(MOC) Chateau de Morgana (Abandoned)

[BrickCommander9]

I have recently started on a massive castle project, something to a scale I have never built before. The completed castle will be situated on roughly 3x3 48x48 baseplates, and be as realistic as possible to a castle built between the 11th and 13th centuries in Britain or France.

 

I would love to hear peoples' opinions on my work so far, as well as suggestions or constructive criticism.

 

The first section is a span of curtain wall flanked by 2 round towers. Inside the bailey is a half timber tudor style building, which I have not decided what will be inside.

 

https://flic.kr/p/2jL2hm5

 

If anyone can explain how I post pictures in the body of the message, I would greatly appreciate it!

 

 

 

I have also included a gate with a brick built portcullis, which, in my opinion, turned out beautifully!

 

And here is a WIP exterior view of the curtain wall sections and towers. The tan keep is also visible in the background.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by BrickCommander9
Changed name of thread to reflect the name of the castle

[JintaiZ]

Fantastic build!

[LettuceBrick]

Very nice! I really like the contrast between the smooth, tan keep and the rougher wall.

Is that an opening for a spiral staircase I spy on top of the tower?

[BrickCommander9]

20 minutes ago, JintaiZ said:

Fantastic build!

Thanks!

 

I will update as I make progress and more pictures. I am working on the gatehouse now, then probably the chapel.

 

 

[JintaiZ]

1 minute ago, BrickCommander9 said:

 

I will update as I make progress and more pictures. I am working on the gatehouse now, then probably the chapel.

Sweet! Looking forward to it!

[BrickCommander9]

Just now, LettuceBrick said:

Very nice! I really like the contrast between the smooth, tan keep and the rougher wall.

Is that an opening for a spiral staircase I spy on top of the tower?

It is, but the staircase is not installed yet. 

 

Thanks. I was going to do the whole think in the rough stone, but i decided on the tan/white smooth look based off the Tower of London.

[KotZ]

Looking great so far! I'm doing a similarly sized project, so I love seeing what other builders are doing. The round tower looks great. I really like your design for the portcullis, but I would suggest black to make it look "Stronger."

[Grover]

Very nice to see a large scale castle!  I look forward to seeing the progress.  I like the stained glass and the detail on the gate so far!

To post pictures, use the img BBcode like this, but without the line breaks inbetween:

[img]

URL

[/img]

It's a little like HTML but with brackets.  There is an obnoxious auto-formatting feature on these forums, however, so you should check the preview to make sure that it didn't format it incorrectly (I had to edit this post three times to make this show correctly, and it still won't if I paste it in, so I had to use line breaks).  Usually copying and pasting from the 'share' links Flickr or Imgur will make it show correctly.  For example, I have added one of your above pictures here so that it displays the picture and not the link:

If you're looking for some inspiration, a few builders on here collaborated on a historic-inspired UK castle that they named Tigelfah Castle a few years back.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Grover

[BrickCommander9]

3 hours ago, Grover said:

Very nice to see a large scale castle!  I look forward to seeing the progress.  I like the stained glass and the detail on the gate so far!

To post pictures, use the img BBcode like this, but without the line breaks inbetween:

[img]

URL

[/img]

It's a little like HTML but with brackets.  There is an obnoxious auto-formatting feature on these forums, however, so you should check the preview to make sure that it didn't format it incorrectly (I had to edit this post three times to make this show correctly, and it still won't if I paste it in, so I had to use line breaks).  Usually copying and pasting from the 'share' links Flickr or Imgur will make it show correctly.  For example, I have added one of your above pictures here so that it displays the picture and not the link:

If you're looking for some inspiration, a few builders on here collaborated on a historic-inspired UK castle that they named Tigelfah Castle a few years back.

Thanks for the kind words and help with the pictures!

 

I actually LOVE Tifwlgeh castle- I recently emailed with Bricks to the Past about that project to get some advice! Are you one of the builders? I would love to chat about the project!

9 hours ago, KotZ said:

Looking great so far! I'm doing a similarly sized project, so I love seeing what other builders are doing. The round tower looks great. I really like your design for the portcullis, but I would suggest black to make it look "Stronger."

Thanks!

 

Do you have some pictures of your project? I would love to see it!

 

I thought about black for the portculis, but I went with the brown/dark bluish grey combo, which is more historially accurate to real portcullis, which were typically made from wood and reinforced with iron...

[BrickCommander9]

Today only featured a small amount of building. The gatehouse is taking shape, with a lever operated drawbridge and twin flanking towers. 

 

 

[Grover]

7 hours ago, BrickCommander9 said:

I actually LOVE Tifwlgeh castle- I recently emailed with Bricks to the Past about that project to get some advice! Are you one of the builders? I would love to chat about the project!

