A few people have asked me how I do the lighting for the photographs of my kids' Lego models.
I found this how-to article on the interweb. It's pretty simple and cheap.
If you don't want to use a tripod, you'll have to flood the scene with a crap-load of light. For my setup, I use two halogen shop lights, totaling 1kw. Needless to say, the working environment gets pretty hot. It's a shame that 90% of that 1kw is converted into heat.
It's not a perfect solution, but I'm happy with the results. I still have to tweak the colors a bit, and the size of the model is limited by the size of the bucket.
Here is the setup:
 |  |
 |  |