Harad fortress

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:28 pm

Cyndra the Grey wrote:

Great work! It's really coming along nicely

Are you going to add hinges to the doors to finish them off?
Keep it up.

Cyndra the Grey

Thanks.
Only the main gate is hinged.
Since the fortress is constructed from solid pieces of foam, there are no internal spaces, so the internal tower and rampart doors would not need to open. (will need to use floor plans to cover troops in these areas)
These smaller doors are made from 2mm balsa, and scored for timber effect. This was PVA'd to a thin piece of card for a little more strength. I then added a layer of polyfilla around the edge to look like the arched supporting stone door frame. This was then scored with a stone block pattern.

These separate door pieces can then be stuck into place as needed using "blu-tac" or similar temporary adhesive putty.

I'm probably going to have to take a pause again with this, as we are off on holiday from sunday to thursday. I'll try and get more done next weekend and put up a few more pics.

Cheers
Scott

TheBucklandBrewer · **Posted:** Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:59 pm

jscottbowman wrote:

What sort of article are you after? I could have taken more construction pictures, but didn't want to clog forum with unnecessary pictures.
What format would an article be wanted in? MSWord, PDF or something else. How should it be submitted?

An article on the site :-)

We have a great library of articles on the site, but it was offline for several months.
Since last week, Alan (Dagorlad) won the battle against the crashes and now we have it all back again!
You can find the library (for now) on top-right of the screen "Tomes of wisdom". If you look at the constructions-page, there's an option (on top) to add an article. If you go there, you can start writing an article about what you make. The entire library is made by several members of the One-Ring community.
We don't have a Harad-themed fortress yet in the library, and so it would be awesome to have an article about it :-)

Your project is coming along very nice and it's pretty unique here, which would make it a very interesting addition to our library.

The formatting of an article is the same as writing posts in the forum, same way of tagging and posting images etc. But it's always advised to keep an MSWord-copy on your harddisk (you never know what happens....)

If you would consider making an article, just keep in mind what you do and take lots of pictures to start with. We can always help with the formatting part of the article(s) later. The article-system is only just back, and probably / definately some things will still change in the next few days/weeks (mainly layout), so don't feel like jumping on starting to write it right now... (maybe best wait till the web-layout is back...).

If you like, you can see some examples of articles of constructions (= only a small part of our library) here on the site: constructions

But in the first place, keep your progress us up to date here, cause I bet we're all looking forward to the end-result!

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:11 am

TheBucklandBrewer wrote:

jscottbowman wrote:

What sort of article are you after? I could have taken more construction pictures, but didn't want to clog forum with unnecessary pictures.
What format would an article be wanted in? MSWord, PDF or something else. How should it be submitted?

An article on the site :-)

We have a great library of articles on the site, but it was offline for several months.
Since last week, Alan (Dagorlad) won the battle against the crashes and now we have it all back again!
You can find the library (for now) on top-right of the screen "Tomes of wisdom". If you look at the constructions-page, there's an option (on top) to add an article. If you go there, you can start writing an article about what you make. The entire library is made by several members of the One-Ring community.
We don't have a Harad-themed fortress yet in the library, and so it would be awesome to have an article about it :-)

Your project is coming along very nice and it's pretty unique here, which would make it a very interesting addition to our library.

The formatting of an article is the same as writing posts in the forum, same way of tagging and posting images etc. But it's always advised to keep an MSWord-copy on your harddisk (you never know what happens....)

If you would consider making an article, just keep in mind what you do and take lots of pictures to start with. We can always help with the formatting part of the article(s) later. The article-system is only just back, and probably / definately some things will still change in the next few days/weeks (mainly layout), so don't feel like jumping on starting to write it right now... (maybe best wait till the web-layout is back...).

If you like, you can see some examples of articles of constructions (= only a small part of our library) here on the site: constructions

But in the first place, keep your progress us up to date here, cause I bet we're all looking forward to the end-result!

OK I'll give it a whirl. I'll try and keep this post thread updated and see what I can make it into article-wise.
I am also taking a few progress shots of the morgul knights facial transformations I am doing so could a brief one of that as an easier trial to the process.

I'll be out of the loop for the next week or so, as we are away on hols for a few days. Hopefully have an update for next weekend... (15th Jan-ish)

Scott

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Sat Jan 08, 2011 9:54 am

A few quick updates:

Here you can see the smooth (ish!) skim coating with polyfilla

Here is a close up of the internal doors that can be "tac'd" into place - I made 20 of these. The wood of the door is about 25mm wide and about 30mm high.

Close up of the internal gate hinge:
A piece of thin card is PVA'd down the side of the inner gateway.
The hinge itself is a piece of hollow brass tube about 2mm across.
Into this is inserted a "L" shaped piece of wire. I scraped a horizontal groove into door, and into the inside of the cross spar, and PVA'd the wire between the two. Clipped with a "bobbie-pin" or hair clip to hold in place overnight.
Once done the brass rods were hot glue gunned to the thin card on the side. Taking care not to glue gate shut of course! The glue will be hidden with more filla once I do gate internal arch.
That's about it till next week.

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:05 pm

Here's the castle now fully skim coated in polyfilla.

Then drawing on a brick like pattern to follow with pencil

Then pattern etched in with a rotary tool...

