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14 cgw e d i t i o n 2 , 2 0 2 0 on the Paladins, burning them and creating cover for the Fey group. The vortex had to be believable yet still have a magical component. "Fire is always difficult; there are scalabil- ity issues and dynamic issues, especially when you are combining digital fire with live-action fire; there's a believability factor that has to be addressed," says Stevenson. "We had some practical fire in the shots that we could match, but there was very little in terms of the forgiving nature to that sequence because it was filmed in broad daylight, one of the more difficult scenarios for doing believable fire." For the epic battle on the beach in the last episode, Mr. X used Massive crowd simulation to turn 100 extras into 500 – Vikings, Fey, Tusks, royal soldiers – according to Houghton. The sequence had a number of high-angle shots looking down onto the beach that were enhanced with digi-double crowd sims generated in Massive. When on the same level as the action, Mr. X used elements of Fey and Vikings fighting, shot against bluescreen, to increase the numbers in the battle sequence. "The choreography was the hardest part because you are deal- ing with so many shots of people in close combat and wide-angle shots, so planning became crucial," adds Stevenson. Aside from the battles, Mr. X also created the all-CG Widow, a reaper-looking charac- ter that Mr. X helped design and build. Ini- tially, she was to be an actor with prosthetic make-up, but she wasn't scary enough for Wheeler and Miller, so the artists craed a computer-generated skull-like face that is less rigid and expressive. Milk VFX: Wolves, Culzean Castle, Caves, Waterfall Milk handled a variety of work on Cursed, craing 390 shots encompassing a pack of CG wolves developed from concept through to animation, as well as a forest environment in which Nimue fights with them; and a dramatic waterfall environment where a combat sequence takes place at the climax of the final episode. Milk's brief also included a number of environments: the CG Culzean Castle and subterranean world environments for the Leper Kingdom; the underground chasm at Cailleach; digi-dou- bles of heroine Nimue and the Paladins for the waterfall sequence; the green Fey forge fire; and the glow and effects on the sword. The studio also created additional environ- ments and effects, including chopping off the hands of the character Bors. In one revealing scene, the sorceress Yeva casts an incantation that enables Nimue and Merlin to virtually meet for the first time, at Culzean Castle. Here, Nimue is given a look at the past and at Merlin's connection to the sword, leaving her unsure whether to follow her mother's dying instructions. The sequence was filmed among the ruins of Waverley Abbey in Surrey, which Milk developed into a larger, grander build of a castle city ruins. "There was only a little bit of wall standing [on-location]. Most of the castle was a CG set extension," says Hough- ton. Therefore, the look and textures of the digital castle needed to match the unusual texture of the existing monastery ruins that appear in the plates. The challenge was building an environ- ment that could sit in many different shots and angles without Milk having to make be- spoke separate builds, according to Ciaran Crowley, VFX supervisor at Milk. Milk additionally built the subterranean environment for the Cailleach, an evil- filled underground chasm where Morgana encounters the Freefolk-made spider while retrieving the sword for Nimue. Milk further built the subterranean environments of the Leper King, which was mostly filmed on a small set and then digitally extended. "These were quite challenging to build, as we had to integrate some floating set walls within the design of the environment," says Crowley of the Leper King caves. "The throne room was imagined as a vast cathedral with a touch of backlighting – with a direct reference to Frank Miller's comic-art style." Meanwhile, the artists filled the treasure room with gold coins and treasure spilling out all over the chamber, along with coffins and copious riches. They also craed the green Fey fire, which Merlin steals. According to Crowley, the most challeng- ing aspect of the overall job was the wolf scene, wherein the Paladins dispatch five (CG) wolves to hunt down Nimue as she is carrying the wrapped sword to Merlin. The beasts trap her, and during the fight, she climbs atop a rock and uses the sword to dispatch the beasts one by one, behead- ing three – one in spectacular Frank Miller style. Like the wolves, the environment in the scene is all-CG, with the exception of the actress and rock, which were filmed on greenscreen. "The wolf sequence was very tough. It was shot in the studio, and just prior to the scene, Nimue is running through an actual forest and comes into a clearing, which was essentially a greenscreen studio space with just the rock in the middle," says Houghton. "Milk had to then add the whole of the forest environment around it." The Milk team designed the look of the wolves from scratch, while the lighting style and atmosphere they incorporated into those concepts (which included backlit lighting, driven from Miller's signature comic style) was subsequently used as lighting ref- erence by the DP and director on the shoot. Nimue battles five CG wolves in a CG environment, craed by Milk. Culzean Castle's CG set extension.