Gideon

Nordana Castle, Gatehouse

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This is the gatehouse of Nordana Castle, sometimes also called Nordana Hall. The castle is located in Avalonia and is the ancient seat of the earls of Norshire, from which Sir Gideon the half-elf has his human blood through his mother (as described in my character intro).

The gatehouse also forms the western tower of the castle. The portcullis can be raised and lowered, as well as the drawbridge.

Other modules:

South tower

North tower

Great hall

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The teeth sink into holes in the floor (credit to my fellow Swebrick member jesperallen for the idea!)

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Together with the south tower:

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For this build (or the combination of the two) I'd like to claim the following University of Petraea credits:

- Military Science: Fortifications

- General Building (Other Techniques): Movement-enabled

C&C welcome!

Second module for my Swebrick Medieval community build castle, adapted for the Guilds of Historica setting.

Edit: Picture of the whole castle finally uploaded to flickr!

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Edited by Gideon

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I love this! I like that the castle and it's environment look so calm, instead of the dark / chaotic / battle scene builds I often see... Jesperallen's idea of holes under the gate is also looking good.

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UoP DoH +1 on both claims.

Don't forget to announce your claim in the UoP DoH thread, so your credit claims can be tracked.

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Incredible work, Gideon! I love the architecture! Can't wait to see the other modules! :wink::thumbup:

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Excellent work on this section! The front is fantastic and the detail you've put into the wall is great! The two parts go very well together too!

+1 on both claims!

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Thank you guys, I really appreciate all the encouraging words...sometimes it did not feel worth it to put all this time into a single MOC instead of pumping out small/medium sized GoH builds. But the feedback I'm getting from you here and on flickr is really making it worth the hours :classic:

Great moc once again Gideon... nice modularity

Very professional, Gideon! I really like the two together! :wub:

Excellent work on this section! The front is fantastic and the detail you've put into the wall is great! The two parts go very well together too!

+1 on both claims!

Thanks! The reason they go well together is formostly that they were built together. I made the castle in four modules to have any chance of transporting it to the exhibitions we were going to display the CB however :wink: Right now it is in some cardboard boxes waiting to be shipped to Copenhagen on Wednesday. So if anyone is going to Lego World there next week you will see this in its proper context :classic:

By the way, one detail was not possible to see in these pics in the first post: I made an attempt at making a spiral staircase emerging onto the roof (as I've myself had seen on the top of some towers at Conwy castle in Wales i visited during the time I was building this)

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Edited by Gideon

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Excellent castle and landscaping, good to see that you got some get details in there as well with the portcullis and the stairs :sweet:

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Fantastic job and you have inspired me to attempt a similar project in the future.

I am looking forward to the rest of your modules !

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This is one of my favorite sections of the whole castle :wub: I like the use of the facet bricks at the corners of the towers, and the crenelations look great :thumbup:

Also I :wub: how you built the walkway above the gate, and the portcullis being able to work is excellent, I know from experience that can be a bit of a pain to integrate.

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That spiral staircase is fantastic! Can a fig get up standing or does he have to stoop?

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I miss a certain fig on top of that gatehouse Gid!! :wink:

I´ve said it before but I say it again. This is one of the best castles I´ve seen! The realistic touch to it is just outstanding! :wub:

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This is great Gideon! That thing looks absolutely solid, as it should for a castle/keep, but the details are what make it. Out of curiosity, are there any other sections that go to it, or are planned to go with it?

+1 to both UoP claims by the way

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Yeah, this is really beautiful! Aesthetically it's very well planned, but I think I'm most impressed with the portcullis. That couldn't have been easy to plan.

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Oh man what strikes me as most thrilling next to your mocing skills is you photography. You first few pics are so clear and perfectly lid I'd think it was LDD! How do you come up this pics of this high qualitiy?

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Thank you all guys for your feedback!

[...] the portcullis being able to work is excellent, I know from experience that can be a bit of a pain to integrate.

Yes, this operates by a string at the top...but as the bricks it's made of tend to rotate a bit it can get stuck...which except for that it looked good happens to be the reason I put a couple of larger windows above the gate so I can push it free when it jams :wink:

That spiral staircase is fantastic! Can a fig get up standing or does he have to stoop?

I think I built it a bit too low, a minifig standing up straight might hit his head...at least if he has a pointy helmet like the guards here.

I miss a certain fig on top of that gatehouse Gid!! :wink:

Don't worry, there's a shot of a couple of sigfigs in another place which I intend to post as soon as I've come up with the story how to integrate them :wink:

Out of curiosity, are there any other sections that go to it, or are planned to go with it?

My castle is divided into four modules, which in turn forms one module of a larger "linear" medieval landscape community build our LUG Swebrick put together (there are some pictures on my flickr from it's first exhibition). It's going to be displayed at Lego World 2014 in Copenhagen Thursday-Sunday next week :classic:

[...] I think I'm most impressed with the portcullis. That couldn't have been easy to plan.

Actually I stole the idea from a fellow Swebrick member, and made some adaptions. In hindsight I think the bars should have been one plate closer together, maybe I will try that on the next portcullis I build :wink:

Oh man what strikes me as most thrilling next to your mocing skills is you photography. You first few pics are so clear and perfectly lid I'd think it was LDD! How do you come up this pics of this high qualitiy?

I have used a wide white roller curtain behind and under the modules, and then pointed my flash at the white roof to use it as a "soft box" which gives a quite good distribution of the light. Using natural light is simply not an option in Sweden in February :tongue:

The hardest thing to shoot was the whole castle put together, which was too big for the backdrop so there's a ton of GIMP work to do on the background before those pictures will go public...

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