Wow your scene is really fantastic, but only one screen doesn’t deserve your work. could we have a few more?
I"m also impressed by you concept sketch.
You are really gifted! how lucky you are 
I hope we will not wait so long as before for the next udpdate.
5 stars for you
I had this exact same idea after watching that documentary a few months ago but decided it was outwith my current skill level!!
Your model looks great but the poses of the riders looks a bit out of place to me…Robert the Bruce does not look like he has really swung the axe and de Bohun does not look like he is mid-charge either.
If anything I would say the Bruce needs to have rotated the shoulders more to look like he has truly swung the axe (in the way that the story tells us he did).
As for de Bohun, I have some pictures taken at a jousting tournament a few years ago and the knights seem to be more hunched forward and braced for the hit. I can send you a few if you want them.
Your model looks great but the poses of the riders looks a bit out of place to me…Robert the Bruce does not look like he has really swung the axe and de Bohun does not look like he is mid-charge either.
Yes, I definitely agree with your statement but I know a few tricks to make it appear as if the axe has been swung, maybe a bit of blur and I still have to add a little more to the image, like dirt being kicked up and maybe a bit of dust. Its also amazing how a bit of composition will help as you can see from the images below.
[left]Although you cant really tell that he is leaning into the blow in the previous image, the image below does show a moderate lean. There is a reason for it being moderate and not over exaggerated, knights gear at the time consisted of a padded coat and on top of that was chain mail then they put on a coat of plates to protect their chest and vital organs from lance blows and all of this gear would of restricted movement. Thanks for the crits xraymtb :).[/left]
[left] [/left]
[left]Cheers dagann 
[/left]
[left]Here’s four different views of the same image I’ve given him a bit more a beard, although it looks a bit solid right now. Anyway still working on Robert and the horse. [/left]
[left]
[/left]
this is really a great work ! cant wait to see the updates.
the only critic i will made, is the right arm of the left man.
it will be more powerfull with a pose like in the painting.
:buttrock:
Red squirell, i really like the top left picture.
It brings us into the middle the action.
Could we see the de Bohun helmet in a closer view and in a wire view?
Cause i would like to know how you managed to oraganize the wire of the helmet.
Making holes with right angles in a curving surface is not so easy.
Red Squirrell,
Your scene is getting completely awesome!
Very cool composition and the moment… About to hit the helmet with the axe. Very very tense. Hats off to your research.
Looks like you´ve finished modeling the horses. If so, I´ve nothing to suggest, but if you´re still working on them, I have a little observations as a horse lover and ex-amateur equestrian “athlete”, rider or wathever (show jumping) and as an illustrator that loves to sketch horses.
Bryan suggested some good points. Here are my observations (please, don´t get me wrong. These is unpretentious stuff):
I mention the Andalusian because it, or the Barb, as Bryan mentioned, seems to be the “model” of horse more used in medieval times, at least from all the illustrations, paintings and tapestries (correct me if I´m wrong). Figures of crusaders show horses with very large, powerfull and short necks, convex heads and not too defined muscles. A lot like an andalusian or lipizzan. And their hair is “distinguishably” soft and beautiful.
A good book I have here with good tips on drawing horses (and the author draws very well) is How To Draw Animals, by Jack Hamm.
Only unpretensious observations, as I´ve said, because your scene is… no words to say.
Awesome.
Cheers.
Degann sorry for not getting back sooner, here is the close up of the wire
Well I bought two books recently English Medieval Knight 1300-1400(Osprey publishing) and John Barbour’s The Bruce. Just to make sure that I hadn’t got anything wrong. The medieval knight 1300-1400 was a complete waste of money, really I got more information from the internet and looking at images of knights effigies than I got form that book. But John Barbour’s The Bruce, which is actually a really long poem(although I got the translated one which isn’t) written in about the 1370 was brilliant, and to be honest after reading that, Braveheart is a huge insult so much of an insult that I put the DVD in the bin. In the book the accounts of the time are for the most part historically accurate and I was interested to see that William Wallace was not even mentioned although the book does start of a few years after his death. I would liken this book to one of those cult Japanese Samurai films, you know the ones similar to Kill Bill with arms being chopped off and heads being cut off all very gory. But Barbour does glorify and demonize both the English and Scottish knights which is good that although it is written form the Scots point of view he is not afraid to write that they too did evil things in those times.
Anyway the main reason for getting the book was for this image and there it clearly states that Henry de Bohun was a real character and not only that but he was the cousin to Humphrey de Bohun. It also gives clear facts like when this happened Robert the Bruce wore on his basnet a hard leather hat and on top of that he had a crown, and he was on a small grey nimble horse. Not only that they charged each other and he hit de Bohun so hard that not even hat nor helm could withstand the blow and the axe went through the skull into the brain. Another description was that it was sunny that day and that from a distance they could see the light reflected brightly of the English helmets. And another important bit of information was given to me at the end of the book was that during one battle the Scots where amazed because of two things they had never seen before, one was cannon and the sound that it made(obviously it didn’t do much damage because he just mentions the sound) and two where crests on the helms, I actually read that a few times because I was not sure what he meant about crests on the helms, but then it clicked he must of meant crest like those seen on jousting helms seeing that this battle happened after Bannockburn it means that Henry de Bohun did not have a crest on his helm.
So here’s it is almost finished if not for a few touch ups I changed the arm position, textured them, the chain mail turned out quite nice especially on King Robert displacement mapping gave the best result and took up allot of memory but its OK for a still. The background is actually a composite of pictures I took at the Bannockburn monument.
lol I have just noticed that I forgot to model the shoulder strap for the shield :shrug:
Hey redsquirrel, happy to see you again.