I used a dremel, but you could use another brand, or a simple needle file, or hand held "scratching tool"

This will be the laborious part! I'll check back when I have more to offer.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:34 pm

Ty for the hinges tip

it worked out well - forgot to post this i think ^^
awesome fort so far (urs :-D

)

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:44 am

Heres a few more pics of progress. I finished all the brick work engraving with the dremel tool.

It took a while, busy for an hour or so most evenings this last week, and a stormy weekend here helped get things done ;-)

Sometimes its a blessing when there's bad weather, it keeps you from those gardening chores!

And today I got the first coat of paint on. Its a cheap sand coloured acrylic poster paint from an art store. I mixed it 50/50 with PVA (wood) glue, and then thinned it with a little water to help it spread. Adding the glue does two things; it helps seal the the powdery surface of the polyfilla, and makes the cheap poster paint "waterfast", so once dry it wont reactivate when you dry brush the highlighting paint over the top.

I still have to do the gate ( which sadly came away from its wall hinge - the hot-glue gave way with the rough handling while I was using the dremel), so I'll need to redo that.

After this it will be dry brushed with progressively lighter shades of "sand".

I also have to finish the extraneous doorways, trapdoors and arrow slits for the towers.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 3:09 pm

u have been busy! nice work

Cyndra the Grey · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:10 pm

Looks great all put together

Not too keen on the Imperial Fist-style yellow but as you said it was a WIP.
Keep up the great work.

Cyndra the Grey

theavenger001 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:23 pm

I really like the variation of the colour on the walls, makes it look nice and realistic. (Even if the colour itself isn't that great imho)

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:30 pm

So I guess when you play a game using this fortress you'll be using Legolas as the leader of the defensive army in a scenario and Suladan with the Haradrim as the invading force.

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:51 am

Yeah I realise the colour isnt great at the mo', but thats just the base tone. Its going to get successive lighter highlights, up to a sort of "bleach bone" final highlight. So the colour you see now will probably only show through the "mortar joints" between the bricks.

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:56 am

Sacrilege83 wrote:

So I guess when you play a game using this fortress you'll be using Legolas as the leader of the defensive army in a scenario and Suladan with the Haradrim as the invading force.

I dont think Legloas will be there... I see it more as a struggle between Gondor and Harad, over a contested area of Near Harad... The fortress would undoubtedly change hands several times in the lead up the War of the Ring, with Harad getting the final upper hand.
Much as the Muslims did, over the Crusaders, for Jerusalem (the fortress's other intended use)...

As another possible Harad building to go along with it, in the future, I am wondering what the Haradrim would have kept their Mumaks in? They clearly wont fit through my fortress gate! ;-)

garmenhord · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:02 am

jscottbowman wrote:

As another possible Harad building to go along with it, in the future, I am wondering what the Haradrim would have kept their Mumaks in? They clearly wont fit through my fortress gate! ;-)

Maybe some kind of doghouse but for mumaks :lol:

Don't forget a pool with it's name on! :rofl:

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:16 pm

jscottbowman wrote:

I dont think Legloas will be there... I see it more as a struggle between Gondor and Harad, over a contested area of Near Harad... The fortress would undoubtedly change hands several times in the lead up the War of the Ring, with Harad getting the final upper hand.
Much as the Muslims did, over the Crusaders, for Jerusalem (the fortress's other intended use)...

I don't see why he shouldn't be there, he was there for the crusades

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:30 am

Sacrilege83 wrote:

jscottbowman wrote:

I dont think Legloas will be there... I see it more as a struggle between Gondor and Harad, over a contested area of Near Harad... The fortress would undoubtedly change hands several times in the lead up the War of the Ring, with Harad getting the final upper hand.
Much as the Muslims did, over the Crusaders, for Jerusalem (the fortress's other intended use)...

I don't see why he shouldn't be there, he was there for the crusades

Ah yes I get it now, doh! ;-)

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:25 am

Well it has certainly taken a while but then end result has been worth it I think.

Here's pictures of the final castle, in its traditional square configuration.

In the end I only did one dry brushing of a flat mid yellow colour and found this quite satisfactory. Any lighter and it may have looked too white...

I decided to give it a bit more of a LOTR theme, and added these gate guardians - statues from the recent GW ruins set.

I've added the last pictures as a colour reference for you all to see. This is part of the central castle area of the City of York in UK. Not all castles are the expected grey stone colour! ;-)

It's been quite a journey. I've already made a simple battering ram for it from a length of dowel and a few BBQ skewers drilled through for handles.
I am now busy with a siege tower to assault it with.

I still have to do the flag / banner variations so you can tell who is currently defending it.

When I showed my young son the finished layout before he went to bed tonight, he said "That's great dad, but now I want a white one! How long will it take you to make it? A month, or two...???"

Arrrgh! ;-)

regards
Scott

garmenhord · **Posted:** Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:29 am

Hehe

Be glad he only wanted one more :-D

. Nice job , i like the addition of the statues. Looking forward for a siege tower.

Cyndra the Grey · **Posted:** Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:09 am

jscottbowman wrote:

"That's great dad, but now I want a white one! How long will it take you to make it? A month, or two...???"

Sometimes you can never win...

Looks great and the statues add a very nice effect as well. Well done.

Cyndra the Grey

TheBucklandBrewer · **Posted:** Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:35 am

Looks great! Love the colour!
The statues give it a very nice final touch! Well done!

Harad fortress

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