Men of Lord Cotterg had been pillaging the countryside for about a week now. Count Gaer could do little but watch his serfs being slaughtered and his stockpiles burnt. Finally gathering knights and squires from his house, he led them to a field of his chosing where they could await Lord Cotterg's onslaught.

After putting the mill to the flame, Lord Cotterg and his soldiers cross the ford and assault the lightly fortified positions of his nemesis. The battle starts and splinters into dozens of private struggles where neither nobility of soul nor magnanimity prevail. Images of desolation unfold as battle progresses: a too eager knight beheaded by a peasant... a squire backstabbed in the midst of a fight... Lord Cotterg unmerciful gaze while bludgeoning a helpless soldier...

While the bloodshed continues a young man of Lord Cotterg's retinue dies from an arrow wound in the stomach. As his life is leaving him, he contemplates the Abyss he's heading for...

I had been planning to build a battle as a display for my knights for some time. The "conflict" monthly challenge on classic castle gave me the perfect incentive to finally do it!

Full set on Flickr

Comments and advices are of course very welcome! I should add that I've seen the Grunwald battle scene (as well as numerous others) which probably influenced me in some ways.

Cheers

gg

Great scene and story.

Wow. Your photography is beautiful. Can you elaborate on how you took the pictures? And possibly pics of the setup you used?

Great build as well!

Wow the pose of the mace dragon knight is amazing! You have some hardcore photography skills.

that distorted shot make me nauseous though. Cool effect, but I couldn't look at it for long.

Agreed with the distortion I did it to emphasize the dying knight (the eye was a bit attracted towards the archers)

Regarding my setup, it's extremelly simple:

(larger version on the photostream)

I have a kind of black granit table which works great as background provided I'm careful with reflexions of light on it. I used on black chair as background as well, trying to hide the seam between table and chair. No additional lighting (at this step... see below). On close shots of the fig, I tried to avoid patches due to direct reflexion. The mill and two trees are separate from the moc for optimal placement (as per The Lady and the Blade).

I use my wife's very good camera (nikon D5000) with a fairly standard 18-55mm objective. I normally take most of the shots with automatic settings but this time I was playing around the manual settings (I have much to learn ). As I was shooting a dusk battle, in addition to the black background I tried keeping the aperture opening short (I think about 1/200 but it of course depends on the ambient lighting... ISO was 1000 if I remember correctly). Automatic focusing works ok but for very close shots I manually focus on the point of interest (also playing around with the depth of field). I also try to comply with the rule of the thirds (although this can be sorted out later). I mostly lucky to have this great camera!

I photoshoped most of the pictures for minor adjustments (mostly croping and adjustment of brightness and contrast). On the picts with the burning mill I brightened the flames to create a kind of burning effect. I did this by following steps 9 to 11 of this tutorial. I guess one can do the same kind of manipulations with opensource software like gimp (should try one day).

Here's what I can say there...

Cheers

gg

Nice battle scene! I agree that the red plumes do add a little something extra to the blue crownies.

Excellent battle scene and great photography.....a battle caught in an instant !

Ouch, a mace even to a helmet has got to hurt !

Brick On 'Gilles Gaer' !

Agreed with the distortion I did it to emphasize the dying knight (the eye was a bit attracted towards the archers)

Regarding my setup, it's extremelly simple:

(larger version on the photostream)

I have a kind of black granit table which works great as background provided I'm careful with reflexions of light on it. I used on black chair as background as well, trying to hide the seam between table and chair. No additional lighting (at this step... see below). On close shots of the fig, I tried to avoid patches due to direct reflexion. The mill and two trees are separate from the moc for optimal placement (as per The Lady and the Blade).

I use my wife's very good camera (nikon D5000) with a fairly standard 18-55mm objective. I normally take most of the shots with automatic settings but this time I was playing around the manual settings (I have much to learn ). As I was shooting a dusk battle, in addition to the black background I tried keeping the aperture opening short (I think about 1/200 but it of course depends on the ambient lighting... ISO was 1000 if I remember correctly). Automatic focusing works ok but for very close shots I manually focus on the point of interest (also playing around with the depth of field). I also try to comply with the rule of the thirds (although this can be sorted out later). I mostly lucky to have this great camera!

I photoshoped most of the pictures for minor adjustments (mostly croping and adjustment of brightness and contrast). On the picts with the burning mill I brightened the flames to create a kind of burning effect. I did this by following steps 9 to 11 of this tutorial. I guess one can do the same kind of manipulations with opensource software like gimp (should try one day).

Here's what I can say there...

Cheers

gg

Awesome. Thanks for the photography tips! Once things slow down for me, I plan on building a little DIY light box, and really work on my photography skills with Lego.

Someone also pointed out to me that natural light works wonders on moc... although it's granted that it's a wee bit harder to tune to your needs

I guess you have seen Hinckley's post http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10520

gg