Then Boromir had come leaping through the trees. He had made them fight. He slew many of them and the rest fled. But they had not gone far on the way back when they were attacked again, by a hundred Orcs at least, some of them very large, and they shot a rain of arrows: always at Boromir. -- "The Uruk-Hai: The Two Towers"
In the "Lord of the Rings" this scene is never related as it happened. It is only vaguely recalled by the two hobbits while they are in the captivity of the Uruk-Hai. We can only guess at what happened and what Boromir's last moments were like. Peter Jackson delves deeper into this very incident in the movie "Fellowship of the Ring" brilliantly played by Sean Bean, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.
Almost 10 month's have been spend on this image - built piece by piece, layer by layer, render by render. In its preliminary state the Poser files and the Bryce files grew too large for my PC to handle, and I had to compromise and use a technique of low-resolution Poser figures, 2d Pic Bryce objects, multiple renders in Bryce, multiple image compositing and layerings and considerable post-production work in Corel PhotoPaint 12 and Corel Painter. My techniques that I used will be the subject of a tutorial that I am busy completing now and should hopefully be available later on in September.
DAZ's Michael 3 formed the basis of the character of Boromir and the hobbit Pippin, in the foreground. The weapons and tree trunks were created in Rhino3D. The orc band (there are close to 30 figures) was created with numerous low-resolution Poser 4 figures, heavily morphed and each bearing low polygon weapons and armor. The tree foliage was created with XFrog. The ferns, grass and other foliage are a combination of 2d Pic Bryce objects, Poser props and even some PlantStudio-generated objects. A basic scene without the characters and most foliage was created in Bryce and the lighting and atmosphere adjusted to create a misty forest glade. Each tree trunk and associated foliage was then loaded in separately and rendered all to individual files. Each character (with the exception of the main orc band) was also rendered separately within the basic scene. (The Bryce scenes totalled 4.3Gb)
The end result was around 20 separate renders all of which were composited carefully in Corel PhotoPaint 12, as well as additional beams of light, foliage masks and extra effects like tears in clothing and bloodstains. A small amount of the Flaming Pear Glare plugin filter was used to add to the final effect.
This image is dedicated to my good friend Rosa VanMeter (aka Kriorska).
NEWS: January 31, 2005, I have been informed that this image got two awards at the Bryce Forum Golden Tori 2005 Awards - Best Fantasy Picture and Best Lighting. Many thanks to all of those who voted for this work. I am humbled by your faith in my abilities!
