Renedra Castle Build - In action

[jon_1066]

Well having been inspired by a few threads and the long term desire to own a castle I took the plunge and purchased the small Renedra Castle.  Small is relative here since the box that arrived was massive!  Not easy smuggling that one into the house.

I don't want to just build it straight since to me it looks quite boring with four towers and four walls in a rectangle and also unlike any western European medieval castle.  So a plan has been hatched to hack the thing up.

First off was to build a bit of wall.  That went well except I realised liquid poly cement was no good.  On something with such large areas to cover it was drying at one end before finishing gluing the surfaces.  So a raid of the cupboard found a tube of humbrol cement which is ideal.

Next was a gate house.  I have decided not to use the upper windows except on a main keep - so the gate house is low and squat but looks OK I think.



Now the fun begins.  I wanted to make an octagonal tower.  This has a few pluses - it allows 45 degree bends in the walls and also looks more interesting.  So I took the tower parts with the buttresses and chopped them in half.  The wall was then scored and bent to 45 degrees to create a corner.  I then took a floor piece and cut it in half, chamfered the edge then glued the whole lot together to create 3 sides of my octagon.  That is as far as I got last night.



My aim is to build a third tower as a keep with three levels (totally straight as it comes in the box), hack a tower in half for two corner bastions and chop a couple of walls up to make 45 degree turns and finally to mash together a great hall from two walls and some window pieces.  Ultimately it should let me build a keep and bailey style castle with the keep outside the bailey or a concentric style where the keep is in the bailey wall.



I should till have enough bits left over for a causeway to the keep, some additional lean to structures in the bailey and to build an entire chapel/hall made up of more of the windows.  Just need to decide how to do the tiled roofing, I was thinking of using Slaters 7 mm scale embossed sheets.

[Dr. Zombie]

This looks promising. Can't wait to se how you progress on this.

[The Dozing Dragon]

Looking forward to watching you progress!

[OSHIROmodels]

Very promising  

Looking at your plans it's tempting to get more of the castle and do something similar  

For the roof tiles I do cars ones that I've used on several medieval projects and they don't look too out of place.

http://www.oshiromodelterrain.co.uk/victorianbuildings.html

cheers

James

[Eric the Shed]

looking great sir...

[Ogrob]

Looks really promising!

[tomrommel1]

nice start will follow closely

[Little Odo]

A good start - both plans look promising. Can't wait to see more.

[Elbows]

Very nice, the modifications look to allow for a more natural castle look.

[jon_1066]

Here is last nights efforts.  I built the opposite three sides of the octagon and prepared the walls to join the two sections together.  Here it is just propped up with a sprue.  I will glue it tonight and fix some strengthening inside.  Next will be hacking up the crenelations



Here it is with the other sections



The plastic cuts quite well and breaks cleanly so it is reasonably easy to work with.  The real limitation to the set are the crenelations - there aren't enough to get fancy with the towers.  I wish Renedra sold that sprue separately as that would open up additional possibilities.

[bandit86]

Do they have interiors?

[jon_1066]

No - no interiors to speak of.  You can put a floor in the tower but the interior walls are way too thin and have only a little detailing on in places.  To give reasonable looking insides would require a fair bit of work.  If you wanted to do that you would probably be better off getting out the foam and starting from scratch.

[Silent Invader]

Cool layout and shape-making 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

The lay-out is really cool!
Once finished it should really look awesome 

[Charlie_]

Nice!

From what I can see so far, I think the castle set looks much better with shorter, more squat towers, leaving out the floor with the windows. I think 'straight from the box' the towers look too tall compared to the walls.