Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1277231
under the supervision of Ditch Doy. This included exterior shots of the castle perched on a ledge and the vista surrounding it, as well as lavishly dressed interior set exten- sions. As the series is based on the classic Arthurian legend, albeit from a new angle, the artists at Goodbye Kansas made a lot of nods to the medieval era as well as to the classic story of Arthur in the castle's design. As such, most of the work was based on art developed in-house with Raf Morant, head of art department, in conjunction with the showrunners and Houghton. "Pinning down the look of Pendragon Castle was probably our biggest challenge," says Doy. "As the seat of Uther's power in the show, it had to evoke his character." Initially, the design was based on tradition- al medieval castles in Wales, but as the concept evolved, it moved more into the realm of fantasy as the artists worked with Miller, who contributed a graphic, stylized aesthetic and influences from German Expressionism. Ultimately, the architecture returned to a more reality-based look, yet still maintained a lot of Miller's vision. Goodbye Kansas approached the build in a modular fashion, constructing a medie- val kit of parts that could be modified and re-purposed. This enabled the crew to match the designs while also dressing the castle as the story required it. For modeling and animation, they used Maya, as well as Houdini for simulations and Chaos Group's V-Ray for rendering. Compositing was done in Nuke. While Pendragon was the studio's main asset for the series, the team also created the interior throne rooms for both Sir Ector's and Uther's castles, and extensions to the exterior of the executioner's courtyard. "As we had created a lot of parts in the medieval style for our Pendragon build, additional top- ups such as those were quick to incorporate, and added some additional grandeur to the scenes," says Doy. Collectively, the studio handled 126 VFX shots. Mr. X: Windmill Siege, Battle at the Beach, the Widow When it came to Cursed's big battle scenes, Mr. X was in the thick of it. This included the windmill siege when the Paladins trap Arthur, Gawain the Green Knight, and the Fey inside a windmill and attempt to burn them out. Among Mr. X's collective 326 VFX shots were those pertaining to the large- scale battle on the beach between the Fey and tusked people, against the Paladins and armies of Uther and the Viking Ice King. In addition to these two main set pieces, the studio craed a number of shots scattered throughout the last six episodes, including the all-CG character the Widow. The lower half of the windmill was practical, while Mr. X digitally extended it, adding an extra set of vanes that were later destroyed by CG fire, craed in Houdini. "It had to be a seamless match," says Tim Stevenson, VFX supervisor at Mr. X, of the digital build. "There were a lot of drone shots, moving shots, handheld shots, and they all had to be tracked to where there was no distinction between the top and bottom portions of the windmill." Moreover, the CG fire was also mixed with practical effects and had to seamlessly blend. As the structure burns in the sequence, more and more of the fire becomes CG until the roof collapses, at which point the fire is all-digital, as is the windmill itself. "Before we destroyed it, we had to build a full-digital version of the practical windmill – from the cloth textures to the wood texture, it had to be a one-to-one match," says Stevenson. Eventually, the heroes and Fey file out of the inferno, while Nimue, who is outside, manipulates the flames and turns them into a giant CG vortex that rises and blows back Arthur and the Green Knight escape the CG flames as Paladins burn the windmill, destroyed by Mr. X.