Ekis

Nice job!
For my part, I absolutely refuse to calculate this kind of thing to finish off my village... or else I'll go crazy! 😂🤪

I finally finished the cloister roofs!
I was also able to test a first ageing of the church/cloister ensemble before inserting, later, some vegetation.
Some tests are also being done on the hall...

So, here are the final views of this part : I'm going to throw you a tsunami of pictures ! 😁

Some views with my hand and ruler to realize the scale!

Close-up on the base of the hall:

2 hours ago, Kurt Johnson said:

Ekis,   Can I rent the market hall for a family party in June?

I have to talk to the burgomaster (mayor) of the village, who will ask the Lord... But first of all, it must be sunny: there is no wall!  
In June, it can still be humid...

Before moving on to one of the following stone buildings, I wanted to take an interest in the village market hall. It is the only one that was not yet elevated.

So I went all the way, apart from the tiles still to be laid...

Ah ok, sorry ! ☺️
So this is the watchtower.
There are 2 small watch-towers (échauguette in french) on the sides of the roof.
This is the basic construction of the kit. I'll leave them, they're authentic.

Real :

On the other hand, I will add wooden or stone hoardings on the walls at the top of the tower, outside and towards the door.

Kurt,

I'm not sure I understand your question.
If you're talking about that roof on the dovecote, then I just need to finish laying the tiles to finish it.

If you're talking about this part of the picture: it's two circular towers that frame the fortified gate.

The kit proposed something much too simple and unrealistic...

I modified the whole basic structure to enrich it with a double arch, reinforcements and buttresses.
The 2 towers will be well present, but they will receive a circular roof and a part that will cover the whole gate.
A mixture of these 2 examples:

Ok, the final implantation will be this one.

The streets are narrow and logical, the buildings are tightly packed together as they were then, the constructions use the existing walls to lean on.

There will be some small annex buildings to be done in the end, but overall, it seems coherent to me.

I give up the difference in level, too complicated to manage! 

The wall will surround the whole, with the exception of the back of the cloister, protected by the steep and inaccessible slopes. 

The whole respects the separation into 3 parts of the village.
So, let's go for the next part...   

Wow, thanks for the feedback, guys! Much appreciated. 

A few more pictures:

The statue of the cloister, formerly in bronze (and therefore anachronistic for a village), has regained a stone aspect (with a mixture of diluted glue and stone dust).

The zoom doesn't forgive anything !

And other views of the final project:

The brown squares are additions to small buildings, halls and central houses.

Still a lot of stones and tiles to lay to have a real 14th century fortified town.

Ok, I've reinforced all the cardboard bases of the other buildings coming up. I took the opportunity to rectify the angle and size of some roofs to be consistent with the church/cloister (rather from the south). The 3 small houses planned in the center of the village had roofs that were squarely cartoon ...

Masa, if I may be so bold as to give another piece of advice. Sure, you can do whatever you want with the basic plans from Aedes Ars, but cardboard bases are really not meant to be perfectly accurate.
You'll see, for example, that the printed tracings of the stones are only there to show you where you have to stick them, not to respect the tracings.

You will be able to correct almost everything with a file and sandpaper (from the biggest to the finest) when your walls are done. Also, it seems that the stones provided in recent kits like yours are much more precise and regular than mine, which are twenty years old. But you'll have to adjust a lot to make it realistic.

But if you prefer to spend a considerable amount of time on the plans before building, I hope you won't get too discouraged. ☺️

Actually, you don't really need to redo the cardboard bases with MDF. What is needed is simply to reinforce the rigidity of the walls of the houses with pieces of interior chopsticks in order to have flat walls for the laying of the stones.
Once the stones are laid and glued, these small models will be as hard... as the ceramic of the stones and tiles!
I wish you good luck for the assembly, I will of course follow your progress with pleasure.  😉

Here's the project just laid out to get an idea of the work to follow. I had to do a quick assembly of the cardboard structures (they're just taped, they need to be reinforced from the inside, more framework) to see where they'll be placed.

Of course, the cardboard models have already been modified for some and not yet for others. Corrections are necessary. Also missing is the open hall, which will be a wooden frame with a tiled roof. And all kinds of small annex buildings, accessories, etc...

7 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

so your going to need to cut a square hole in the diorama floor to set the crypt in place...is that the plan for it?  your new add ons look really good...did you make the well from scratch?

No, there's only the descent to the crypt...
All the items shown above are scratch, indeed.☺️

I don't know, I have to come up with a very medieval French name... I'll find it. 😁

While the roofing continues...

I did 2 or 3 things: the descent to the crypt (to be inlaid in the support block to come), the installation of the local sanctified monk, the central well and a basin surely recovered from a nearby Roman ruin...

Yes, I've been thinking about how to move it and how to display it eventually.
It will be made of 3 modules on bases that can be assembled like a puzzle.
The 1st block is the current Church/cloister.
The 2nd one will be Rural House/Lord's Lodge.
The Third Fortified Gate/ Watchtower.
Each piece will be about 30x50cm with a maximum height of 30cm and can be stored on a shelf without any problem. ☺️

Thanks for all comment and follow !
The final plan is evolutionary, I just planned to add houses to make a small street ...
Here's a quick sketch that I use as a basis:
 

Yes, I've read The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follet. It's a very interesting novel with a lot of information about the social organization of the Middle Ages: a must for those who want to go deeper into this period. ☺️

I think I have quite a lot of personal information about that and about that period. I have had the opportunity to see (and see again) many historical sites in France and Europe.
I will just try to give with this village a medieval atmosphere and respect the buildings around the 14th century. All this with the materials (and skills) I have at my disposal...

In fact, I'm not trying to be ultra-realistic (the materials don't really allow it), but just to do something coherent.

While the roofs are being done (slowly, each tile has to be cut back), I finished the small wall that closes the cloister and a few more things like the chimney in the common room.

You're right, Steven, this fortified house is exactly the kind of construction that used to exist. In fact, a few miles from Guédelon, there is a fortified house almost identical and of the same period!
It is also true that the construction site is located in the countryside, away from everything. It is not easy to get there other than by car...

Thank you, Kurt, for the titles of these books. Would you have the names of the publishers so I could see if they have any information that might indeed be of interest to me? 😉

13 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

By the way, for a bit of inspiration, have you seen the full size castle they're building at Guédelon using only mediaeval techniques at https://www.guedelon.fr/fr/. They've been building now for something like 20 years and don't expect to be finished for another decade or two.

Thanks Steven comments are always much appreciated !

I know Guédelon very well, and I've been following the construction site since the very first stones were laid... ☺️
I have already been there 3 times (my last visit was in May 2019), and I will continue to see the progress of the castle.

Small precision : the castle should be finished in 2025. But the archaeological-builders decided a few years ago to build a whole village around the castle once it is finished.
It is a unique construction site in the world, built only with period tools and methods!

It's not really a real middle age fortified castle, but what we call a fortified house. That is to say that the master of the place should have been a very small lord of the region.

A real fortress would have been too big a project for this volunteer association...

This layout resembles today's cloisters...

In the 14th century, they were more like medicinal gardens where monks grew plants.
They needed water... So in the middle there would have been a well instead.
I'm going to try... 😁

Thx Yves

The doors and reinforcements of the dovecote are made, the framework ready to receive its tiles. The small wall closing the cloister against the church is in progress...

Further assembly for the dovecote:

I'm going to attack the frame structure and the particular roof.