my latest guard/watch tower, scratchbuilt:)

[dsc]

Hi everyone

 

I've found this forum recently and decided to share some photos of my latest project: guard/watch tower. This is my second attempt at a tower, I have an old piece almost finished but it was way too "flat" and not realistic enough (it was made using dental tools and all the rocks were scribed in dental plaster).

I've thought a lot about ways to improve the look of my tower and decided to make small stones and build the whole piece as if it was a real building, stone by stone.

The first step was to make a lot of "bricks" to have enough building material, so I made around 120 stones, each with different texture. They are almost exactly 0,65cm high, their depth and width varies to make them more realistic. The second step was to make a mold to allow casting in dental plaster, here's a photo of this rather big mold:

 

 

 

 

After a lot of casting I was ready to glue everything down (around 1000 blocks ).

Here's a photo of the almost finished lower part of the tower:

 

 

And the other two sides:

 

 

And a closeup of the arrow slit:

 

 

Here's some info on the tower:

 

- you can see graph paper under the stones, it's used to help keep everything parallel

 

- the inside of the tower is made from 0,5cm foamboard

 

- this is only the lower part, there's also going to be an upper platform, it's not going to be glued down, so this is going to be a two part piece

 

- I plan to make a BIG brush-on mold to make copies and sell them:)

 

- there are 4 arrow slits, one on each wall

 

- the whole piece is scratchbuilt and made from dental plaster, glued together using PVA glue

 

If you have any questions feel free to ask, I will try to answer them as quick as possible.

 

All those photos shown here, were already posted on other forums, generating a lot of positive replies:). I'm wondering what you all here think, any comments are more than welcome,

 

cheers,

dsc.

[Crusoe the Painter]

www.hirstarts.com

 

You may want to check them out, for doing things like this. ;)

[Krztoff]

Wow, that's an impressive tower you've started. What's even more impressive is the quality bricks you've molded. Do you intend to use the mold for other projects, or is the tower the end?

[Rastl]

It's so nice to see a structure with brickwork that isn't absolutely even and smooth. It gives it such a wonderful 'we built this using what we had, using skills we might or might not have' feeling that's perfectly correct.

 

I'd be fairly interested in seeing the finished molds for the larger pieces.

[Prophet]

Most impressive.

Prophet

[Vil-hatarn]

Impressive job with the casting. That should look really nice when it's done.

[airhead]

The tower looks great. Even better would be to sell copies of the mold. That is really going about it from scratch. Hirst stuff goes in 1" squares.

[dsc]

Thanks a lot for you kind words:)

 

@Crusoe the Painter: been there, seen it, there are a lot of different textures and sizes, but it's a whole different scale. Hirst's blocks are too big for wfb imo, plus it's much cooler to make something from scratch:)

 

@Krztoff: I plan to make some smaller pieces, like for example rocky walls, or use them as a lower part of a cottage (lower part - stones, upper part - all wood).

 

@Rastl_Deeperdown: it's fairly easy to achieve an uneven look with stones, that's one of the reasons I tried this technique. It also look pretty damn realistic:)

 

I will try to make the mold till the end of this year, I will post some pictures of them as quickly as possible.

 

@Prophet & @Vil-hatarn: I'm glad you like it:)

 

@airhead: it's easier to sell casts than mold if you're dealing with a bigger piece. I could sell copies of the stone mold, but they are far to imperfect to sell. It takes some time and effort to make them parallel and realistic.

 

Thanks again for your replies, I will post some new pictures soon, so stay tuned. If you have any further questions ask:)

 

cheers,

dsc.

[haldir]

very cool

 

wish I had enought creativity in me to attempt something like that

 

Randy M

[dsc]

Hello again

 

Some time has passed since my last post, and because I have made some progress on my tower, I've decided to share:)

So here we go:

 

1. I've finished the lower part and added a frame for the upper platform (made from 0,5mm plasticard)

 

2. Because I want the upper part to be a bit bigger than the lower piece, I've decided to add some supporting stones, you can see them here:

 

Support stones

 

3. Next came the arch-like stones, to make the transition between the lower and upper part a bit more fluent and elegant:

 

Arch-like detail

 

4. I've only added one corner stone so far, I need to cast and work on the other three

 

So there you go, also here's an overall shot of the building:

 

Overall shot

 

and a small teaser:)

 

 

If you have any questions or comments don't forget to drop a reply:)

 

take care,

dsc.

[Namerfrats]

Very nice! Looking forward to seeing the finished product!