Ola

Some time ago (a few months I guess) I posted some photos of my medieval tower. Most of you liked it and left a lot of comments which I'm really grateful for:)
I've promised to post an update, but unfortunatelly I was too busy with my exam session and had no time to work on my tower. The session ended a few days ago and I happily sat down and started working on my piece. You can see the results below.
Not much was added since my last post, but this is mostly because I need your opinion on the whole piece. I've started building the merlons (one row on one of the corners) and added other details which were needed, but were also very timeconsuming.
This whole thing is scratchbuild from homemade stones and comes in two pieces, the bottom piece and the upper platform. It's still not finished as you can see, but there's not much left, only two more rows, upper ending pieces for the platform and some floors and doors. Should look really cool when completed.
It is 35mm scale (each stone is around 1/4" - 0,6mm). I wanted to make a mold based on this piece, but it is not perfect in my opinion, plus I can't find anyone who makes molds in my area.
So if you have anything to say, be it criticism or something else, feel free to reply:) I will also be happy to answer any questions you have.

Here's the scale shown with a two pence coin and a one cent coin (sorry I had no euros:) ):



Starting the merlons:







Whole piece from different angles:







Bottoms of the merlons:




Hope you like it,
cheers,
dsc.

PS. Sorry to all those who use modems or slower connections, if the photos are too big I can leave one photo and post links to other ones. Hope it's not a big problem, if so I'm sorry.

Fantastic built! In what era are you going to put it in? And please do keep us posted!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

Hi Tom

This is absolutely great

How have you made the stones ?

Per

Sheeeit! That looks like a LOT OF WORK!

Damn that is so beatiful it makes me want to cry

Tom:

This is a very impressive project; and you've created
it stone by stone. Awesome. Eager to see more
of it as you progress. However, I feel compelled to
say something about your English as I note you live
in Poland. Your use of English is flawless, better
than mine and I was born in the USA. :-) :-) :-)

Hi Tom,

WOW! WOW! WOW! That is simply awesome!!! Are you planning a Rapanzel dio? :-) Jokes aside, what are you planning to use this in? And what did you use for bricks? Planning to do any other masonry on the tower?

Again.... WOW! :-)

Rudi

that looks excellent...I look forward to seeing the painted result!! You've got a lot of texture in there, I would be dying to drybrush that :-)

Ola again

Sorry for not posting a reply for so long but I wanted to make a post with some new photos and some time was needed for additional work. I hope no one got angry:)

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for their replies:)
Below I will answer your questions:

Prato: This is for a tabletop game called Warhammer Fantasy Battle (medieval times). I don't really play it anymore, but I love to build terrain, plus I have a lot of free time and I like to scratchbuild stuff, and also I always wanted to create a tower. Because it was constructed for Warhammer I guess I should say it's gonna be placed in the medieval times, but I'm sure you could use it in WWII dioramas or anything else which includes old, medieval towers:)
Because I don't play WFB anymore, and usually WFB terrain makers aren't really interested in seeing scratchbuilds, or even if they see one they usually don't understand how hard it can be, I'm thinking about joining the ranks of diorama makers:) You guys are so much better:)

Kristensen: Stones are made using my own technique. You need some dental plaster casts, shaped the way you want them, and a rock. You press the rock against the plaster surface to give it some texture, you can apply different pressure to achieve different looks. Make sure the casts aren't too hard and the rock isn't too round and has uneven texture.

Murdo: It can be time consuming:) It also can be boring, so you need a lot of patience to build bigger things.

MiamiJHawk: Glad to hear someone understands me:) I learned a lot by watching english cartoons (and they say TV is useless). It always strikes me how dutch people know english almost perfectly:)

Tarok: I wanted to make a small diorama with the tower being the main piece, maybe a tree next to it and a small hill. I'm not sure if it's going to be build or if the tower is going to be painted, as I was sort of planning to make a mold based on this piece. Because there's noone who can make a mold for me in my area, and I'm afraid I might destroy the whole model, when making the mold myself, I might be leaving this piece unpainted. I would really love to put some paint on it though. I'm not sure what to do really, might have to think about it some more.
I plan to add one more row and some top finishing pieces, also a wooden floor with a trap door on the inside of the platform and a wooden door with some steel pieces. I might add a seperate removable wooden roof with clay tiles.
About the stones: check Kristensen answer somewhere above. I made around 130 different stones and made a mold for faster construction.

