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james' new castle

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 1:50 pm
by James
wotcha
After a few months of sitting on my hard drive I've uploaded the pictures of my
latest project to my site. The project is to build a castle modularly, each time
building on the previous so at the end of each stage I havew a full castle.
Stages 1-3 are complete, 4 has been started on and my wife is moaning already at
the amount of space it takes up (so I'll probably stop at 4 or 5 stages)

Stage 1

Image


Here is Stage 2
Image

I'll put stage 3 up when its photographed

ta

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 2:37 pm
by Mr. D
Wow! Neat! The details are very good. I like the use of short string as handrails. The crane looks nice, too. The whole thing is very well done. The keep looks nice, although it would look nicer if there weren't so many wall pieces in it.

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:03 pm
by porschecm2
Excellent. Very well done. I love the layout, and all the red roofs. I see you've used the same window design Jail had on his latest castle MOC. Hmm...

Cm2

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 10:30 pm
by wlister
Very nice James,

Very nice indeed. The variety of shapes and designs in your outer wall look great. The landscape looks great. There are a great deal of those little construction details that really make a MOC look somewhat real. Can't wait to see what stage 3 and 4 will look like.

Will

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 11:41 pm
by James
porschecm2 wrote: I see you've used the same window design Jail had on his latest castle MOC. Hmm...
Cm2
I can't speak for Jail as I dont know who that is but the window is 'borrowed' from a design done by Andy Lynch a year or so ago. It's clever and looks good :D
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=11437

thanks for the compliments

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 12:45 am
by J1A3L5
Wow...first that is a awesome castle you've got going there. Especially how it isn't just straight grey walls and towers and stuff, it has colour and more interest. Awesome work...can't wait for the next stage. :)

As for the arrow slit - I came up with the idea myself. When I was building the keep I wanted a unique sort of window idea for it, but I couldn't come up with anything original that I hadn't seen done already. I also knew I really wanted the 'cross' look to it, I personally like it much better. Then I was finally getting pretty annoyed with trying stuff that wasn't working, then I had a few arches and headlight bricks from other attempts there and then suddenly realized those might have a chance of working. And then as a bonus the headlight bricks have the little bottom part to make the horizontal opening a bit thinner. Then it took me forever to get it to work in the wall and fit, but it worked out eventually. (Thanks to the guys in C-C chat too!)

I am really not surprised someone else came up with it before me though, although it would have been cool if I was. :D

Now I wrote far too much there when this is a thread about your MOC, I apologize, but I just wanted to set that straight. Can't wait for the next stage of the castle, keep it up! :)

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 3:10 am
by Barbapple
This is very nice!
I really love the design you have going here. It's gonna turn out so great! I like how you imported the japanese walls. Keep us posted.

Brian

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 4:55 am
by RuthleSs__PaLadin
Great MOC. I like the entrance and the rock wall pieces used in it. Can you let me know about how many pieces are in that. Nice Work, keep it up.

Dan

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:58 am
by forester3291
Very nice. I really like it

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:34 pm
by Glencaer
Good Mr. Stacey,

I'm glad to see your latest project, and it is definately impressive. However, it lacks the life and style that minifigs and minifig related details provide. I hope the final version will feature these delightful details of which I speak.

Sincerely,

Lord Marshal Leonhart
His Majesty's Servant

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:24 pm
by Sir Terrance
How much longer till pic no. 3? I can't wait, awesome job.

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:53 pm
by Bruce N H
Hey James,

I have to admit that when I looked at phase one I didn't like the original keep very much--kind of boxy and boring. But when you add in the curtain wall, this becomes really interesting and cool. I like the idea of building in stages. You might even change up styles a little bit as you go from one stage to another, because long term projects like this might have changed as the people building them did. Stone sources might have changed, too, so you could even (heresy alert) do a stage out of new gray to signify a different quarry used for later structures.

Bruce

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:05 pm
by jeff_o_rama
In my opinion, the red roofs really tie everything together and give it an authentic feel.

Nice job!

-Jeff

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:00 am
by jb
This looks great! I can't wait to see it full of life (minifigs) and am looking forward to future stages! Thanks for sharing.

James

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:42 pm
by moom
Hello James,

I like the destinct personal style of your castle, and the great effort you've taken to do the landscaping. My feedback:

Keep
The long facades of your keep would prehaps look more natural, when you offset the middle (horizontal) row of windows by half the window-to-window distance.

Crane
Cranes as large as the one you've modeled where usualy powerd by a treadmill (with one ore more workers inside) This was cheaper, safer, more releable and much easier to construct than a geared winch mechanism.
I suggest Tan Fence Spindled 4 x 4 x 2 Quarter Round parts for the treadmill:
Image
a circle of these should provide room to hold a minifig inside.

See also James Brink's medieval watermill:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/jbrin ... ll/wm1.jpg

With friendly greetings, M. Moolhuysen.