Thanks for the wire pic.
Your scene is really looking good.
I have many questions.
1/ Wich soft are your working with? The same soft for the make of norm and disp maps?
2/ So if i understood right, you made the mail with a disp map?
3/Is there only displacement map or also normal maps?
4/Are these maps 16 or 32 bits?
5/ By the way, will you make the armies in the back ground? Cause it is as if there were 2 lonely knights fighting in a field. Or may be making a few details suggesting a battle is about to start.
6/Why didn’t you like the osprey book? For my part, i like this book. Of course it’s quite small, but it gives good informations and nice drawings.
Could you give us your internet sources?
Tkanks fktt
Hi Dagann hope this answers some of you questions.
1/ Wich soft are your working with? The same soft for the make of norm and disp maps?
I partly use blender itself to make a depth/shadow map of some chainmail I modelled. Then I saved that image and opened it up in Gimp I then created a tiled map, then I used a Normal mapping plugin( http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/%7ecocidius/normalmap/ ) to make my normal map form the depth map I’m sure Photoshop has a similar plugin.
2/ So if i understood right, you made the mail with a disp map?
3/Is there only displacement map or also normal maps?
I used every type of map to get that chainmail effect, I originally used normal maps, alpha maps, bump maps but found none of these gave a me what I was looking for, blender had just added a new displacement modifier, so I thought I would give that a try.
It gave me that look I was going for but took away render time and ate away at my memory. So in the end I used displacement maps with the normal map.
4/Are these maps 16 or 32 bits?
For mapping, most maps where in Jpg format for the size although there was some in Tga. I didn’t use any HDR files or any thing like that.
5/ By the way, will you make the armies in the back ground? Cause it is as if there were 2 lonely knights fighting in a field. Or may be making a few details suggesting a battle is about to start.
I did actually, I made the army so that it would sit down in the valley…
it just looks odd to me. I took the background from scenery at the monument at Bannockburn. I thought it would be nice too put something from that landscape in the piece. In all honesty John Barbour described the landscape at the time, as most of it being dense woodland it was know as the the Park… and where the battle took place was in an open field, Robert the Bruce chose this because he blocked the main road to the castle with deep pot holes so it forced the large English army to go through the woods which broke up their lines for when they came out into this open field, the only ones who kept their lines where the English knights in the vanguard. So I know my background is bit off and a bit high there should be lots of trees and lots of men in the background. Maybe I will change it.
6/Why didn’t you like the osprey book? For my part, i like this book. Of course it’s quite small, but it gives good informations and nice drawings.
Could you give us your internet sources?
Well the Osprey book do give a lot of information on how the knights lived and there a few illustration of the knights but if you have a look on the net you’ll find the same information and even more references.
One of the best reference sites I found was this site with pictures of effigies of knights and a time line which shows how armour changed.
[http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20century%20armour.htm
And There’s the Maciejowski Bible
[url=“http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/maciejowski_images_45.htm”]http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/maciejowski_images_45.htm](http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20century%20armour.htm)
Some good references of knights and battles, browse history and click on 25 images
http://www0.kb.nl/manuscripts/browser/index.html
Ow and heres an update of Good King Roberts face, I used it to test out blenders new SSS. The hair is nice too
Thx for all your explanations.
I definitly think you should make mattpainting on the original photo to make it stick to the wood land of the battle.
Didn’t you told us the battle day was shiny
The websites are great.
Dou you also know same kind of sites but about the XVth century?
The head’s Robert the Bruce is looking excellent.
Well I don’t know if this would suite you if you go to the British libraries On-line gallery, http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html and look at the FLEMISH MASTERS IN MINIATURE the Golf Book dates around 1400-1600 I think, use the magnifying glass and you will see all sort of things, there an illustration of knights jousting. But other that I haven’t looked at any other centuries other than the 1250-1400.
RedSquirrel you are wowreat … jaja… so let me ask this again, you are using Blender with jahka particles…right>? What render engine are you using>?
Was the composition made with nodes >?
Well let me start off by saying everything was done in blender and with the official 2.44 release so I didn’t use that jahka version for the hair particles, instead I used a hell of allot of curve guides :surprised . Rendering was also done with blenders native renderer and its not hard to achieve a good result with it, the partical count for the hair on his head was 100000 the beard 8000 and the eyebrows 500, the original render size is 800 by 800 and with all the mapping texturing and SSS it only took about me 20min to render. As for the node set-up let just say that If you have a look at other programs tutorials such as Maya you’ll find plenty off them on SSS then all you have to do it try and use some of their techniques in your node set-up.
Well here’s the new composition… well actually it looks more like my original version but it shows off more, I’ve also added the woodland background which was made up of a few pictures I’ve taken. I’ve dulled down the image slightly the colours seemed to bright to me, but it also added effect of making the image look a bit older which is great.
Everything is really good and your attention to detail is awesome. But I think for a still shot as you’re doing here, you should capture a different frame of the horse’s gallop, especially the one on the right.
wooow ! This scene is awesome. You are make a great job here !
The hair of king roberts looks nice too. What settings are you using ? I’m trying to make good hair so i’m interested to learn how to make this kind of effects.
I love the lighting of the previz (http://www.solo2design.com/ImageWeb/ROBERTANDDEBOHUN02.jpg) ! Can you explain or show the settings of the lights ?
Definitively a great job !
(and sorry for my poor english ;o))
It is really better now, but the Robert’s face is looking a bit too pallid.
I really love your still.
Can’t wait to see the final pic.
this is one of my favorite medieval battles i remember reading about this faceoff with Sir Henry de Bohun in history
