Wars of the Roses art

[Duke John]

Introduction
I'm greatly interested into the Wars of the Roses and so I have made a mod about this period for M:TW. But with R:TW around the corner, I'm thinking starting to think seriously about making another mod and of course based on the R:TW engine.

This thread will function for me to show my concept art for the Wars of the Roses art, it encourage me to practice computer generated graphics and hopefully it will give me some feedback that will help improve my skills.

Most of the images will be based upon art by Graham Turner as shown in the Osprey Books. Hopefully, by studying and reproducing his excellent artpieces I will be able to paint such images by myself. All images are drawn with a Wacom tablet and Corel Painter 8.

And perhaps this thread might make other people interested into the very intersting period of the Wars of the Roses.



Mercenary Halberdier
http://chronicles.metw.net/art/halberdier_mercenary.jpg

Cost me 3-4 hours. A bit too much, as you get the best art if you don't think too much and paint quickly.

Cheers,
Duke John

[Nigel]

Amazing Duke John,

I would be happy if I could produce something like that in 3-4 days.

Looking forward to following this thread.
And of course looking forward to your mod.

:2thumbsup:

[desdichado]

[QUOTE=Nigel]Amazing Duke John,

I would be happy if I could produce something like that in 3-4 days.


I'd be happy if I could produce something like that in 3-4 years!

Duke John, mod based on War of the Roses sounds cool. Please make it!

[hotingzilla]

Awesome. Also looking forward to your mod.

[Desiderata]

Awesome. Also looking forward to your mod.

Excellent art work - I agree with how long it would take me, as i dont have an artistic bone in my body

[Duke John]

A new piece:

The Duke of Norfolk at Bosworth field
http://chronicles.metw.net/art/duke_of_norfolk_bosworth.jpg

Took me less than 3 hours...I'm learning :grin:


For the people who are interested: you can already download the Wars of the Roses beta for M:TW - VI. In this version you can play battles with 10 different units with new unitgrpahics. Check the Wars of the Roses modification thread here! (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=33735)

Cheers, Duke John

[Desiderata]

Duke - great picture of Norfolk. But only two minor minor points (sorry for being a pedant) Bosworth field is actually quite flat, there are hills but there more of your rolling rises than anything else. secondly, you display three lion rampant but it is more likely that John Howard (the Duke's name) would have displayed his family coat of arms:
http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp/s.Howard/Howard_family_Crest/Howard_coat_of_arms/qx/coatofarms_details.htm

you may also find this useful:
http://www.fleurdelis.com/royal.htm

[Lonewarrior]

Looks nice, but I won't be able to download it, don't have VI. Kinda makes me tell, ~:mad: can you people make mods for mtw only too. ~:mad:

[Duke John]

Desiderata, don't worry about being pendant, I don't even know what it is without looking in a dictionary :grin:

I got the image from an Osprey book, but you might be right. Are the 3 lions rampant only used by members of the royal family?

And do you know wether the white (with 3 tooths?) bar over the lions means that he is the son of a king? I know that John Howard isn't, but George, Duke of Clarence is and he does have one over his quartered lions/fleur-de-lys. As does Prince Edward, but in that case Osprey states that the label stands for the eldest son.

DJ

[Nigel]

Nice thing when artists meet historiens.
You two should be discussing more. That will make for a really good WotR mod for RTW. I will see what I can find on the coat of arms in the limited resouces I have.

Lonewarrior, I haven't seen many mods for MTW only. And I'm afraid there won't be any made now with Rome before the gates. But if you get RTW, I am sure you can look forward to some really good ones.

[frogbeastegg]

They are both very good, but I vastly prefer the second one. He has more armour, and frogs like armour :tongueg: I do love the purple 'people' in the background of the first one; it's a very nice effect and a nice colour too.

Have you thought about adding a slightly harder edge to the outline of the figure, the edge of his surcoat and armour to reduce that very slight feeling of blurriness? Not that it's a problem, I hasten to add, just a commonish thing I see in a lot of the Osprey books and other armour illustrations.

More, please.

[Nigel]

Here is some info I have been able to get out of my one book on heraldry:

The white "3-tooth-bar" is a sub-ordinary of the coat of arms. This particular one is called "label". There are other sub-ordinaries, but the label does indeed denote the bearer as the eldest son (not necessarily of a king).

The label is not part of the coat of arms, but rather the blazon is "charged" with it. The son bears his father's coat of arms charged with the label. The label is removed, when he succeeds his father as head of the family.

[Desiderata]

Lonewarrior - at Wes.apolyton.net about half way down (V1.85) is a mod for MTW w/o VI expansion - allows you to play as Hungarians, Poles, Golden Horde etc. Enjoy, I did ;-)

[Duke John]

A quick sketch of how I want to display flags in the WotR mod:
http://chronicles.metw.net/art/flags_somerset.jpg
Generals will get a square flag (right one), while unit flags will get a long tailed flag with the Cross of St. George (this is right, right?) in front.

Thanks for the info, Nigel. So John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk wears the wrong livery? It now seems that he is the eldest son of the King of England, which he is not of course. I wonder why Osprey did this...

