Hallo,

The last six weeks i started with the building of the castle. Here is the original. I will build a good half of it.

During the siege of the castle , two of the cellars of the castle were occupied by nearly 20 german prisoners and about 80 citizens of the town who took shelter in the fortified basement of the medieval fortress.
So here is my effort to model these two cellars. They are going to be integrated in the castle as two separate shadow-boxes and i needed to finish them before any other construction, because access, while possible, will be very difficult later.
I am nearly sure that lightning was non-existent in the castles cellars at this time , and of course during the bombardement of the town, so i tried to keep the balance between kightning enough to see what's inside and the athmosphere of cellars.
I'm adding a group photo of them all (16 figures), so you can better appreciate what's inside the cellars. 4 of the figs are completely scratchbuilds, some modified and a few OOTB.






Thanks you for your critics

Cheers from Luxembourg

Claude

Your figures looks great. A nice variety of personalities.

Nice to see civillians in a dio. You must share how you did them (not the OOTB-ones ). Could be nice with some ideas.

Great work.

First of all I'd like to offer great praise. This is a really fantastic subject. You earn a lot of credit on that alone.
The cellars are very nicely done. The shape and context is really convincing.
In general the figure work is really nice. I look forward to more of this one/two.

Couple of things I would like to see to enhance this even more. I'd like a bit more dark wash in between the stones on the cellar walls. Make those rocks really pop out. I do like that you did add extra above the fireplaces, well done.
The box and bucket on the left of the third photo (second of the diorama) are a bit light and clean. I'd like to see another coat of paint on the box and a bit of dulling of the bucket.
The figure in the camo pants - It took me three looks to realize he was kicking a can! I like the concept. He looks a bit stiff. Not sure if there is anything you can do about that at this point. What I would do is paint the can a differnt color or drybrush some hightlights to show it off a bit more.

Good job - keep us posted.

Claude, my offer for free board and lodging still stands... .

Wonderfull stuff, I really looking forward to see this Castle completed.

Cheers
Henk

Fantastic work!! I have been following this build from the start, and it's really coming along nicely. Keep us posted.

Scott,

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them really much.
I do not have access any more to everything. I have to leave the walls like they are now. i washed them a few times, just to lighten the seams again when i brushed the stones. I was stuck in some sort of circular washing and brushing, so i stopped here.
I will try to darken the bucket, it really shines on the pic. The problem is the light (a LED) who shines in this direction. It comes (as you can see ) from the right side, where i actually mounted a latern, to have an excuse for the light source.
I can not do anything for the look of the camo guy who is frustrating kicking cans. I copied myself before the mirror to have a good kicking position.
I will try to apply a dark wash on the can to dull it down. It may help, but again the light source is very near to the silver painted can.
Just to point out that on the left and right side of the fireplace are the guys sitting on the left and right side of the group photo. One is an old Precision Models soldier drying his shoes and the other one is a scratched one, retired in a corner, holding his ears because of the bombardements outside.

Thanks for the comments to you all


@Henk, if i have finished the dio (in a few years) i will consider the offer :-)

If you did none of my suggestions you still have a great project and one you can be very proud of. So, don't worry about it.
I try to offer constructive thoughts only to help out.
I also realize that seeing things in person are much better than through a photo. The guy kicking a can is a perfect example. That would have been very easy to see 1st hand.

I'm looking forward to more updates.

Claude,

an impressive project and an even impressive start !!

I admire your ambition and, like Scott said, you deserve a praise for your creative idea !!

The lightsource is one thing to reconsider though. It has the wrong color and it's way to bright. Perhaps you can try to change the colour to a more yellow tone (use a regular lightbulb or grainlight ?) and cover the left side of the light to prevent it shining towards our cankicker (another great concept by the way !).

I love every inch of it so far, but I think the lighting needs a bit of rethinking.

Hi Claude, having seen the work you've already put into the dio so far [ which is outstanding ] I'm waiting to see more, great work on an enormous undertaking
, good luck, hard work, and keep us posted.
The castle cellars are very well done and I can't wait to see some castle pics.
Cheyenne

Danny, thanks for your input.
Now you know why i asked you about your lighting in your shadowbox project.

Where do i start ?

What is a grainlight ?

What is a correct colour for a cellar, where i suppose at the time of the events was no electricity at all, except some petroleum laterns maybe.

Because there are no windows (and no open doors for the emprisoned germans) i can only imitate candle and petroleum lights. This is not enough for the viewer of the dio.
So where do i put the light and how much.
The candle of the letter reader is relayed to a candle -light with a fibre optic cable, but it provides no light at all.
The fire place lights are for effect only and to not enlight a bit.

