Another modular castle

[Cakeman]

As the title says - Teddy got me inspired to take some pictures as I'm also building a modular castle. Modular is good since I don't have pieces to finish a larger one right now, but landscape is harder to fit in though I have some ideas for later. Anyway:

The base of the towers are inaccessible due to heavy use of 2x4-bricks. All my 2x2 are used in the battlements, so there's some 2x4 poking inwards in the towerbases making them not very friendly to figs etc. Maybe something to remedy later, when I get my hands on more bricks. But the large tower has a staircase and some windows:

The intention is that it should be possible to rearrange as wanted, and that minifigs still should be able to walk around the place. I'm saving bricks for a gatehouse right now, but I have no idea how to implement it yet. Also, there's no SNOT anywhere so to satisfy others I might have to fix that too. The lower of the two towers is perfect in height for the orcish siegetower, unintended ofcourse. If the crownie engineers had known that beforehand, the tower would have been taller :)

Now, since Teddys castle I too have thought about adding some texture/color to the walls here and there. I think it's on it's way. Also, my lack of certain bricks can be shown - green plates for instance, or brown plates as I'd rather had a brown plate for roof on the archeryposition. Any ideas of how I should do the gatehouse?

[Lt. Col. Thok]

Whoa! That is amazing! Well done.

[Batbrick]

Wow! That is very cool, I love the arch designs on the ridges, and the grass at the bottom. The fact that it is modular makes it so much better too. Great job!

Batbrick Away!

[I Scream Clone]

Well done so far! I really like the detail on the top of the walls. I would like to see you disguise the BURP better though with some more Dark bley pieces and base plate, as it stands out a bit too much. Try this

The tower is nice, as are the arches.

The window on the side looks like a skull, was this intentional?

[Cakeman]

Aww, thanks for the comments guys.

About the BURP, i know! But it was a great link ISC, thanks a lot. The fact is that I don't have that many dark bley pieces, so I'm aiming at covering the visable hollow studs with grenery or something... but agreed, something has to be done about that part.

The windows does look slightly like a skull and it was unintentional, but do you think I should have a skull on the side there? It'd look pretty neat though not crownie-good :) I'll see what I can do and give you a pic so you can judge if it's better or worse. And it turned out like this:

Edited August 23, 2008 by Cakeman

[Teddy]

Dear Cakeman,

those wall sections look really cool! Thanks for mentioning me in your title,

nice to know I encouraged you somehow to post your fotos.

I like the use of old and new gray. I also like the use of randomly placed tiles on the wall.

The unintended height for the siege tower allows for some interesting playability options.

The staircase in the tower is a nice detail.

For the gate I would advise something old school like: 6080, 6085, or 6086.

I just love those old school gate houses.

I will be looking forward to your updates.

Kind regards,

Teddy

[Fatespuppet]

Yet another excellent modular castle. I've really got to get some picture of mine. These still whup up on mine, but it would be nice to at least get some critical views.

I've found that the toughest parts of modular castles are corners and gate houses because they tend to mess up any counting scheme I've devised. These corners are excellent and love the skull mod. It might not fit the crownies but it shows how the same design could be converted to an evil faction with very little effort.

I especially like the pushed out bricks and rocky scenery. They help give this a more bulit in feeling. I'm not even opposed to the hollow studs since they are such a minor detail in the overall look.

[Skinny Boy]

I always wanted TLC to make a castle building line, where you could buy sections of a wall, towers, a gatehouse and so on. Obviously they would be a lot less detailed than yours cakeman, but they would give us a chance to make any size castle we want without many pieces and sets and so on... Anyway, I really like the way you show the brickwork on the walls. Nice work and I hope to see more.

[Asuka]

A neat work with some decent structures for the facade, very nice!

[Dragonator]

This is really great Cakeman. All these Module Castles are really interesting, it's good to see lots of people are building these.

I think you've done a nice job with a limited supply of bricks. That new skull looks cool, and I like the way you've designed the crenelations. All in all, well done indeed, and keep it up. I'm looking forward to this gatehouse.

[WhiteFang]

This is a very nice castle moc. The best part of it, is the entire castle is modular. You are able to re-arrange it whatever you like. I think this is a very nice castle. I am supposed this is the small section of your castle grounds. On the skull issue, I think it's not very nice to have it, especially when you are intending to use it for the good faction. It looks a little too evil. Great job!

[Cakeman]

Update! I've recieved my bricklink order (and ofcourse it turns out I forgot some parts, but that's always the way isn't it?) and have gotten to work on the gatehouse. I built it without really measuring the height of the other parts.... it turned out a lot higher then my tower etc. I could cut one story and have it more like the rest, but it's not all bad... input please. Also, you see the roof is not finished. Should I have a flat roof with crenelations etc, continue the slope all the way up or use the space for a landingplatform for dragons? I was planning on having that on the third tower, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the pics:

Front view. The windows on the top floor are supposed to be arrowslits, the design is prepared but I'm lacking certain bits.

Slight side view. I thought it was a bit bulky in the beginning, but it's growing on me... only sad thing is that the back is utterly boring and ugly. Top part dosen't even hang out 1 stud on the back side, since I wanted it 14 wide for easier roof-building...

The roof. Now, what should go in that place? Dragonplatform, Normal roof, crenelations and castle stuff?

Inside view. You can walk straight through the gatehouse (anyone wondered where the gate is yet?) and it's quite spacey, 6 studs wide so that the minifigs can hang around and loiter.

Two different total castle layouts. Modular is nice, allows for nifty reconstruction. Now I need some more wall, another tower and a keep... the keep will most probably be dwarfed by the gatehouse, but it's needed anyway. Oh yes, the drawbridge... I didn't order black plates so I have none to build it with :) Oh the irony...

[Guss]

really nice !! I love how the upper part of the gate!

Edited September 23, 2008 by Guss

[Zorro]

The skull is very cool, i think I saw it before... But where??

This is some really good stuff!

[Teddy]

Dear Cakeman,

Really like your gate house design so far!

Are you planning to make doors and porticullisses?

The tan does give it a distinct look.

Personnaly, I feel tan and light bley together make tan look yellow and light bley blue.

I think they are a bit to much off in color.

Old light grey and tan however work pretty good together.

Therefore, I would like to suggest to you to mingle tan only with old light grey.

This will make the colors blend a little better.

you could for example put the light bley bricks mainly at the bottum and only use

old light grey at the top as to smoothen the color transition.

Just a suggestion of course.

Keep up the good work.

Kind regards,

Teddy

[Lego12]

The arch designs are amazing! I really like the skull on the side of the building! The detail is great! When do you think it will be finished? I guess time will tell....

Lego12

[Cakeman]

... Are you planning to make doors and porticullisses?

... Therefore, I would like to suggest to you to mingle tan only with old light grey.

Yes, portcullis and a gate. I think I will have the portcullis as the last line of defense, and the doors furthest out. I've seen real castles with both designs so I guess there's merit to both designs in some way. Also, I looked at the colors as you suggested - and it's true, tan does appear different if put together with grey or bley. I'll see what I can do about that, it'd be an experiment for me too. Thanks for the input Teddy.

When do you think it will be finished? I guess time will tell....

Hehe, I have no idea. Between school and lack of bricks the gatehouse alone took me more then a month (30 days waiting for parts, 1 day to build) to finish. Next step should be a the keep, and though I like being able to lift of layers from houses I think I will construct it like this:

If it's understandable... the big square is the keep, and one part connects to the walls and the other half is connected by a hinge so it'll be foldable, like the good old TLC castles.