Mountain waterfall

I thought it was worth posting this pic since , as far as I know, using mountains to 'frame' the waterfall is a new approach (or at least one I haven't seen before). The broken cliff line technique is usually my favorite method, but looking at Turty's screenshot competition pic the first thing that came up was mountains and it kicked off the idea. Too late for the comp though!

Desert

How Stephen Richards found God

Winter Wonderland

Avalon

Another effort for the screenshot comp. I'd had the knight contemplating a roman ruin, then a grave, and then !!! the grave became Excalibur.

How Bazaar!

Yes, sorry about the pun..another couple of shots for Thunder's competition. Finally had the chance to use the spectacular Hun Wonder and a town centre canopy idea I'd been playing around with for a while. Note the return of Monkey Boy!

The Gates of Valhalla

Just a quicky for Thunder's continuous screenshot comp at AOKH.
Ended up ranked second..

The Tsunami Connection..

OK, this is exciting!! I'm pleased to announce my membership of Tsunami Studios, one of the most enduring and talented design teams out there. A big thankyou to Anastasia and newIdea for inviting me and dealing with some of the technical aspects of hooking me up. I'm looking forward to being part of the team and starting in on some more ambitious projects...

Tsunami designers working in AOKH include:

Oliver
newIdea
Anastasia
Stephen Richards
and more...

(obviously this needs to be updated before I offend anyone by omission!....)

In the House!

Garrisonable houses & other buildings - details to come

Fourth Annual AOKH Screenshot Competion -2006

Here's a collection of stuff entered in the 2006 screenshot comp at AOKH.
Aside from this new work 'The Dark Pool' and 'Wenceslas' got an airing, with The Dark Pool picking up a Golden Gnome in the Forest category.














WINNER OF THE FUNNIEST SCREENSHOT 2006!!
"Oh yes my lord. It is a most powerful and heavy ram..."

WINNER OF THE GOLDEN GNOME FOR BATTLE SCENES!!
Ok a Golden Gnome is not quite the same as a genuine placing ,
but I'm not complaining. Thanks Raptor!

WINNER OF NOTHING!!
(except a very nice complementry email from Stephen Richards).

Wenceslas - Duke of Bohemia

With Christmas almost here I thought I'd try and post a jolly Christmas screenshot. 'Good King Wenceslas' popped into my mind as a good fit for the AOK period. Well the screenshot came toghether nicely using a walkable castle rampart idea I'd had a while ago, but the research was ah.. interesting, and by the time I'd finished I was in a much more reflective mood..
















December 26th Early 10thC - St Stephen’s Day,

High on the Prague castle ramparts Wenceslas, the 22 year old Duke of Bohemia looked out on the chill evening. In a stern but fair reign of less than 5 years he had brought an end to the persecution of clergy and forged a strategic alliance with Henry I of Germany. But there had been resistance in the nobility who resented the religious conversion that Wenceslas’s grandfather had brought to Bohemia, and with the passing of his father almost 10 years ago his enemies now numbered his mother and brother among them….

Suddenly he is struck by the hardship of a peasant scavenging firewood and calls to his page…

Bring me flesh and bring me wine,
bring me pine logs hither.
Thou and I will see him dine
when we bear him thither.

And so they set out into the bitter cold, the young page taking heart from the king’s warmth and strength. The story has been call to human generosity for over a century after being set to an older Finnish melody in 1853.

Therefore, all ye men be sure,
wealth or rank possessing.
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing..

Wenceslas was a real historical figure. There is far more to his life than is characterised by the carol if you reflect on the political and religious conflict surrounding him. This conflict ultimately saw Wenceslas assassinated in his early twenties. Yet despite, and perhaps because, of the darker aspects this history we still have the uplifting reassurance and goodwill of the story today.

The Dark Pool

A by-product of the cave explorations - a pool of dark, still water created by map copying mountains.

Update: Winner of a Golden Gnome for Forest Scene in the Fourth Annual AOKH Screenshot Competition.

Now this is a cave

Quite a few people have had a go at making a cave with mixed results. After seeing Dark Reign's post on AOKH late Sept 05 I decided to have a shot at it using the bridge shadow method. An evening's tinkering later I tried thowing some cliffs in.. and here it is...


There are four elements required:
a bridge end, (I used a broken one to get a jagged shadow),
a mountain - map copied into position to hide most of the bridge
cliffs - these add some vertical landscape which makes the cave that much more believable.
ground - obvious but I've mentioned it because the elevation relationship between the ground and each of the other elements is critical in maximising the effect.

Walkable cliff paths to climb up to the cave wouldn't hurt either.

Third Annual AoKH Screenshot competition - 2005

Well, this goes back a bit to my first attempt to post something worthwhile at AoK Heaven. I'd been exploring the map editor and had a few ideas I thought were new (or at least interesting) when zyxomma announced the annual screenshot comp. Luckily, two of the categories were a good fit with my ideas.. anyway here are the shots. (click for full size)

This forest scene was a last minute entry and placed second. It grew from the idea of using the monastery as a sort of gatehouse.

I learnt how to get trees on mountains too!



First place in the naval category! I must admit I spent a lot of time on it...It features:
>Some effective wharves using bridges, stumps and torches
>Markets as warehouses
>Ships on land (tiny ice method)
And a few effects only possible in a screenshot:
>A splash as a crane drops it's load
>A four wheeled wagon
>A rope gangway to the red transport






I was really honoured to see this shot used in the AoKH Headlines announcing the contest winners. Actually, I was stunned. (In a happy way)

Liftoff - eleven:11 launches!

something out of nothing

eleven:11 now officially exists....woohoo!

What is eleven:11? Well... mainly it's a studio working intermittently in scenario design for Age of Kings.

At this stage it's a sole operation relying on the help of friends, peers and the odd mentor or two in the AoK community. The purpose of this blog is mainly as a spot to publish completed work and preview work in progress but it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Thanks for visiting