Teutoburg Forest 9 AD

[Thomas Mischak]

Dear Mr. Cryns,

thank you for the pictures.
A very good (big) work - and I am waiting of the next part of the "bloody story"...

Greetings
Thomas

[Susofrick]

Now I've seen a movie! Great!

[Cryns]

Gentlemen, thank you all so much for your kind replies! I did not realize this subject is of such a great interest to so many of you.

Did you know that Jörg Kastner has written a novel of this period? There are five books at this moment in German, and three translated in Dutch! I'm starting with number three called "The Fall of Varus"

Thanks for telling us Peter. No I never heard of this author and his five books. I mainly posses and read English, Dutch and German translations of classical Greek and Roman historics and archaeological scientific books about this subject. But you must like Kastners books a lot. Are these of particular historical interest? Or is it dramatic entertainment? Please tell us more about it.

My you have been busy!

Mr. Dodson, from all people being active at this forum probably you are the one that has most experience with the way I worked to get this photoshoot of a temporary diorama done. You were an example and inspirator to me when I started this 4 days lasting photoshoot.

Although the darkness adds atmosphere, some of the troop shots are not so clear because of this which is a pity as it hides your high standards.

Yes you defenitely have a point here. But not everything is what it looks like.
First of all I did a lot of digital restauration because of extensive damage to the figures (they fought many tabletop games) and some complicated editing to manipulate the images like combining different shots to have focus in foreground and background at the same time. Also miniature figures look more realistic with extreme rimlight. Photographing in the same direction as my main light source makes it all more visible but also makes our figures looking like toys.
And I had a problem that you don't have to cope with: The Romans of Mr. Bos have much more color than my own Auxilia and my Germans since I use natural colors as much as possible. To make it all fit together, this low key lighting helps a lot.

Also one can see that Strelets figures are very nice in this case.

Thanks MABO, my friend Mr. Bos will be glad to hear this, you will meet him at Figz 2016. He was the one who decided 4 years ago he wanted to start our Roman period. He choose Strelets because of the wide variety of sets and figures.

But in the meantime there are great doubts that Kalkriese was a place of this battle.

Now it is getting really interesting to me MABO! I knew there have allways been doubts about the connection between Kalkriese and the Varusschlacht. But I missed any information about recent doubts. Can you tell us more about it? And don't worry, I will post my Kalkriese pics anyhow.

For a film we had built the three legions with 15.000 Playmobil figures. Here you see the first after we had finished it.

And you surprise me again with this Playmobil story. When I visited the Romermuseum in Haltern I stumbled upon an overload of Playmobil Romans. I wondered what kind of people spend loads of money and time on that, while so many other more interesting figures depicting the same subject are available. Was it to attract children to this historical subject? Now you give us the impression you were part of the people behind this! Is that right? Did the Playmobilfactory sponsor and support this project? Well, I have to admit, the effect of the massiveness is great and impressive.

yesteryear i think there have been a reenactment in kalkriese... or am i wrong?

No Giorgio, you are right. Though your knowledge of German language may be limited, you read it well. I think there is pretty much Roman re-enactment going on all the time in Germany.

It appears here that you have added figures at different stages to better tell the story.

Bluefalchion you saw that right. Not only to tell the story but also to get close enough to the figures standing in the middle of the valley and the forest. It was an endless moving around with hundreds of gaming elements (figures), one hundred trees and lots of brook-sections to get what I wanted.

How big (width, length in cm) is this Dio?

Wiking, I started with a table of 2x2=4 square meters but during the shoot most of the time I only used halve of that space. It occupied most of our living room so my wife had to live for 4 days in the kitchen. During the shoot I declined the size of the table because I had difficulties reaching the middle of it with my camera.

Thanks once more to all of you for the enthousiasm!

[Wolfgang Meyer]

Great scenery and fantastic photos!

I am very impressed. I would also like to come to Arnhem to FIGZ, but in June we are always in Italy.

Best regards,

Wolfgang

[Peter]

As far as I know it's writen of historical interest! At the end of each book there is a historical timeline. On the book they call him also the German Dan Brown. So in my opinion he did some research for the books!
And it reads very good! Just try the first onethen you can make your own opinion!

