Hi.

I was thinking abit, and... well, I won't bore you with my ideas *grins* but there's a little something I need help with.

I'm thinking of building a castle... But following the rules for being inside houses, moving up stairs or down stairs waiting turns and such to get through, being able only to play in the exterrior of a keep, is rather dull.. Or well, not dull, but it would be so awsomely cool to actually have the interrior to fight within.

So, I was thinking of how to solve this, the very hardest part I could think of, would be the prison tower.

The tower will be round, with a stair going up and cells being on the sides along the way, not in levels, but just kinda randomly along the way wherever there's room for a new cell.

But how the hey do you make this accessable, still keeping the tower stable? If I cut it in sections, models on the upper levels will fall around whenever the levels are removed to reach into a lower level...

Anyone got any ideas?

Oh, and... Is styrofoam durable enough to put hinges in, if I want to be able to swing open a wall to access the inside?

I don't want a box-castle, with 4 square towers and 4 wall sections, I want a real castle, with round towers and a keep and everything.. I don't expect it to be an easy project though.

Also, the castle will be on a mountain, how best to make very, very large mountain pieces? Chicken-fence and paper mache? It needs to be very durable to keep the weight of the castle and models, and be playable. Is it worth making it out of solid styrofoam? That'll cost atleast a hundred euros just for the mountain itself!

And where to start? =o

_________________
Gold, silver, mithril.. You call that stuff treassure? Copper is the real deal!

Wow. I've never really had the courage for that kind of undertaking.

The tower sounds....difficult. Afraid I'll have to give that one some thought.

However, if you haven't already seen this, Hirts Arts makes some great molds for cobblestone, building blocks, etc. Great for castle construction.
[url]
http://www.hirstarts.com/molds/molds.html[/url]

_________________
Flying is the practice of trying to crash into the ground and missing.

There always was an article about the ground floor of the prancing pony on the last alliance but i can't open it.
Maybe you have a bit more luck as it has some good point (from what I remember).

And how large do you want to make the mountain?
It might also be a good idea to take alook at the helms deep articles.

Good luck

BGiME pack 61.

_________________
"Turgon king of Gondolin wields, Has and holds the sword Glamdring, Foe of morgoth's realm, hammer to the Orcs"

yes i have seen this article before the last alliance shut down but here is a link for another prancing pony arcticle which could help with interiors.
http://www.hourofwolves.org/?view=artic ... ingThePony

Right, sorry for a slow response, I was to the Royal Capitol Of the Swedish Kingdom yesterday.... or Stockholm, as some might call it? *shrugs*

I had a look on GW's model-board, the plastic 6-piece one. My father liked it as we've got no space to have a permanent board up in our apartment, and putting it in the cellar is no fun, as it's usually about 4 inch high water all over the floors in there. I don't want any mold on my castle. =o

So it's leaning towards a non-mountain top castle, and I got some great ideas from watching The Fearless Vampire Killers (Best movie eaver made!)

And just because he says so, I need a crypt in it.... "A Castle without a crypt is like a unicorn without a horn!" *shrugs*

But, as we all know, GW's stuff ain't free... It'll probably have to wait until next month before I can buy the board, unless I can persuade my father to do so next time he visits the Royal Capitol of the Swedish Kingdom...

I was thinking of something like; A Castle big enough to take 1 of the 6 board pieces, then we can play either 2x2 normal battles, or 2x3 siege battles, with 2 sides to attack the keep from.

So, this is what I have in mind so far;

Outer walls; Solid through and through, however one wall will be extra thick with a lot of small rooms in the wall, prison cells facing the courtyard, each with a copper grid-gate-thingy. (Which will be made out of balsa wood.)

The Keep will be like one of those doll-houses, with one wall (one of those facing out of the playing area) on hinges, so it can be swung open to access the inside.

The gate will be something hard, but hopefully awsome, to do. On the battlement section above, I want a winch with a chain, which when spinned will drop down/pull up the inner grid-gate-thingy (what are those called? o.O) and the main gate being on hinges, so they can be opened and closed.

Another scorse of inspiration actually came to me yesterday night when I went out in the "garden", I live in a small house which lies in sort-of-a courtyard made out of larger houses facing the streets, with gates into it. It's quite small, but the houses are high, and in the darkness with the lanterns glowing along the little road across it, it looks... rather awsome. I intend to try to get the same feeling I got there into the castle's courtyard.

I'll start a WIP when I start getting in the stuff I need.

So, Good news: I've got my father's economical support to get myself what I need, he said he can buy me large quantlyties of styrofoam, as well as agree to buy me the gaming board.

Bad news is that it'll have to wait 3 weeks... I know, it's not long, but I reeeeally want to get started, so 3 weeks feels like ages! (It's a bit like when ordering something from GW's site, it feels like ages before you finally get it! =P )

Another idea I got from the GW store was to make a river across the two "middle" sections, with a bridge across it in dwarven style. That'll be a good border and obstacle between the good and evil forces' deployment zones, aswell as giving a kill zone for anything that can shoot from the castle's walls/towers.

_________________
Gold, silver, mithril.. You call that stuff treassure? Copper is the real deal!

With such a project it might be an idea to make a 3D model.
I always use google sketch up wich is free.
You can download it from their site http://sketchup.google.com/.
This will also help us to give you some sugestions.

I was thinking of making it in GTK Radiant, but that's quite... Well, either you'd need GTK or a Q3 engine-based game to see it... and I'd need to compile it and whatnots.

I'll have a look on the sketchup, thanks. =)

_________________
Gold, silver, mithril.. You call that stuff treassure? Copper is the real deal!

I should get stuck into Sketchup one day, but it seems to take a bit of learning to get the hang of. In the meantime, have you thought about stackable levels for your towers? Make them whatever shape you want, just have them neatly fit on top of each other, that way you could get in there.
As far as making the castle itself, I agree the Hirst Art bricks are great, but time consuming. You could fast track the job by making the wall you need and then making a simple mold of it, which could be used many times.
cast it in urethane resin and you can bend it into a curve as well before it hardens, which could be great for you.