Because the shadow-boxes are incorporated in a module, where i will build the castle on top of it, access will be very difficult later on. (i have some sort of plan to access the boxes from under the module ( a 60-70 kg piece of wood), but just for some emergency cases).
That's why i discarded normal light bulbs , as i was not sure how long they last. (i tried with a single 0.6W Christmas light) and i used LED's.
Another a point is that i want it to run on batteries. The whole dio is so big, that i don't want to mess with the cables for this two boxes.
I have 3 LED's and 2 Fire-LED's (the lights from Michael at Monroe Perdue) on 4 1.5 V batteries)
If i cover the left side of the light as you said, the kicker (and the letter reader), will have no light at all except the natural light falling in the box. (the front of the box will lay 5 cm inside because of the thick walls of the castle).

I will try this tomorrow to see what the result is.
Do you think yellow LED's will give me a better result?


I really appreciate this discussion as my work until now gave reason to no criticism at all, so i do not know where i stand. As i want this to be something major, i really welcome your input, so let it come.

If there is a problem with my english, please ask back, i will try to explain myself.

Time to go to bed for me, see you tomorrow.

Claude

Claude,

Very impressive piece of work. The concept is excellent and wonderful collection of figures. I have been playing with LED's for a project and may I suggest rather than simply replacing the white LED's use a combination of lower output yellow and white. The combination of varying color LED's can both produce subtle illumination to see the figures and at the same time creating a warm flame type of light. Regardless, the piece is extremely impressive.

Cheers

Jay

Brad,

FC Wiltz !! from where do you got that, i'm impressed.


Thanks for the comments, you are right, i noticed this error some time ago, but , and i think this should be taken as general modeling rule, never expect other modellers not to see the errors you made, they see everything :-)

I will try to push his head a little bit in the right direction.
As it is a scratchbuild it is fixed with a piece of wire, and should work without to much damage.

Cheers

Claude


PS: This is strange, after i send this message to answer Brad's post, his post is gone ?? What happened ?

Nice to see you posting again Claude, I having been watching this with great interest. Your work is very ambitious, I have a great respect for you just for that alone.

I am with Scott as he pointed out, I think the walls could use some more weathering, especially knowing you plan on putting in lights. I'm afraid adding the lights will only increase the need to do so. Weather the mortar between the stones should be dark or light in color, that depends on your subject which you know more about than we do. I refer to the building techniques used in the castle.

If you are using acrylic based paints I have a technique that may suit your needs. When I built a castle for some gamer friends and had large areas to detail stone work. What I did was coat the walls with my base color. Then when dry I would wet the whole area water making sure the water would work itself into the crevices between the stones, then I would use a mixture of thinned paint and artisits ink (available at art stores in a vareity of colors) and would work this mixture into the crevices with a small brush.The water works as a catylist helping to carry the thinned paint and ink mixture through capillary action. The water would allow the paint to flow freely into the crevices. If needed I would blot the stone surface with a paper towel to soak up the excess on the stone surface. Then I would go back with gound up pastels to add highlights and shadows to the stone surface with a soft bristled paint brush. Once you get the hang of the method it can be done very quickly with good results.

Regardless of any critisims you get from us, I want you to know that I have a great resepct for your subject as well as the shear size of it. You are pouring a lot of work into a subject which I know means a lot to you. You are doing great work and I certainly only want to encourage you. If there is any way I can assist you in your project feel free to messengge me anytime.

As for any lighting suggestions you should consider going to a train hobby store, there you should be able to find all the information you require to wire and light your subjects.

best regards,

Paul

Ok Paul,

You both convinced me to redo the stonework and ad more contrast. I think a few days more work on this part will not mean much in a multi-year project.
I also considered the train hobby store, but i think most of their offerings are not batterie driven and that's really what i want.
This evening a will try to move a yellow flickering LED ,who served only as light source for a fibre optic cable going into the candle (and the effect is near zero) to the corner opposite the can -kicker. It will ad a light yellow touch and the flickering effect of a fire-place. Also i will try to hide a bit from the white LED shining directly on the can-kicker. Maybe it will help without further investment.

I am really glad to finally have some constructive comments, because until now everything (all the buildings i showed) passed this forum without any critic, so i do not know realy where i stand in form of quality.

In the hope of some more input (when you finally awake the other side of the pond :-)

Cheers and thank you

Claude

Claude, this is very impressive work. I like the concept and it is shaping up very nicely. Could you tell us how you did the inside cellar construction..What material you used to acheive the stone work..and the ceiling overhead?

Thanks...and again..great work!

Mary (++)

Claude, this is fantastic work, heck all your work so far that I have seen on this is outstanding. I would really love to see this when finished as well. The others have some good ideas, ther is nothing I can add to help out at this stage. Just great work and keep it coming!!!! Cheers Kevin

Three words for you Claude.

I love it!!!!!!!

Shadow boxes are something I've always wanted to do but never got around to.

Jim