Here is what they tell on wiki about Jörg Kastner: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Kastner
Sorry only Dutch and German!

[Thomas Mischak]

Dear Mr. Cryns,

here is the Playmobil-Movie about the Battle:

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v93222569bqNdBpr6

These book from Mr. Tony Clunn is one of my favorites:

https://www.amazon.de/Quest-Lost-Roman- ... 772&sr=1-3

Greetings
Thomas

[Cryns]

Dear Thomas Mischak,

Thanks for posting the movie link. I must say: it is a very clear and effective movie, not only for children but for adults too. I don't know the man who is presenting and talking in the film but he is a very good speaker and storyteller.

MABO; it starts to make sense to me now why to use playmobil: these figures are colored already, so no paintingwork, they are big enough to place them on real grass and between real plants, a wide range of wagons and animals is available and finally they can be moved or stripped off their equipment.

Was using Elastolin Romans considered by the filmmakers?

[Hellboy]

it lacks a the words! Speechless can marvel at just this incredible performance.
Everything is fantastic. The forest is totally lifelike! The watercourse by the way looks as if the water really flows therein. Many ditails to the figures catch the eye. This is a real masterpiece of you!
Thank you for the many wonderful photos!

[despertaferro]

Dear Mr. Cryns, I can’t add anything that has not been say for other people and in better words than mine.

Just remark how impressed I’m by the final outcome and the cinematographic quality of the pictures and the storytelling. To my taste, the balance between shade/darkness and light is perfect: in my opinion, the bigger and deeper the shaded and dark area is, the better come out what is in the lighted spots. In terms of lighting, and don’t think on shade and darkness like places were that I can see, but, a creative effect that, indirectly, turn my eyes into what the artist wants me to show.

IMO, this work goes straight at the top ten of the better jobs ever posted at Benno’s.

[chen]

This is really top notch! I'd like to know if you have all these figures fixed in the terrain to make it a diorama (in the strict sense), or they can be removed and displaced and reorganised according to the scenarios?

Hats off to you, Sir!

[Kekso]

Fantastic scenery and story.

[Cryns]

Dear Wolfgang, Peter, Hellboy, Despertaferro, Chen and Kekso thank you so much for your nice replies.

This is a real masterpiece of you!

Thanks for these great words. I keep doing my best to improve my work every time again.

the bigger and deeper the shaded and dark area is, the better come out what is in the lighted spots.

Indeed I used a very bright little penlight as a third lightsource. After pressing the delayed shutter button on my camera, I had two seconds of time to direct this light towards the main subject in the mass of figures. So the attention of the spectator goes where I want to have it. Since the shuttertime was one whole second, it was possible to move this light in that second over different figure groups while the shutter was still open.

Some more info for those of you who are interested: I do not have or use professional equipment. I use a simple pocketcamera but it has a zoom and wide angle lens. The main lightsource is my window in the background that gets overexposed. The second lightsource is a large building site lamp that is situated behind the camera. Be carefull: it gets so hot, it can set the livingroom on fire or melt all plastic objects near it. This lamp creates very yellow light, a major problem to many modellers trying to picture their work, but I correct this by hanging a transparent blue plastic bag between that lightsource and the landschape. This blue corrects the yellow light into white daylight. And it diffuses the light at the same time.

this work goes straight at the top ten of the better jobs ever posted at Benno’s

That is maybe a little bit too much honor for me but I am glad you, as a professional, like my work.

I'd like to know if you have all these figures fixed in the terrain to make it a diorama (in the strict sense)

Dear Chen, a lovely surprise to see you are back at Benno's forum after a while. I feel delighted to receive response from a very skilled artist from China like you are. What you see is part of my DBMM ancient Germanic and Roman army and some of the counterpart Roman army elements of Mr. Bos. As you have been busy with DBA gaming already you know more or less what the different elements are like: most of these Germanic tribesmen count as Irr Wb(F) and so it is 3 figures on a base of 6x3 centimeters and Irr Wb(O) 4 figures on a 6x2 cm base. I just put all of these 100 bases together as a carpet covering the entire landscape and fix the joints between them afterwards with my very basic windows paint program in the computer. So for you it will be possible to create this effect too: I have seen very very nice Roman figures of yours. And the decoration of your bases is very nice too. The secret of making this kind of diorama-like pictures with DBA armies is IN THE BASES.

