I know a good few of you guys are lightpainting so I'd be interested to find out what kind of gear you're using?
Maybe Saturday wasn't the best time to post this?
LED isn't the way to go as you get separation in the bulbs which gives a very streaky effect.
I use a 12V fluero tube which I run off a car battery. It's not really powerful enough, but when it's not, I just do shorter exposures, moving the light slower, and link them up in pp.
I used to use LED's but would either get the streaks (even through a built in defuser) mentioned above, or the light was to soft once defused in a softbox.
recently I've been carrying a vagabond and painting with a softbox covering the modelling lamp on a studio light. Been getting super clean results!
This shot was 3 layers. Top. Side. Front(Bonnet grille). Took about 5 minutes in shop layering and killing a few stray light trails from a hole in the back of light box. clean as!
Very clean! This seems to be the way most people are going about light painting recently.
Took two takes. Once for the side of the car, and once for the rear. Ambient sources caused the small highlights.
Yup have looked at these but really want to go fully portable - and as you've mentioned 12v isn't quite powerful enough. In an ideal world I'd like a large portable fluoro for less than £100 - but probably asking the impossible!
Been using this for a few years now. You can use it with or without modifiers to suit. It'll burn your eyes out if you want (ie it's quite powerful), or you can turn down the brightness or number of banks of LED's operating to suite. I made it because I couldn't buy anything like it. Still works well although I hardly ever light paint any more.
battery powered, no cables, light enough to comfortably use for long periods.
small softbox fitted, but can have a larger modifier fitted if needed.
No problem. There are lots of different methods you can use, it just depends on what you want. Custom building things isn't for everyone, but I don't mind doing that kind of thing.