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Gideon Saulse de Bothnia

Gideon is the fourth son to le comte de Bothnia (the Count of Bothnia). Bothnia is a rather small but fertile county located in northern Oleon. As Gideon’s hopes of inheriting his father’s lands were slim at best, his career options would traditionally have been either in the military or in the Order. Gideon has however spent many years studying various subjects at a couple of Oleon’s most prominent universities, to his father’s displeasure since he has been forced to pay for Gideon’s rather lavish lifestyle as a student.

The new horizons which are opening up beyond the seas has opened up new opportunities to break with the boring traditions of the family, and Gideon is now setting out for a new life as an explorer and entrepreneur in New Terra.

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Gideon Saulse de Bothnia.

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Closeup of sigfig.

The Saulse family uses the following heraldry: Per pale sable and argent, a falcon displayed countercharged, a bordure azure.

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(source: Classic-Castle.com)

Secondary characters

I created a bunch of different figures when trying to create a sigfig, as I originally thought he was going to be some kind of bluecoat. I have no idea about if or how these secondary characters will appear in my builds, but I figured I might as well post them for future reference. At least the priest has already given me some ideas...

I've taken some liberties using titles in French as it seemed to suit the setting, but if the leadership wants to maintain it all in English I can change that.

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Theodore Saulse de Bothnia, comte de Bothnia and colonel (retired) in the Oleander army. War hero in the fourty-nine years war which he can tell countless stories from, most of them more or less exaggerated.

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Alexandre Saulse de Bothnia, oldest son and heir to the county of Bothnia. Contre-Amiral (rear admiral) in the Oleander fleet.

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Hector Saulse de Bothnia, second oldest son. Commandant (major) in the Oleander army.

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Jayson Saulse, priest in the Order. Devoted to Poseidon. Here shown in both traveling garments and ceremonial garments. (I need to get a white hood asap...off to BL!)

A small photography tutorial

I also took the opportunity to show those of you interested in forced perspective a piece of useful knowledge. If you compare the pictures below, you can see that the amount of background blur increases as the aperture gets bigger (smaller f-number). I've found that tinkering with this can be very useful when trying to create a believable background in forced perspective builds. Of course I had to use more light when using a smaller aperture.

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The scene with aperture f/4.5, which was the largest this lens could go at this focal length. In my opinion, the background is now too blurry.

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The scene with aperture f/8.

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The scene with aperture f/16. Individual bricks are too visible in the background so by now the forced perspective effect is diminished. (It also makes some nasty dirt on the sensor appear more clearly...)

Edited by Gideon

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I am very interested in these hints and techniques you discussed. I am a beginner, so excuse my ignorance, but what is aperture?

On a side note, you could do a while lesson and I would read it.

Edited by Captain Pirate Man

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On 2016-01-11 at 3:03 AM, Captain Pirate Man said:

I am very interested in these hints and techniques you discussed. I am a beginner, so excuse my ignorance, but what is aperture?

On a side note, you could do a while lesson and I would read it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture

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"F"-ing Beautiful! I love the forced perspective microbuild manor in the background.....I think about this kind of shot all the time, but never have attempted one....Bravo sir!

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that fp is just amazing, makes me consider to do head into it as well, ah so many new ideas, so little time to build ...

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Your presentation, where you build miniscale in the backgroung looks great! Very very cool executed!.

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Beautiful presentation and great use of forced perspective. That manor in the background is just brilliant, and I really like how it is an "everything Lego"-shot, including the background.

Both sig fig (where is that torso from?) and side characters are looking good!

With many years of study in places of higher learning, Gideon will probably quickly realise the error of his ways and join the true scientific kingdom! pirate_wink.gif

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wow on the perspective.

lots of details too!

I'll try to listen to your photo advices even more now

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Very nice sigfigs Gideon!

Thanks! Only one is my sigfig however, the others are just kind of a figbarf I may or may not use in future builds default_classic.gif

"F"-ing Beautiful! I love the forced perspective microbuild manor in the background.....I think about this kind of shot all the time, but never have attempted one....Bravo sir!

that fp is just amazing, makes me consider to do head into it as well, ah so many new ideas, so little time to build ...

Lovely! Nice sigfigs, and that background...

That`s a very nice presentation with the palais and all in the background

Your presentation, where you build miniscale in the backgroung looks great! Very very cool executed!.

Beautiful presentation and great use of forced perspective. That manor in the background is just brilliant, and I really like how it is an "everything Lego"-shot, including the background.

wow on the perspective.

lots of details too!

Thanks! FP is nice because it actually isn't that time consuming to build. I probably spent at least as much time tinkering with the camera as I spent building when I did this. Having a brick-built background has the advantage that I didn't have to bring out the backdrop setup but could shoot this right at my building table and take test shots as I went on to see which parts of the build I needed to adjust or improve default_classic.gif

Both sig fig (where is that torso from?) and side characters are looking good!

