Home studio - How to get good photographs

To build a home studio you will need a few things:

Camera - I used a Nikon D3000
Tripod - Any tripod will do
Lighting - this is very important, spend time on this. I used 2 PAR 56's stage lights on tripods
Backdrop of some description - I used poster roll on a T BAR stand

Spend a while adjusting your settings. Shutter speed and aperture for example, and make sure your white balance is set correctly. You can normally get away with using a higher ISO for studio shoots.

Optional extras

Fan
Props
Face paint

Here are 2 of the results