2 which has a yellowish tint.
If you go to his website, much has been cleaned up and you can still fin his notes on the Raytheon Effect and also, on this very informative Website by paulpeacockmusic.