BigJon: yeah a lot of texture:) during photo shoot the lamp is placed is such a way that it makes the texture more visible. Should be really nice to drybrush:) If I get it painted that is.

Below you will find some new photos, showing the bottom of the merlons ready. I only need to add one more row and some finishing top pieces.







And now a question to you all:

What size and shape should the finishing, top pieces be?? I'm talking about something which can be seen here (trapezoid shape pieces on the top of the battlement):

http://www.sucs.org/~cmckenna/photos/caernarfon_castle/castle-walls-from-street1.jpg

Any help is really appreciated and thanks in advance.

Hope you like how it's progressing:) I will try to post an update soon.

Cheers,
dsc.

Are you going to do Middle Ages or Lord of the Rings type setting with that castle?

In that castle picture that you posted the link for, I
saw that the top part of that castle was mostly cut off
in the photo. However, on the right side of that photo
at the top, it looked like a "small tower" coming up out
of the top of that main tower on the right of the castle.
To me that small tower would be really
an eye catching aspect to add to your scale
castle. Yes, it would be more work,
but you definitely are a modeler with a lot of patience.

Just an idea. Oh yes, I'm kinda dense in ma' old
age and I didn't get the sense of what you meant by
the trapasoid shape. . . I think I know what a
trapasoid looks like . . . but I haven't been
awake for very long. :-) :-)

Ola

Sorry it took so long for me to reply, but I was working on the tower and wanted to finish the merlons.

Some quick answers:

Alan: I was thinking about Middle Ages, but I'm sure it can be used in various periods of time. Just to clarify, this is only a tower not a castle, and I'm not planning to make anything else with it. It is supposed to be stand alone tower (a lookout tower to be precise).

Rick: I'm all out of patience after working on this piece:) really I'm a bit sick of all those stones, I have to work on something else or I will go cookoo:)
I was asking about what kind of fnishing top pieces to use for the upper part, maybe most of you didn't get what I was saying. To clear it up I was talking about the stones which are put on top of the merlons (raised sections of the walls, on the platform), you can see some examples here :

http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/crenelation.htm

http://ah.bfn.org/a/del/1000/ext/image/10.jpg

http://www.snaithprimary.eril.net/castlesection/westtower.jpg

http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/Pembroke/Castle/Pemb-Castle-001-s.jpg

What shape do you think would work best?? simple triangular shape or trapezium shaped pieces?? (those pieces are used to avoid water accumulating on top of the tower walls). Also should I use smaller stones to build those top finishing pieces or maybe use bigger stones to create something similar to a cornice?
Hope you get what I'm talking about, if not I will post some sketches to explain it:)

Oh and here you can see the finished merlons and a closeup of the platform (with a 28mm model):





Thanks for any help in advance,
cheers,
dsc.

Ola again

I have some new pics showing a test top piece, now you can see what I was talking about (only one corner piece is present):



http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a320/dsc2/brix/P1010083n.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a320/dsc2/brix/P1010080n.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a320/dsc2/brix/P1010079n.jpg

(I only post one direct image, cause I don't want to get on your nerves with my constant image posting:) )

I will make another test piece, this time it will be thinner, only 1/2 hight of the actual piece.

Do you like it or does it look crappy?? Should I keep posting or did you have enough of my tower??:) (I bet some of those who said to keep posting are thinking "damn it why did I say that";) )

cheers guys (and girls),
dsc.

keep posting as soon as it is done then post pics when you've finished painting it

i amreallyinterested tosee this painted and finished. I also will try the technique as i need to build mediaeval pieces of structure

Ola

Again sorry for not replying sooner, but I was away for a few days and couldn't upload new pics.

Thanks for giving my updates a green light, I understand I might be boring some of you. For those of you who are not bored, here's a small update, two new pics showing a thinner top finishing piece. Personally I like it better than the last one and I think I will go with this thickness on all of the top pieces. It would really help me out if you could compare those last two updates and the pictures provided and tell me which top piece you like better. Also should those top pieces be leaning out a bit, or should I glue them on to make a perfectly straight wall (in line with the rest of the wall)??
Enough questions, here're the photos:

- leaning out



- in line with the wall:



I like the second option better, but haven't made my decission yet.

And one more thing, out of curiosity:




What do you need to build Costas??

Thanks for any replies,
cheers,
dsc.

looks so real nice job!