Quoting Parrington Levens
Hey there Jesse, I can't quite make these out but I love the back story. In terms of lighting, you just have to try out the different flash settings on your camera and play around with different angles, and also look into ensuring white backdrops etc. These things tend to help. I have been slowly improving in this area myself.
Keep building mate...
Thanks for the encouargement and advice, Parrington, and I am also sorry for mistakenly calling you Paddington on one of your posts about one of your own MOCs. I will see what I can do to adjust the settings on my digital camera.