No, that was before my time on here, but here's the original EB Thread on Tigelfah Castle.

[jtooker]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:56 PM, BrickCommander9 said:

suggestions or constructive criticism

First, it looks like you are off to a great start!  I'm working on a large scene as well and it is going too slow!

You've already chosen a general style for what you've been building at it looks good.  I really like what is going on in this image:

I would certainly focus on the landscaping and paths (there are some pictures where this is done well, others that look like you have work to do).  The amount of elevation changes you are incorporating into the MOC will really make it pop, especially once much of it is covered in foliage.

The round walls look great, but do appear more 'complicated' or run down than the flat walls.  I don't think there is anything wrong with this, but you could put more 1x1 round bricks (and plates) into the straight walls to even out the texture.

The dark bley corner of your tower (in the image above) looks a bit flat. Having 1x2 tiles sticking out would look a bit better, IMO.  You use the same technique with the white an tan, and for some reason, I like it better on the white and tan as you have it.

Will all the water look like (or similar to) what you have shown in the image above?  I hope so, it looks nice and you made a good transition from land to water.

I like your roof style.

I'm not a big fan of the 1x tile cross bars in your tutor building (below).  Many people have done this, so this is likely just me being picky.  Finding an alternative technique is almost impossible without redoing a bunch (or using wall techniques that appear much more 'crumbly'.  In this situation, I'd just remove the diagonal beams.  The house itself looks great.  I'd use brick/plate built doors, but the black ones fit well.

I like everything in the image with stained glass (below).  The ivy climbing the walls and the landscaping on the ground is great.  I would cover some of those exposed 'open' studs with tiles or vegetation to match your other walls.

I cannot wait to see this all done and together!  I'm not sure how much rebuilding you want to do (if none, I completely understand, disregard those suggestions).

Others have responding to how to post pictures, what I do is right click on the image, select "copy image address" and paste.  The Eurobricks editor will automatically insert the image for you (assuming the source is on a secure website: https).  For flickr, I go to 'download', choose 'all sizes' click on the size I want, then right click that image.

p.s. cool space ships in the background of some of your images.

 

[Boindil Lego]

Very nice castle. Also neat to see the whole process. Keep us updated!

Edited September 29, 2020 by Boindil Lego

[BrickCommander9]

13 hours ago, jtooker said:

First, it looks like you are off to a great start!  I'm working on a large scene as well and it is going too slow!

You've already chosen a general style for what you've been building at it looks good.  I really like what is going on in this image:

I would certainly focus on the landscaping and paths (there are some pictures where this is done well, others that look like you have work to do).  The amount of elevation changes you are incorporating into the MOC will really make it pop, especially once much of it is covered in foliage.

The round walls look great, but do appear more 'complicated' or run down than the flat walls.  I don't think there is anything wrong with this, but you could put more 1x1 round bricks (and plates) into the straight walls to even out the texture.

The dark bley corner of your tower (in the image above) looks a bit flat. Having 1x2 tiles sticking out would look a bit better, IMO.  You use the same technique with the white an tan, and for some reason, I like it better on the white and tan as you have it.

Will all the water look like (or similar to) what you have shown in the image above?  I hope so, it looks nice and you made a good transition from land to water.

I like your roof style.

I'm not a big fan of the 1x tile cross bars in your tutor building (below).  Many people have done this, so this is likely just me being picky.  Finding an alternative technique is almost impossible without redoing a bunch (or using wall techniques that appear much more 'crumbly'.  In this situation, I'd just remove the diagonal beams.  The house itself looks great.  I'd use brick/plate built doors, but the black ones fit well.

I like everything in the image with stained glass (below).  The ivy climbing the walls and the landscaping on the ground is great.  I would cover some of those exposed 'open' studs with tiles or vegetation to match your other walls.

I cannot wait to see this all done and together!  I'm not sure how much rebuilding you want to do (if none, I completely understand, disregard those suggestions).

Others have responding to how to post pictures, what I do is right click on the image, select "copy image address" and paste.  The Eurobricks editor will automatically insert the image for you (assuming the source is on a secure website: https).  For flickr, I go to 'download', choose 'all sizes' click on the size I want, then right click that image.

p.s. cool space ships in the background of some of your images.

 

Thanks for the detailed suggestions and comments! You had some really good ideas in here.

 

The picture with the stained glass was kind of a 1st version of the keep, it has been scrapped (although the window is intact) due to some engineering issues.

 

I only have the one corner of landscaping done, the rest should all be the same and flow nicely... I should have something to show for that this weekend.

