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IvanChristian — Hell of the Hospitaller
Published: 2011-01-12 04:02:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 19178; Favourites: 197; Downloads: 2556
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Description
Charge of the Knights Hospitaller.The Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Order of Hospitallers or simply Hospitallers, and known at various points in their history as the Order of St John, Knights of Rhodes and Knights of Malta, were a major Western Christian military order that originated during the Middle Ages (Wikipedia).
I have never really tried to paint fully armoured European knights so here is my first attempt. All I knew was that I wanted to depict a mass combat scene with charging knights in it and keep it grounded in history rather than a fantasy. After I looked into various medieval knight orders the Hospitallers caught my eye over the Templers, the Teutonic Knighs and others.
To maintain a historical grounding I referenced knights from pictures by and . I also used chain mail brush.
Done mostly in ArtRage 3 Pro with editing in Photoshop CS2.
Comment most welcome.
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Comments: 40
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why are they fighting Europeans? I thought the principality of Antioch fought the filthy kebabs
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the problem I see with this picture is of course choice of armours, which in XIII century were not plate, but it is of a little problem, everything for the glory of the True Church!
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Thanks for the info. I learned a lot from painting this, not only about composition and colour combinations but also about that period in history. And it all started from a sketch in which I wanted to draw a few Knights in armour fighting! Now that I know more about the periods armours I would love to depict the Siege of Acre. I think it would be a nice challenge trying to get both sides right. Now just to find the time...
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Nice work. The strongest elements of this piece are how the Hospitalers ar fading in from a dark, blurry background to a sharp clear image in the midground, and the angle on the horse that really gives a sense of movement and action!
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Thanks for the comments. I was rather happy with this work and I still am, despite wanting to rework a few things like the over bright blue tunics of some of the Knights. It was my first combat scene and my aim was to try and capture a sense of movement and chaos so I am happy that you get that feeling!
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If I might borrow one of your men here to call William and write about, I shall post links etc asap.
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That's fine with me if you post a link to it.
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Shall do. Thanks a million x
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It certainly wasn't easy for a loose infantry cluster to survive armored cavalry- you really got that down, though I imagine the crusading orders did not commonly clash with western enemies.
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Nope. The Knights Hospitaller were forbidden to attack other Christians, so....really they never did.
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Yes, I thought not.
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I know, my original intent was to practice painting knights. However I have been considering doing a more historically accurate painting with traditional combatants.
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I look forward to seeing it!
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you're absolutely welcome
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Hey! Looks really good! Good movement and great work on the ground.
However, compositionally it is not so good. I'm now bored and decided to make a paintover. I usually ask before I make paintovers, but I read you responses to other commnets and thought that you won't go all rage rage from this. 
The paintover is in upper left corner and yours is below it.
First thing that jumped at me is the values in your picture. They go all over the piece, it kinda lacks the focal point. There's a B&W versions of the pictures. ( it's good to watch your picture once a while like that) Human eye goes first to there where's the most contrast, in your picture, it's the white crosses on the black clothes. This distracts the wiever from the focal point, the actual happening and impact. So what I did is basically lowered the contrast on background, and added more the the focal point.
Another way to lead eye is by adding "arrows". You have kinda done that, with the blue dudes spears and making the dude who got killed watching the main hospitalier. Accidentally or not. But it can be stengthened. I added arrows on the lower right picture to illustrate. Changed the main hospitalier to watch his victim to add more tension. And slightly altered the spear of the knight on right.
The reason why I moved on knight on foreground is that you didn't really have anything noticable going ouside of the picture, showing that this scene continues outside of this picture. It's usually good to make something very close to the wiever to make the distances more "extreme".
And then I very slightly changed the colors to fit together more. I hope this helps, and I'm not a professional in any way so take this with a grain of salt.
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Thank you for taking the time to offer your advice and do a paintover. I'm hear on DA to show my work and improve it, so your comments are welcome.
As for the contrasts, it is indeed a good point. I had intended the front Hospitaller to be the focus of the work and I had not really picked up how distracting the white flag was until i sore what you had done in the paintover.
I had inteneded the two spears pointing up towards the front Hospitaller to form a triangle shape to help lead the eye around the painting. However it is the first time that I have tried to set up perspective's like this and I can see how it is slightly out and could have been set up a little differently to add more tension. Having the knight in the bottom left corner closer to the viewer really adds a great deal of depth as well.
Once again thanks for your comments!
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Wow, this looks amazing. Very realistic to the period and the Hospitallers, very cool
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Thank you, I put my time into doing a little research to make sure it looked authentic.
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Could use more shadows (for the three, right-side knights) and lighting (for the main/middle knights).
Cool addition of the horn-like helm for the knight leader, though I've read that having horns on your helmet usually meant giving your opponent giant handrails with which to tug the wearer down
Why are they fighting fellow knights
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Thanks for the advice, there are a few adjustments I think I will be making.
As for the knights, I had considered the blue knights to be a "rogue" group that the Hospitallers had been ordered to slay for attacks against pilgrims in the Holy Lands. I know historically they would have generally battled against Muslim soldiers or even Barbary pirates when the order relocated to Rhodes after Acre fell to the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in 1291.
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Very cool. I like the massed doom abut to totally overwhelm the blues. Speaking of which, the reds are the Hospitallers, but are the blues representative of a particular nation, or are they just random medieval roadkill?
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The blue knights do not represent any nation or order. Basically I wanted to paint a combat scene between knights and wanted to include the Hospitallers. I did not want to confuse matters by making the blue knights known. One of the Hospitallers duties was to defend pilgrims in the holy lands so it would not be implausible that a "rogue" group of knights ended up fighting them.
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Good work!
This is a "warm" image. It is dominated by yellows, ochres, reds, umber browns, etc. But the blue you have used on the knights is a cold blue, which breaks the illusion of a consistent world (light). Try a blue that is closer to yellow (warm , and greenish) and see what happens. Also, even if the garment colours of the knights (reds and blues) are intended to be saturated and clean, try to make them a little less saturated to blend in with the rest. Just a little. I like the picture!
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Thank you for your advice, it is greatly appreciated. I'll re-look at the painting with some warmer blues instead of the cold blue. Colour theory is definitely something I will look more into!
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Thank you, that is quite a compliment.
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Thank you. I am really enjoyed painting this so more works with knights in them could be on the horizon!
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It's a good solid composition, and some of your figure posing is good. I would want to add more 'dust and grime to this'. Lots of dust from the horses hooves hitting the ground, smoke of battle etc that would really help push this more.
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Thanks for the advice.
I went back into the work and added dust coming up behind the front riders like you suggested. I think it adds a bit more realism and also breaks up the shadowy wall of the mounted knights in the background nicely. As for the smoke and flames in the background, I wanted to keep this dulled down. I originally had them a lot brighter and it took away from the mounted knights as they blended into the flames a little too much.
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no problem, look forward to see more things from you
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Thank you. Your photos were a great help in making the knights armour look realistic and fit the time period. I wanted them to look like medieval knights, not fantasy knights.
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