Forced Perspective

[No Such Agency]

I thought I\'d bring this mini, Zackdodo\'s \"Vampire King\" to everyone\'s attention. Now, the mini is well-painted, and looks great, and the bats flying with him are cleverly attached so they look like they aren\'t. But in my opinion the real coup de grace is the base. See that thing sticking up? That\'s his castle, in the distance!

In film, this is called forced perspective - \"A forced perspective provides the illusion of a great distance by using properties [\"props\"] that are physically smaller than the real objects so that, if in the background of a set, they give the impression that they are located some distance away. The viewer is forced into this relationship. Such devices are usually used when given sets with limited space.\" (Barnes & Noble Film Glossary). I think this is the first time I\'ve ever seen this technique used on a mini. Can anyone refute this?

 

[MaestroOfMayhem]

Highlighting, shading, and nmm are all forced perspective.Putting large detail into small sizes. It represents real sized shading and hightlighting on a smaller scale.

 

[supervike]

First time I have seen it on this site....

I will only partially refute you. This is the first time I have seen it on CMON, but....

I have seen it done in a few books such as \"how to paint historical miniatures\".

There, the artist used a 54 mm figure as the main focus, but has 25mm figures in the \"background\", making it look like they were some distance away, fighting in a large battlefield.

I had tossed the idea around to try myself, wanting to use a normal miniature, with Warmaster (10mm) figures to force the perspective, but as with most of my ideas, they just stay in my little head!!lol

But it is an excellent idea, and Zackdodo has done a great job.

The slight drawback I see is that unless you view the miniature from a certain angle, the effect is lost, which is not unlike NMM.

I can dig out those books to, if you are interested to know for sure where it was.

I really dig that Vampire!!

Just a note on \"Forced Perspective\", I understand it is a very old technique, going back to the early days of filmmaking.

It just seems funny that, given all the modern technology that it is still used, and very effectively. Peter Jackson used the technique (along with many other techniques) in the LOTR quite a bit to make you believe the hobbits were actually little people.

Very interesting topic you have brought up, NSA!!

 

[DennisMech]

Very cool mini there! I think it needs a pic with the angle just right so you get the full impression, and then one of the side so you see how it\'s done. I\'ve seen some forced perspective recently, it was a grot bomba kamikaze flying at some epic minis below. it was actualy quite convincing, but I\'m having a hell of a time finding it.

 

[U4-Welcome]

Yes, but...

Correct me if I\'m wrong, but forced perspective is the kind of thing that can\'t work in real life, when your stereoscopic vision tells you \"hey, this ain\'t a castle in the distance, it\'s just a small lump of plastic half a millimeter away !\". I don\'t think we should paint minis for the sole purpose of taking a picture. If it doesn\'t work in real life, then what good is it ?
On the other hand, some would object that NMM is another example of stuff tailored for pics. Well, I happen to think it looks good IRL even if the reflections don\'t change when the orientation of incident light does, but maybe that\'s just me.

 

[kittykat23uk]

I think it looks great but as you say it may not look so good in real life.

Regards

Kat

 

[t_haye2]

it\'s a trick very commonly used in historical wargames mags, where they use two or even three different scales of models f the same subject and place them in the smae sht....I think it\'s cool, and it would be great for one-faced dioramas

 

[Fuseboy]

I didn\'t remember this when I first read your post, but Supervike jogged my memory. There was a diorama in a White Dwarf some years ago, advertising \'Space Marine\', with some 25mm space marines (I think) overlooking a \"distant\" battlefield that was composed of Epic-scale miniatures.

 

[airhead]

Not the first.

This mini has a forced perspective. It will only function seen from a certain angle.

If not, the \"transpency\" of the sword would be lost and the leg showing through would be odd. Just as the vampire mini would look wrong from a different angle. Would make the vampire larger than the castle (attack of the 50\' vampire)

 

[finn17]

For any \'Father Ted\' fans out there...

Remember the scene in the caravan where Father Ted is explaining perspective to Father McGuire with a plastic cow...\"Near.....and.....faaaar away\".

Unforgettable to Father Ted fans, complete tosh to everyone else

 

[Dragonsreach]

My most favourite quote from a TV series!

Arggh! Nuns. Nuns. Reverse. Must be spoken loudly, in strong southern Irish Accent

 

[Tuubje]

Father ted is great, too bad dougal shot himself, no?

As for the forced perspective i agree with U4-Welcome, it only works in certain angles, so for a couple of photo\'s or if you explain to people what angle it should be. (and we\'ve all tried the \"explaining\" thing to friends and family no?)

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by U4-WelcomeI don\'t think we should paint minis for the sole purpose of taking a picture. If it doesn\'t work in real life, then what good is it ?

Look at the top 10. Most of these minis are diaramas and serve no purpose other than to be used as art/pictures.

 

[Chrispy]

Yes, I wanted to do forced perspective on my VIC 9 mini, but I never planned it out and painted it. So I might do that one of these days, but my idea was to arc some cardboard ao that it would fool people into thinking there is a horizon line where there is none.

BTW: liked Castlevania the first time on PS2... when it was Devil May Cry...

 

[U4-Welcome]

Message original : airhead

Originally posted by U4-WelcomeI don\'t think we should paint minis for the sole purpose of taking a picture. If it doesn\'t work in real life, then what good is it ?

Look at the top 10. Most of these minis are diaramas and serve no purpose other than to be used as art/pictures.

Sure, but they look like they should from any angle ; it\'s not like you have to take a picture and hide the mini in a closet in fear someone discovers you\'ve \"cheated\" with the camera...

edit : rereading your post, I think you may have misunderstood me : when I say \"if it doesn\'t work in real life\", I don\'t mean as in \"if we don\'t use it to play games\", I mean \"if the desired painted effect is not believable in real life as opposed to on film\".

 

[No Such Agency]

...when I say \"if it doesn\'t work in real life\", I don\'t mean as in \"if we don\'t use it to play games\", I mean \"if the desired painted effect is not believable in real life as opposed to on film\".

I\'d say that if you look at it from the right angle, in real life, you\'ll see the effect. Same with complex NMM effects, if you look at it from a weird angle the \"spell is broken\" and it looks like paint. That doesn\'t mean it\'s not worth doing on a mini. With a forced perspective or NMM piece, one can still admire the artistry even when looking at it \"wrong\". After all if you don\'t look at a flat painting from straight on, it looks distorted too.

 

[vincegamer]

Not exactly on topic but:

I was watching a cartoon the other day and there was the classic scene of a hall with 3 doors on one side and 3 on the other, where folks kept running out one door and in the other in a convoluted chase scene. It was funny when the Marx brothers did it and it was funny on Scooby Doo, and it\'s mildly amusing now.

Where this comes in of course is that the cartoon is 2D and the doors appear to be further away down the hall because they are drawn smaller than the doors \"closest\" to the viewer. The creative bit was that the cartoonist had someone come out a far door and enter a near door without the character changing perspective - i.e. staying small. The artists were having fun with breaking the illusion.

If you understood me, you can imagine it was trippy.

 

[DennisMech]

here\'s the mini I talked about in my earlier post:

It works better from a slightly higher angle, but I think it\'s neat nonetheless.

 

[supervike]

I agree with the lobster...

Well, it is neat nonetheless....BUT, from the picture angle it looks like the artist choose the wrong scale to work with.

The photo ruins the effect. Although, I give the benefit of the doubt to the photo-taker (I assume they were trying to show us more of the mini) The more effective shot would have been above the divebomber, looking down to the marines....

Still, I really think this idea is great, and I\'d like to see how some of the \'mini greats\' would handle it....