[Desiderata]

Sorry to be a pedant Duke John, but A triangular flag as displayed on the left had side and in the middle is properly know as a pennant.

[Duke John]

In the Osprey book it's also called a pennon (which I couldn't find in my dictonairy). Are pennant and pennon always triangular standards with a single tail? I also found some images of flags that were swallow-tailed; so 2 tails. Are these also called pennants/pennons?

How are the little flags called that are fastened on the end of a lance? I thought those were called pennants.

And you are not being pendant. I post here to get feedback and hopefully to get to know some unknown little details. You are helping me with that, so please don't stop! :medievalcheers:

[Desiderata]

Pennant and pennon are essentially the same thing - being a matelot i tend to refer to 'em as pennants. Did you know that the word is derived from c14th Old French which ultuimately came from Latin for feather - penna?

[Desiderata]

You may find these sites interesting as well bud:

http://digiserve.com/heraldry/

http://www.heraldryunlimited.com/

http://www.burkes-peerage.com/

njoy

[Lonewarrior]

Lonewarrior - at Wes.apolyton.net about half way down (V1.85) is a mod for MTW w/o VI expansion - allows you to play as Hungarians, Poles, Golden Horde etc. Enjoy, I did ;-)


HA great thanks, I always wanted to be the mongols.


:bow: :bow: :bow:

[Desiderata]

K'passa

[Nigel]

So John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk wears the wrong livery? It now seems that he is the eldest son of the King of England, which he is not of course. I wonder why Osprey did this...

As fas as I know the label just denotes any eldest son - not necessarily the eldest son of the King.

There is more info on it at the site, which Desiderata has given abve.
Nice links, especially the middle one. I have bookmarked them ~:)



The label resembles the strap with pendants hanging down, that was worn across a horse's chest. It usually has three or five pendants - these pieces can be straight or splayed, or in dovetail form. (this is up to the individual heraldic artist and isn't specified in the blazon). It is usually used as a mark of cadency (see Part Ten) which is borne by an eldest son on his arms, while his father is still alive. Labels can be drawn in several different ways, for example the strap at the top does not have to extend across the whole shield. Which type is used is up to the heraldic artist and is not specified in the blazon

[Duke John]

What I got from looking at images and some reading is that the label is put over the farthers coat of arms. So in this case it's put over 3 golden lions, so that would seem to mean the eldest son of the king. But then again the coat of arms of the English king is quarterly divided fleur de lys and 3 golden lions.

Why would the Duke of Norfolk have the 3 lions on his livery? He was a trusted commander of Richard III, so would he make a new coat of arms just for Bosworth to show his loyalty?

[Nigel]

Very good questions, Duke John. And I haven't got a clue what the answer could be. Maybe it is indeed that the Osprey illustrater has made use of his artistic liberty.

Well, if anyone wants to start a thread about heraldry, I would be interested and surely participate (amateur that I am). Desiderata, you sure seem to know a lot about this. Meanwhile, Duke John, don't let this distract you from making more of you beautiful graphics.

[Duke John]

I don't really like the grey look of Graham Turner's armour. Although it looks good, it also looks unrealistic. I've looked up some photos of armours in museums and the image below is a study based on colouring of such an armour. Composition is from GT.
http://chronicles.metw.net/art/squire_mounted_tewkesbury.jpg
The squire is somehow wrong, I think the torso is too short. But the horse looks good for a first timer :smug: (although I did use a reference from GT).

Nigel, if you are interested I would love to make a new thread where we can discuss the heraldry of the Wars of the Roses. And only that period because I am not into other periods/settings.

Froggy
My paintings are indeed a bit blurry. The blurring is caused by the painting tools that gradually fade out on the edges, so it's hard to get a hard edge them but on the same time you can get better colour "overlaps". I could fix that by using masks, but that is a technique I will save for a later time.

[Duke John]

Not on topic, but if non-related mods can be discussed here :wink: Some photo's of my real life drawings that I made in France last week.

The castle of the village:
http://chronicles.metw.net/paint/fr_castle.jpg

I painted this one for my parents (it's their "vacation" house):
http://chronicles.metw.net/paint/fr_house.jpg

The master at work :smug:
http://chronicles.metw.net/paint/fr_atwork.jpg

The paintings were first drawn with a pen and then coloured with aquarel. Seeing them on screen, I notice that you really lose alot of "feel" of the real painting when transferred to the computer screen. The grain of paper and brush strokes are all lost.

And to whoever is interested in painting/drawing: you should really take a stool once in a while and paint outside. It is so much better as opposed to painting from a photo. The lightning, the texture and atmosphere can be so much better observed in real life. Although you should learn to ignore nosy tourists :vanish: being in a foreign country helps as you only need to say: "I don't understand..." :confused:

[Duke John]

Another concept piece. Faction emblems were placed on the left of the chest and a larger version was placed on the middle of the back. Below are two Billmen from the army of King Edward IV at the battle of Towton.
http://chronicles.metw.net/art/billman_edwardiv.jpg