My Vauban Fortress (8th update 28.04.12 - page 11 FINISHED!!!)

[Admiral Benbow]

Back again after a longer creative break due to my job it's not ships this time, but another rather large terrain piece - a Vauban Fortress. It should show a good mix between historical accuracy and playability, and must be easily transportable as well. Not an easy task. It will have a strong spanish/carribian influence to use it for pirate games as well as for european theatres of war. My main inspiration was El Morro at San Juan, Puerto Rico, shown on the Osprey Fortress cover of "The Spanish Main". I won't build it as shown (no surprise ...), but will take some main components and reduce them in scale to fit our 28 mm miniatures.



The main problem when starting such a project and not working from any plans or drawings is to find the correct proportions or "scale". This must be a compromise between playability and plausibility, or in other words: it must look "believable" (and good, of course). So I painted up two (Foundry) guns as my scale masters and tried to find the best looking size of the main gun embrasures on top of the walls. From there on I would proceed. A side effect was that I would use the prototype as master model to cast up most of the standard embrasures in ceramic plaster later. The (first) master was built from Styrodur (blue styrofoam) and Selitron (white styrofoam sheet material); both are nice materials to work with, all kind of embossing and shaping is possible. To find the right proportions was a tedious process: I started three times, discarded the first one into the trash, decided the second one being too wide again and will use the third one as my standard. I will cast up those two masters later.







Time for the first bastion. Constructed from 10 cm high styrofoam, all that matters at this stage is a believable angle and solid construction. Glued with white glue and secured with toothpics.





All the stonework will be embossed into the Selitron sheet material with a ballpoint pen; this goes smoothly and is not too time consuming. I still didn't find any secure informations about rendering of these fortresses' stonework. If anybody has some good info about this, please let me know.



To ensure that all outer walls will have the same angle, standardized strips of foamboard were glued to the walls. These back the stonework sheets.



Hardest and most time consuming work was to fit the two (already angled) stonework sheets with the correct front angle at the front of the bastion; it is unbelievable how many different mistakes you can make to get the fu?!%&§ pieces together ...  
On top you see the first testing of the embrasure.







With the top floor from foamboard and the stonework supports underneath the walls, it's an astonishing sturdy construction, but very lightweighted!



Although it doesn't look very impressive at all, this simple thing cost me some 20+ hours work. Scale finding and this angle stuff got me working. On Monday I'm back at the job, so don't know how much time will be left for this. So please be patient, I'll be back as soon as I can and hope you enjoyed it.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

Well, that looks a grand start Admiral    and if your other projects are anything to go by it's going to be a cracker 

Have a google image for Gibraltar (and of course other forts) of the time period and I think you'll find that the block work was left exposed as block work for the most part with the more important buildings (officers quarters etc) being stuccoed and decorated.

Looking forward to the next installment 

cheers

James

[Furt]

OMG!!      

Looking great already, the scale looks perfect and still "grand". Will be watching with GREAT interest - this is just what I will need in the near future - bless you Admiral.

The angling of the Selitron veneer is just genius. I assume this material is easier to emboss than blue foam?

[Silent Invader]

This is going to be a good one to follow!  

Do you have to seal the ballpoint pen lines to stop the ink staining any paint treatment?

PS:
Hammers, I think, was recently asking about small weights.  Did I spy some to the back of the 5th and 6th images?

[gamer Mac]

Great stuff already
I really like the viner idea for the anled wall. Will need to remember that one, Thanks
Keep the picture coming.

[Alfrik]

How grand a fortress overal? about the size pictured on the cover photo?

[Calimero]

Oh, why did I sell all my pirate figures!?!

Really nice work so far Admiral Benbow

[Malamute]

Brilliant. I've just started a small pirate project so seeing this will keep me motivated 

[widgren]

its obvious that you know what youre doing. ill follow this.

[Frank]

WOW! What a wonderful project. The first steps are very impressive. 

[Ray Rivers]

I still didn't find any secure informations about rendering of these fortresses' stonework. If anybody has some good info about this, please let me know.

Looks a treat Admiral!   

I've seen lots of fortresses around the world and although I'm not a great source I will say that in general it looks very real.  Walls are normally pretty symmetric as you have portrayed, but if you put some sort of opening, the symmetry has a tendency of breaking down a bit.  I would also think that any wall which has been attacked, and later repaired would also have areas of imperfection.   I would say, don't be afraid about being too perfect... imperfection also has it's merits.   

[Anpu]

This looks great! another must follow topic in the workbench 

[Andym]

That fort is going to be huge!! Are you going to have enough ships to launch an assault on that thing? I think your going to need a bigger boat!

[Westfalia Chris]

Marvellous. I'm really looking forward to see it develop. Any chance to see it at one of the German conventions in some years' time (gotta plan ahead!)?

[Admiral Benbow]

Thanks everybody for the nice comments!

The angling of the Selitron veneer is just genius. I assume this material is easier to emboss than blue foam?

Selitron comes in sheets of 3, 5, 6 mm, so it's more flexible than the blue foam. I wouldn't say it's easier to emboss, but it holds the lines better.

Do you have to seal the ballpoint pen lines to stop the ink staining any paint treatment?

I don't think so, but anyway, even if the dark blue ink will stain through, it won't show through the black/brown lining colour for the recesses. And the thing will get the usual treatment of one or two neutral colour undercoats, so I think it's pretty secure.

PS:
Hammers, I think, was recently asking about small weights.  Did I spy some to the back of the 5th and 6th images?

These are just some spare white metal tires from a kit I use as small weights. But I need to ask at a metal workshop for some square angled metal scraps, that would be more handy ...

How grand a fortress overal? about the size pictured on the cover photo?

Definitely not! I can't tell you exactly about the size of the finished piece, it's a work in progress, but I'll try to keep within something like 70 x 100 cm, maybe in two parts.

Marvellous. I'm really looking forward to see it develop. Any chance to see it at one of the German conventions in some years' time (gotta plan ahead!)?

I'm pretty sure about that ... 
But it's a bit too early to say when. Crisis and/or Tactica are always good guesses.