Milvian Bridge part wan
I have decided to attempt a blog on my new Osprey book "battle of the Milvian bridge", inspired by my dear friend and volleyball compadré Joanna Mooney (Huggie). This will probably be very tedious for the average reader, so if you're expecting the "girl with the Pearl earrings" or "Caravaggio", I'm afraid this may disappoint ;-).
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| coin of Maxentius |
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| coin of Maxentius |
Lots of people ask me, how i do an Osprey book or how it all works? Its actually relatively straight forward. Its probably best to break it down in stages.
stage1: You are offered a title, if you agree, you are sent a contract, you sign it, send it back, once you get the second copy back from Osprey, your good to go.
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| Maxentius |
Stage 3: The production of designs for each of the plates for the approval by the Author and editor. Sometimes they are approved straight away, other times there maybe amendments, changes needed etc.
Stage 4: Once the designs have been approved, you have your green light to proceed to paint. Its a good idea to send the odd update to Author/Editor to ensure that you are on the same page...especially the Author, as your work is there to compliment their text or illuminate some salient point they are forwarding.
Unfortunately when i was in Rome a few years ago, i didn't get a chance to see this part of the Tiber, although the area to be shown is still accessible/visible and the area's seem to have retained vestiges of their original names (i did a Google maps drive by).This is very limited particularly in Rome, where it's very built up and lots of trees.
The reason i mention this, is that sometimes, as with Ramillies 1706, Flight of the Earls and Aughrim, i got an opportunity to walk the battlefields or the area to be illustrated, this allowed me to get a sense of the place (macro sense), take photos and sometimes it allows you to see what the contemporary author was referring to in their commentary (as with Ramillies and the hidden roads). This adds (in my opinion) to the depth of a plate, it allows you to be confident to add more detail to the environment you are portraying.
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| coin of Maxentius, reverse showing Royal Regalia? |
With the arrival of the pack, it was great to finally read the details and know what i was letting myself in for ;¬) Once my curiosity was satisfied, i print out a copy of each folder, staple them together (otherwise its like the library of Alexandria after a storm). I go through these to pick out saliant points, familiarise myself with the scene and its elements. The doodling started from the get go, making notes, random thoughts, mad ideas, thinking about references and how best to proceed.
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| Arch of Constantine |
Invariably some plates jumps out as straight forward or tricky, but most are usually straight forward or quite simple. With the Warriors (8 plates) i try to clear the straight forward ones first (to get as much covered as possible and leave time at the end, it rarely happens for me). This time i'm going for the tricky one first or more specifically the more unfamiliar scene.
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| Arch of Constantine |
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| Constantine |
The plate i decided to tackle first is the scene of "Maxentuius' Cavalry fleeing cross the Tiber", upstream from the pontoon collapse. In the background some of Constantine's troops break off to pursue and harry this Cavalry as they head towards the river. The viewer (you), watch as Maxentius & his cavalry attempt to swim the Tiber towards you. This scene has a lot of horses, men and water, it presents a some challenges.
These visual challenges require a larger thumbnail, gathering more specific references (horses in water with and without rider), arranging the figs within the scene (which is set). Its going to be an interesting image if i can transfer whats in my head onto paper....
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| Arch of Constantine |
postscript: The Royal Regalia..
one of the interesting things i came across while looking at various sites about Maxentius, was that in 2006 a set of Royal Regalia was found at the Palatine hill. These are considered to be those of Maxentius? They are on display in the Museum of Rome (images copyright Museum of Rome)
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| Royal Regalia of Maxentius Museum of Rome, Italy. |
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| coin of Maxentius |
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| Regalia of Maxentius |
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| Regalia of Maxentius |
Hi Sean- Nice blog- just found it via Louis Quatorze ..... Andy Old Glory
ReplyDeleteit gets trickier from here on out....
DeleteHi Seán,
ReplyDeleteDo I understand it correctly that there will be an Osprey publishing Campaign title on the battle of Milvian bridge?I know that you already done this battle at least once but that was for "Warrior"series and description here seems to point on different scene than that in warrior.
yes its a Campaign, dealing with the battle itself... i know i did a painting of it previously but this will be 3 images infantry, Cavalry & rout (spoiler alert ;¬)....i just hope when its done people will like it?
DeleteWell, if it will be at least half as good as your former Roman works I think people will be satisfied enough .-).I hope Osprey will one day hire you also to do book on the Battle of Argentoratum(which is much better documented than Milvian bridge) or book on Roman Auxiliary infantryman-which is a huge gap among Osprey Roman titles.But I also loved your work on Ramillies 1706-this was one of the best early modern warfare Osprey books in a long time in my opinion(and especially when speaking about illustrations).Good luck Seán,I am eagerly awaiting this new book from now on .-)
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