Mixed scale
Beneath the starlight of the heavens
Unlikely heroes in the skies
Witches to attack, witches coming back...
As they appear on the horizon
The wind will whisper when the night witches come
1915, the Great War... England watches the skies in fear of bombing raids from the Kaiser's mighty Zeppelin force, striking with impunity from above the clouds. An ultra-secret arm of the War Office makes contact with a terrifying and reclusive group of mythical inhabitants of the British Isles. Unmoved by appeals to patriotism, they are however outraged at the technological monstrosities raining destruction on "their" countryside, and respond accordingly...
I've toyed with the idea of using forced perspective in a miniature piece for ages, but never found a good subject. The inspiration for this probably goes back to a similar composition I once saw on CoolMiniOrNot, of a 28mm Orc Stormboy launching off of an Epic vehicle "far" below. But this vignette ended up more like some things seen in traditional military modeling. And it has four different "scales" in it, which I'll admit was an ambitious first try.
While I'm hardly ashamed of my painting chops, I'll definitely admit my traditional modelmaking skills are pretty... rusty, in as much as I ever had them. This project was a definite learning exercise: I had to completely redo the Zeppelin after a disastrous attempt to shade the underside, and getting the base to look remotely plausible took a lot of work. On the upside, the clouds came out exactly the way I wanted them! And a near-monochrome palette with strong contrast really gave the witch a sinister look.
“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”
This long distance effect is truly breathtaking. Very dynamic overall and thematically crazily good. I bow to you.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's really ambitious and turned out great! Wow. Really.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Suber and Skully (I want to believe, lol) ambitious for a 1st attempt but it works.
ReplyDeleteDunno how does it looks IRL but in static shots with forced perspective that is photography, the trick is sold completely.
Personally I find the limited palette on her and the tiny houses are the best part.
Isn't that quote from Discworld? The name sounds suspiciously close to the translated one (Spanish) from the books I've read :)
It is absolutely a Discworld quote, from "Wintersmith", one of the Tiffany Aching books (which I'm currently offering to my 8yo daughter as self-isolation reading material).
DeleteI'm glad you all like it, and thing the forced perspective works. IRL, the illusion is somewhat broken, but the three-dimensionality of the model is visually entertaining (at least to me). It's definitely got some problems but I'm generally happy with it! The near-monochrome palette just made sense for the witch, and on the base is intended to suggest it's late evening or very overcast - both better conditions for Zeppelin bombing (WW1 airships would fly above the clouds to avoid fire, and lower an observer in a pod on a long cable to aim their bombs!)
Love it! Great subject matter and composition.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant monochrome technique on the witch!
ReplyDeleteI love the perspective! It gives the piece a real sense of movement. I wonder how this would look if it was put in one of those boxes (I forget what they're called) where the viewer looks on the miniature through a pinhole.
ReplyDeleteFiguring out a way to display this is going to be a challenge. It won't fit in my display cases. And a dome that would fit it is NOT cheap :(
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThat’s really impressive, Often with forced perspective the viewer “forces” himslelf to view it a certain way to interpret what the designer intended, but not so with your work.
ReplyDeleteIt’s also hard to imagine there’s a pin in the smoke/cloud bearing the witch miniature, super tight spiralling. Perhaps it’s witchcraft!
Thank you! I was lucky, my composition works from more than one angle. The semi concealed wire holding the witch up is definitely one of the things that worked about this piece. Maybe it's just a trail of smoke from flying through the explosion... Or perhaps her cloak is still smoldering :)
Delete