thomas and friends mini series

wow! what camera setting did you use to do that?

Well the settings themselves were a 4-second exposure at ISO 200, f/5.6 or f/8, and a bounced-up-and-behind-me flash (I don't know the GN or exact ceiling height) at 1/8 power, in a pretty dark room (I could see well enough to walk around in after my eyes adjusted), but it was a lot of experimentation to get there, so the process is probably more helpful:

• I started with regular "product" photography for all my minis: a tripod for the camera and a plain-white background (just a sheet of paper) and the room dark enough that the only light came from the flash (bounced up and behind me, off the ceiling) at full power; f/8 and 200 ISO and aperture-priority mode so I think 1/125 or 1/250.
  
• For the GitD minis I dropped the flash power, by experimentation, so there was enough light to show the details but without getting a fully-exposed photo. Setting the flash power to 1/8 seemed to be about right; neither 1/16 (couldn't see well enough) nor 1/4 (the glow wasn't prominent enough for me) turned out right.
  
• I played with the aperture a little and might have settled on f/5.6 instead of f/8 but I don't remember. It might have just let too much light in from the flash and "dulled" the glow in relation.
  
• I turned on the 2-second timer and put the camera in manual mode with a longer shutter speed to get the glow to expose after the flash was off. 4 seconds ended up being about right; 8 had too much noise and at 2 the glow wasn't really bright enough. There was a little bit of light from the TV and maybe a tiny bit from outside (the moon) but most of the light in the long exposure part should have been coming from the glow off the minis.
  • I shone my big flashlight on the minis for about 45 seconds before each picture, to "charge up" the glow. 20 seconds wasn't enough (I'm not sure Charlie got enough charging, for example).
• I tried changing the aperture a little, but was constrained by depth of field with the lens/distance I'd chosen; I never tried changing ISO because it's too hard to change with that camera but that's a good way to give yourself a little freedom one direction or the other.
  

The Thomas picture was one of the earlier attempts, with slightly-different settings (I think just ~10-15 seconds charging it up, and maybe a lower-powered flash or narrower aperture)