With many years of study in places of higher learning, Gideon will probably quickly realise the error of his ways and join the true scientific kingdom! :pir-wink:

The torso is from a mystery brick box I bought at the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend default_blink.gif

But I believe that it comes from Pippin (lor012) in The Mines of Moria (9473).

In game: All education Gideon has received at those universities has of course been firmly founded in the Truth and sanctioned by the Order!

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Beautiful FP! I especially like the first picture with the cow. The mansion in the background is really cool as is the stone fence! thumbup.gif

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Excellent FP and very nice intro Gideon, and some cool figs as well (particularly the one that looks like Uridius pirate_tong.gifpirate_laugh_new.gif)! Just out of curiosity, did you shoot these with super macro on as well (I've just been using that for my FP builds), or does the aperture speed alone do the trick?

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I wonder if you could show us a pic of the entire scene so we can understand the distances between the two levels better.

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These are some badass figs! And the presentation is top notch. Regarding the ceremonial version of your priest, i would have added a cape or something to make him more... well, just more!

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As just about everyone else has mentioned, the photographs is marvelous. Thank you very much for the tutorial; I will have to experiment with aperture if I every try some forced perspective shots.

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Some fantastic techniques for both micro and close-up combined with flawless execution of photography - that is really impressive!

I love the style of that house and hope to see more similarly-styled houses in BoBS.

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Beautiful FP! I especially like the first picture with the cow. The mansion in the background is really cool as is the stone fence! :thumbup:

Thanks! It was the idea of a microscale mansion which led to this build :classic:

The stone fences were inspired by similar stone fences around my parents' cottage on the island of Öland in the Baltic sea.

Excellent FP and very nice intro Gideon, and some cool figs as well (particularly the one that looks like Uridius :pir-tongue::pir-laugh:)! Just out of curiosity, did you shoot these with super macro on as well (I've just been using that for my FP builds), or does the aperture speed alone do the trick?

Thanks!

Any similarities to existing characters are purely due to the lack of variation of 18th century figure parts in my collection!

I did not use an automatic macro mode as I usually do the settings manually nowadays. But I had the camera almost as close to my figure as the lens could focus.

I'm not entirely sure what the super macro mode does, but I suspect it opens the aperture as much as possible to achieve a short depth of field? In that case, a picture here would have looked like the one with f/4.5 in my tutorial. But I could be wrong, I'm not that familiar with macro photography.

I wonder if you could show us a pic of the entire scene so we can understand the distances between the two levels better.

Lucky you asked now! I was just about to dismantle the build since it wasn't something worth saving for any exhibition or even my own glass cabinets in the Lego room :wink:

The foreground was put two bricks higher than the background, and tilted at an angle. Not entirely successful when I look back at it, since I now think it might give the impression of the foreground being tilted to the side?

The best thing with this kind of photography is that I could do it right on my building table and not have the whole build brought up to the living room, the background put up etc. It also meant that I only had 2 m to go to the computer and review the photos.

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Excellent - and you are a master of photography.

That's a mighty fine intro and photography.

As just about everyone else has mentioned, the photographs is marvelous. Thank you very much for the tutorial; I will have to experiment with aperture if I every try some forced perspective shots.

Some fantastic techniques for both micro and close-up combined with flawless execution of photography - that is really impressive!

Thanks!

What I have learned about still life/product photography is entirely thanks to the Lego hobby, another skill development I can thank Guilds of Historica for! :classic:

Mostly using trial and error, but I have also read (and watched on youtube) a few tutorials on product photography.

I love the style of that house and hope to see more similarly-styled houses in BoBS.

Thanks!

I also hope we get to see more of the splendor of the Old World as well, particularly the magnificent residences of La Noblesse :classic:

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Amagad! This camera seems...intimidating!

Lucky then I didn't got around to changing to the usual lens (70-200 f/4), which would have made my camera look something like this + flash :wink:

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(Photo linked from the review of the lens by Nic Coury)

But as I like to say over and over again, it's not really about the camera. I bought a full-frame DSLR with decent lenses for other kinds of photography, shooting great pictures of your MOCs you can do with pretty much any modern camera, or even a decent phone camera if you have good lighting (although you lose a bit of the creative possibilities with a smaller sensor, like shallow depth of field).

Having an external flash which can be tilted upwards is however highly recommended since it makes lighting builds decently ridiculously easy (provided the roof is white :wink:). Especially if you live close to the arctic circle like me and natural light is not very abundant for half the year...

Edited by Gideon

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Superb intro, Gideon! The whole arrangement is simply beautiful and the tutorial is nice. You have some very smartly designed characters, but then navy blue has that certain effect! The forced perspective is an excellent idea for an intro and the stone walls are beautiful. I look forward to seeing your creations. On a side note, can I approve this to award you some extra DBs? No? Well, bummer... Happy building!

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