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Duel at the Funeral Pyre 2.0

Posted by sberry on 09 Dec 2019, 18:49

Some people will already have seen the duel in honor of Leonardo Torricini, but here I would like to present some additional pics of my contribution. The figures are identical (including the painting mistakes that I detected when it was too late for corrections…), but I have experimented a bit with the rest.

First, Bluefalchion had suggested that we took our duel photos with a neutral background, and that perfectly made sense to me, since the focus should be on the figures as such. However, I always like to see how a scene looks like with a realistic background. Therefore, here are some photos using a genuine Tuscany landscape. Modern Tuscany is roughly identical to ancient Etruria, where the scene is set, but it is also the region of Italy where Leonardo lived, so – as so often in world history – everything is related to everything else.

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Second, I also experimented with the pyre. My initial idea was to have a big funeral pyre with blazing flames, but when the thing was finished, I realized that I could not use it for the duel: It was just too big and distracting. So I produced the small, burnt-down pyre with just a bit of smoke shown above.
However, it was an attempt at showing fire in a diorama and a sort of test-run for another project where I will need flames, too. So here comes the burning pyre:

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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by Ochoin on 09 Dec 2019, 20:24

Magnificent work. I would appreciate an account of how you created the flames.

regards, donald
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Ochoin  Scotland
 
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 10 Dec 2019, 00:55

Stephan--

I am glad you did not use any of these 2.0 shots in our duel.

If you had, the final score would have been sberry 23, Bluefalchion 0!

Wonderful work and thanks for sharing.
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by sberry on 10 Dec 2019, 16:21

Thank you very much, gentlemen!

Both the smoke and the flames are made from polyester cotton (the stuff that I had used for creating dust here). In the latter case, it was colored with window color, because I wanted a paint that is still a bit translucent. I used basically yellow, with admixtures of red.
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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by Graeme on 10 Dec 2019, 17:19

The colouring for the flames is spot on.

This was a nice idea for a duel, well done to both of you.
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Graeme  Australia
 
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Posted by Santi Pérez on 10 Dec 2019, 18:25

I love the flames, sberry, they look so real...that I think the figures are too close to them to get injured. :winky:

Well done! :yeah:

Santi.
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Santi Pérez  Spain
 
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Posted by Bill Slavin on 11 Dec 2019, 18:57

Wow, those flames would have been distracting to the duellists! Nice painting.
Have you tried a tea light in the middle of fibre fill? I’ve used this for explosions in gaming and it photographs beautifully. I’m sure it would work for flames as well.
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Bill Slavin  Canada

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Posted by Bluefalchion on 12 Dec 2019, 06:23

Bill Slavin wrote:Wow, those flames would have been distracting to the duellists! Nice painting.
Have you tried a tea light in the middle of fibre fill? I’ve used this for explosions in gaming and it photographs beautifully. I’m sure it would work for flames as well.


Don't give Stephan such great ideas! Now I will never be able to defeat him if we have a rematch. :D
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by sberry on 12 Dec 2019, 07:24

Santi Pérez wrote: I think the figures are too close to them to get injured. :winky: Santi.

An interesting observation, and I have no idea what the work safety department would say. But the distance between the figures and the fire is about 4 cm, so that would be a bit less than 3 meters in reality. I hope that is safe...

Bill Slavin wrote:Have you tried a tea light in the middle of fibre fill? I’ve used this for explosions in gaming and it photographs beautifully. I’m sure it would work for flames as well.

Oh my, I thought I was the first one to have this clever idea! Yes, I have the plan to illuminate the flames from within in the next project with a fire. I will use some LED light. And now the inevitable question: Do you have pictures of your explosions? I'm very curious now!

Bluefalchion wrote:Don't give Stephan such great ideas! Now I will never be able to defeat him if we have a rematch.

Well, even if this plan with the illuminated flames works nicely, I think it would be quite difficult to integrate flames into ALL of my future work. And you could insist on a fire-free duel next time...
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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by Bill Slavin on 12 Dec 2019, 15:26

I found these from a couple of old WWII games on my blog. As I say, explosions, not fire. The advantage of the tea light (I should have mentioned, electric!) is that you can place the stand in the middle of the fibre fill and turn it on and off - and it flickers very convincingly!

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Bill Slavin  Canada

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Posted by sberry on 12 Dec 2019, 15:40

Bill Slavin wrote:The advantage of the tea light (I should have mentioned, electric!) is that you can place the stand in the middle of the fibre fill and turn it on and off - and it flickers very convincingly!

Even without the flickering effect these explosions look very convincing to me! Many thanks for showing the pics.
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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 12 Dec 2019, 16:25

Now my next question to Bill Slavin: were any cows harmed during the production of the explosion pictures?
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by Bill Slavin on 13 Dec 2019, 01:47

No cows were hurt, they were barely moooooved.
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Bill Slavin  Canada

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Posted by Ochoin on 14 Dec 2019, 13:34

Bluefalchion wrote:[ we have a rematch. :D


Most amusing.
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Ochoin  Scotland
 
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