 

You are right about the round towers looking more rough than the rest of the castle. I plan to work on that soonish. Part of the problem is that the towers are like 90 percent masonry bricks because I had a shockingly low amount of regular grey 1x2s! I have several hundred on order, so I will switch some out. I also am out of 1x1 rounds (hence the towers being uncompleted as of yet). I have 1500 on the way and should arrive any day.

 

I agree with you about the dark grey corners, but will probably change them further out. I did it that way because I bought 1,000 dark grey 1x2s at a ridiculous price, and thought that is a good place to use them. And I don't have enough tiles.

 

A lot of people do do the half timber slanted tudor design, but I actually like it so far. I do see your point, however, and may play with other options. There will be several different buildings in the bailey, all slightly different from one another. I hope that will provide nice contrasts... If it doesn't turn out well, I will adjust later.

 

I am basically building the layout of the castle, then rebuilding, renovating, and doing the interiors section by section. That way I can see how everything fits together as I improve it. I should have some better pictures of the full layout so far tomorrow.

 

 

5 hours ago, Boindil Lego said:

Very nice castle. Also neat to see the whole process. Keep us updated!

Thanks! Will definitely keep posting progress!

[BrickCommander9]

And here is another small update picture that shows the entirety of the completed curtain walls, and gives an idea of the final size and shape.

 

[BrickCommander9]

Early morning update! I have almost finished the gatehouse (at least the facade- I still need to work on the drawbridge mechanism). It just needs the battlements on the roof. I don't like the tile, and will replace with light grey when I get more.

 

 

i have also started work on expanding the bailey. Here you can see the interior paths starting to go into place.

 

 

Still lots more work to do, but this evening I hope to have the donjon in place.

 

[BrickCommander9]

A lot of work has gone into the castle, and there is progress to show!

 

I have continued with the landscaping and walking paths in the bailey, and I have put the keep in place.

 

 

The keep has been slightly changed from my original version by the addition of a forebuilding and entrance as well as a basement.

 

 

The keep is accessed from the 1st floor via a wooden staircase that could be removed in the event of attack.

 

The chapel will be located in the open area next to the keep. I will be trying out a new stonework technique, so keep an eye out!

[Sarophas]

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see where this ends One thing you need to change is the Dragon flag/banner, it's upside down

[BrickCommander9]

On 10/4/2020 at 4:42 PM, Sarophas said:

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see where this ends One thing you need to change is the Dragon flag/banner, it's upside down

Thanks!

 

Yeah... I noticed it was upside down too.

 

My 2 year old likes to play with it so sometimes things don't stay how I left them :-)

 

A bit behind on updates, but BIG things coming soon!

[BrickCommander9]

FINALLY! Another update.

 

Not too much is new, but I have received the parts to finish the round towers so that should be coming soon.

 

In the meantime, I have worked a bit in the bailey... the path now flows fairly nicely around the Keep and to the different parts of the castle.

 

I have started on another building against the curtain wall as well..... You can see it here in the bluish color. It is largely based on the buildings from the Medievel Market Village set.

 

I have also temporarily moved the castle to my kitchen table to allow a better view of it's full layout.

 

 

Overall, I would say the exterior is a little over halfway done. Then will be the interiors of the entire castle- which will be quite a project on its own!

[goceltic67]

What an amazing project 

Looks amazing 

[BrickCommander9]

6 hours ago, goceltic67 said:

What an amazing project 

Looks amazing 

Thanks!

 

It is a good thing we are in a COVID lockdown- we can't host people, so my wife can't get angry when I take up the whole dining table with my castle! As long as nobody tells her how much money I have spent on Bricklink... I can trust you guys to keep quiet, right? ;-)

[goceltic67]

Secret safe here mate 

[BrickCommander9]

It has been a couple weeks since I last updated. No pictures to share this time, but I should have some photos to share soon.

 

I am actually partially disassembling and reconstructing the entire castle to make it more modular and transportable. It should also make it easier to expand, change or modify the castle moving forward. As a result of these changes, the current design will also be larger than my original layout by 16 studs on each side (It will cover an area of 5x5.5 standard baseplates).

 

Among the changes being made:

Round tower diameter being increased from 14 to 16 studs, with built in spiral staircases.

I am also using a different technique to angle the walls. Hopefully it will allow for greater stability and modularity. 

 

Pics will come soon, I promise!

[BrickCommander9]

FINALLY I have another update.

 

I have rebuilt the base to be more modular, and have 2 floors built on my corner towers. It is currently 5 baseplates wide and 4 baseplates deep, but I will be adding another row of baseplates to make it 5x5.

 

 

 

I have also installed the spiral staircases in the towers, which, in my opinion, turned out very nicely.