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Built4ever — Castle and Village Number One
Published: 2012-10-25 18:07:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 52633; Favourites: 1796; Downloads: 138
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Description
This is my first shot at trying to design a castle. I tried to imagine a tiny village and castle surrounded by fortifications, turrets, huge walls and sloping buttresses, all perched up on a mountain top, with some kind of access road leading up to it. There's a fortified gate entrance, which allows you into the interior courtyard, where the majority of the village is accessible, and then there's some steps and another gate which leads to the castle entrance and upper terrace. Of course, the style is medieval, based on European castles in general, and includes massive stonework, oriel windows, turrets, corbels, half-timbered lower and upper stories, tile and slate roofs, and tall chimneys. I did this over an extended lunch hour. It took about an hour and a half for the original sketch (Note: next version has at least 3 hours of extra time on it, and about three more hours for the plan, so more like 8 hours total now as you see it). Meanwhile, I hope I satisfied the dozens of people that have asked me about doing this sort of stuff, especially for gaming purposes. I've been meaning to "open up the throttle" and try over-the-top fantastic architecture with no limitations at all for a long long time. I'm sure I'll be doing more of these. Frankly, they're very enjoyable to do. Enjoy, and let me know what you think. Note: File Changed on Oct 30, 2012.Other links Featuring Castle One:
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Comments: 197
"Pavilion." Maybe a medieval rock band can play a private concert there with the mountain view behind them.
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Ahh, I guess I should have realized that. Working in 'Technical Support' I don't spend a lot of time reading anything beyond chicken-scratch, I wasn't sure that was a 'P'.
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Truthfully, I'm not quite sure what will go there, possibly some open columns, maybe a sculpture, not sure...there's a small viewing terrace for sure...
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Open columns could lend it a Romanesque style or appearance, I guess that depends how you envisioned it.
A statue of someone might be expected in a town square, perhaps a mosaic in the centre with some significance.
With a town elevated such as this, there's no small shortages of viewing vantage points.
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Thanks Mitch, it feels good to be free...
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Okay...after getting my head around how the perspective matched the over head I have to say YEAH! This works.
A scale some where to get an idea of how big/small those buildings are would be interesting. But from a layman's idea of how castles work, this is clever and functional.
As for a fantasy setting? Again, some where like a Transylvania/Romania. The surrounding country side should be just as craggy and hilly as this keep top. That way the place hasn't fallen to siege artillery (Well, not maybe more than once or twice in its history. 
I would maybe suggest going and looking for 'Harn' the role playing game. The maps and buildings in that are amazingly realistically detailed and the castle series details pretty much most stages of castle development.
From simple block house/mote and bailey to large, multi-wall affairs.
As for the topic of siege weapons. There are some amazing stone throwers even before the harnessing of black powder.
Much cheers to you and yours.
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You did this in 90 minutes?!?!?! WOW! Amazing detail. Don't have that much knowledge about authentic castles, but it looks really realistic to me
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I need to change that, I just replaced the file. More like 4 to 5 hours time now with shading and more details. oops!
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Oh
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I'm not particularly fast. No turbo-pencil.
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Fantastic! I'm a great (semi-fantasy) castle fan and this one has very interesting details, such as the gate, even though you finished it in such a short time. So imaginative!
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SO MUCH DETAIL. It reminds me of something that would be in Inkheart, or something like that.
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Oh? What's inkheart? I have a pencil heart myself.
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so cool!It's great you've started drawing this kind of stuff methinks! i began to lose patience with it-makes-sense- architecture [because i'm lazy ¬ _¬] so OTT no logic architecture is pretty much all i draw now~ um if you have time could you take a look at this i drew? if that's ok i'd like to know what you think since you've had lots of experience drawing architecture? [link]
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That's very good. I like the depth and drama in the perspective. If your not sure where to go with it, set it aside and do another. Keep it small and fast. Try some new ideas. Also, look at some photos or illustrations of stuff you like...
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ah thank you for feedback ^^! yeah i should probably look at more references when i'm drawing-i'll have a go at drawing some more stuff from the city in my sketchbook then as well~
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I never linger on a piece a long time. I put lots of stuff. If anything, I don't COMPLETE pieces, but I have a hundred going at the same time!
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haha that's pretty much what i do too...except i don't get to any presentable stage
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I love architecture! And the English Victorian style is my second favorite(after renaissance, because nothing beats that)
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Wait! What Egyptian? And Cambodian? How about 1930's era American art deco? Spanish art nouveaux in Barcelona?? English perpendicular Gothic? blah blah...
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Everyone are entitled to their own taste. I just listed my two favorites
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I have English influence all over my gallery believe me he he...
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Woah. This is unbelievable! I love all the details. I could see this being an illustration in a book of Grimm's fairy tales.
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Yeah. Or, let's make up our own fairy tale! I think the architect gets to slay the dragon.
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A word from an armchair historian: That castle doesn't really look like a medieval fortress. The lower part of the castle looks like it was originally designed as a fortress, and the upper part looks like a pleasure house which was probably built on top of the fortress at a later date. That's interesting because near the end of the middle ages, many European castles were made obsolete by improvements in artillery even before their construction was complete. This caused many castles to be abandoned before they were fully built, because castles were extremely expensive to construct and there was no point in completing the construction of a castle which would be unable to survive a protracted bombardment from field artillery. Afterward, many of those old, unfinished castles were bought by wealthy families so that they could turn them into pleasure houses. Whenever they did so, they would usually leave the existing castle structures in place, and build new, elaborate living quarters on top of them. Because half of the building had already been built, this was much cheaper than building an entire pleasure-palace from scratch. That's exactly what the castle in this picture looks like: Something which was originally designed as a military fortress, but which was later transformed into a romantic palace after the fortress became obsolete. I don't know if you intended that or if you knew the history of how/why that would have happened, but I think it's rather nice. It gives the castle the appearance of being something much older than the town around it, something aged from a bygone era, standing silently as everything changes around it, and calling us back to a long forgotten world. That is true poetry in art.
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I like it. That's a good story. I just posted another one. It's not really a castle either, but it has defensive emplacements around it and a wall, more like a village built on an old castle foundation. I don't actually know that much about these since I haven't visited them, and there's none here in U.S. I know what I like, though, and that's what I draw.
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can't wait to see the as built photos
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I need a client with at least a hundred million bucks, and 5 to 10 years construction time available...
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lol. wouldn't mind a client like that myself 
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This is really beautiful... I'm trying to think of something else to say, that's got a bit more substance than 'I like this', but seriously, I really like this. When I'm rich and famous, will you design my castle?
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Oh cool!
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