Therefore I pay much attention in making all bases of different armies exactly the same. And very important: remove the side edges of the bases by turning them into a gentle sloping down at all 4 edges. For some reason many gamers and modellers pay no attention to the sides of their basing edges at all. They even have them black (why?), very thick (like 5mm, why?) or white like I have seen in your amazing Borodino pictures but I will write more about that Chinese delight later and somewhere else in this forum. In most tabletop game settings the sides of the base edges disturb the gentle balance between landscape and the decoration of the figure bases. And that is what I try to avoid.

[dykio]

wauw Lodewijk,

As i already said on youre Tyre-topic, you realy are one of the best. The whole "feeling" of the story you tell with the pictures is just amazing. I think this is what the most of us (myself for sure) realy want to achieve. Perfection !!!

[kaktus]

I agree. This is true feast for eyes and jealousy in heart. Congratulations.

[Alex]

Dear Mr.Cryns !
I will not say anything new, I can only agree with many good words spoken about your work!
If possible, it would be very interesting to see the whole picture as a whole diorama (photo above) and to understand what are its dimensions in reality as well as a plan to see this masterpiece!

[chen]

Therefore I pay much attention in making all bases of different armies exactly the same. And very important: remove the side edges of the bases by turning them into a gentle sloping down at all 4 edges. For some reason many gamers and modellers pay no attention to the sides of their basing edges at all. They even have them black (why?), very thick (like 5mm, why?) or white like I have seen in your amazing Borodino pictures but I will write more about that Chinese delight later and somewhere else in this forum. In most tabletop game settings the sides of the base edges disturb the gentle balance between landscape and the decoration of the figure bases. And that is what I try to avoid.

This is exactly what I'm concerned with as well. The edge of bases is a small detail but one that contributes a lot to the final outcome. The effect that you've achieved in these photos is very convincing. I too noticed this problem during our Borodino games. The 5mm thick base may be to easy the handling during games for an enthusiast gamer. Some had painted the edges of the base black, for which I guess the aim would be to achieve an "out-standing" (in the literal sense) look as if the base be suspending in the air over the terrain. Considering this as a question of personal taste, I didn't interfere in the groupe work. But it'd surely be better if I did.

[Cryns]

Dykio, Alex, Kaktus and Chen, thank you so much for your very nice replies.

If possible, it would be very interesting to see the whole picture as a whole diorama (photo above) and to understand what are its dimensions in reality

Alex, thanks for your interest. Yes I will post such pics for you, here in this topic. But only after I finish and post the second set of pictures because such 'behind the scene's' pictures will spoil some of the magic.

Some had painted the edges of the base black, for which I guess the aim would be to achieve an "out-standing" (in the literal sense) look as if the base be suspending in the air over the terrain. Considering this as a question of personal taste, I didn't interfere in the groupe work.

Chen, you are right. Interfering in the personal taste of fellow gamers and modelers is tricky and can be very unpleasant for them. It should be done right from the very first start of a project. Or not at all. I discussed the black sided edges used by my friend Mr. Bos whose Strelets Romans are my opponents in games. He bought these bases being prefab, laser cut: the burn-cutting made the wooden edges black. He thought black edges show 'luxury' (I think games workshop is using black edges for ages and therefore we associate it with 'standard quality models') and decided to keep them like that. But he did not realize by then, that I wanted to use his models years later for photographical purposes.

[renikart]

Wow, that's amazing! Especially like the attack from the woods through the trees. Must have been a scary day for the romans!

[Lacc]

I like especially the photography job , the woodland and the vegetation.
You are a master to make trees
Good job!

Alfredo

[huib]

Fantastic, Mr Cryns! You tell us the story of the battle of the Teutoburger forest by a sequence of very beautiful pictures, made of very beautiful figures between very beautiful trees and scenery. The combination of pictures with an overview, showing the massed warriors, and pictures showing individuals or individual fights, is very strong. Like in a movie.

Did you build one big setting, which you photographed from different angles, or did you build different settings for different pictures? Probably both...