king derelict

Thank you very much Jack. That is really very helpful. The landscaping is going to be an entirely new project once the walls are built. The kit instructions or guide are very basic but that sort of adds to the interest. I'm glad I mounted the kit onto thick plywood. Its going to be very heavy when complete. Alan

The wall building continues a little at a time with most of the day spent doing other things (pressure washing the patio). The blockwork lends itself to being picked up for half an hour - adding a few bricks here and there or sanding one of the awkward ones to fit. It all adds to the progress. Its probably worth pointing out that this is a double wall so once I reach the end of the formers i have to start all over again on the other side of the formers. Its not a weekend project 😎 Thanks for all the support, comments and likes Alan

Thank you OC. I think I will add the blocks over the area that is indicated and then add the next section of teh castle and see what the terrain is like. I'm thinking that plaster bandage over foam may be a good way to set the basic shapes of the hills and cliffs. The railroad and scenery guys like @Jack12477 and @Canute may know if you can still get the stuff or have a better idea Alan

Thanks for hanging around for this one Edward. Yes, once a section is finished it will get a pretty vigorous sanding. That will smooth the walls, clean up the corners and make the round towers circular. The blocks sand easily and there is a lot of depth to go at with these 5mm blocks. If there are still gaps a mix of diluted white glue and the sanding dust will sort out most problems. The last resort is some artfully placed ivy The blocks are somewhat irregular and the guide recommends squaring up each block. Given that there are 8600 blocks and I have a limited ability to true up anything I use them as is. I find that selecting adjacent blocks and rotating them to get the best fit gives a good result generally. I do sand each layer to make sure the following layer doesn't start to slope or meet steps between the blocks. Alan

Thanks a lot OC. A long haul ahead but its fun and they are an interesting diversion. Alan

I think the plan to use a raised frame and paper gate will create the illusion of depth without looking odd on the walls. It is definitely worth making the gate. It would be irritating to know it should be there. Alan

Mike The ice effects are spectacular. The used of different media really enhances the look Alan

The formers for the outer walls were completed So now the brickwork begins> this is probably the first hundred - only 8500 to go. The flat and right angled sections of wall should go fairly quickly but the circular towers will need each block to be filed to shaped and fitted. The photo shows a couple of dodgy blocks on the top tier at left which have been removed and refitted properly. I do need some better lights for working on the work bench in the garage so off to Amazon next. Thank you all for looking in and for supporting this build Alan

Thank you Mark These builds can be a bit of a grind and its easy to get discouraged. There are few builds out on the internet full stop, but Aedes Ars seem to be flourishing and have been increasing their range of models. Some very impressive models in their catalogue. They are a bit of an oddity in some ways. The blocks are not scale for a lot of the overall model scales and windows and doors are often out of scale because of the limitations of the block sizes. Having said that the magnificent work done by @Ekis shows what can be done Alan

Thanks Yves. I will try to work a little quicker than I did on the corvette. Alan

Thank you for joining Andrew. This sometimes gets a bit like endless cannon rigging but the end results are nice and its enjoyable once you get in a groove. You live in a beautiful place Alan

Great to have you EG. Well, that's an incentive to get the walls up as soon as possible!.I think you will have plenty of time to build a siege train Alan

Thank you very much OC. That is really very handy. The instructions are more of a guide and do not show images all the way round the model. The formers at the one edge of the outer wall suggest that the brickwork only covers the upper section of the wall I'm guessing that the hillside rises there to join the inner walls and structures but there are no pictures of that side of the model. It may become more apparent as the other structures are added but I will be looking at a lot of pictures of the real thing too Thanks again Alan

Thank you OC. I hope you have pillows, snacks and something warming to drink Alan

Hi Bruce The blocks are called ceramic but are really softer and easy to file, cut and sand. Maybe more of a reconstituted stone. Alan

Thank you Ken. I'll try to make it interesting Alan

Glad to have you Jack. Settle in for a long haul. Alan

I think it would be worth trying a false gate if it will still look good in the shortened wall. Otherwise I suspect there will be so much going on in the scene that the gate will be lost in the action Alan

Beautiful work. The detail, nets, fish boxes really pop Alan

Magnificent work. The hoist rigging is so very good and the deck is much nicer after the wash Alan

Hi Mark Actually, I'm vacillating over whether to start this one Alan

Thanks Craig Alan

Well, possibly an ill judged foray into something different. This is the Aedes Ars kit to build the Castle Loarre in Spain out of individual ceramic blocks. All 8600 of them. I built the Towers of Rochelle by the same kit manufacturer a while ago and although there were some caveats about the scale of some elements it looked decent when I finished it. A great friend of mine sent me this kit (and paid postage all the way from Spain) a couple of years ago and I am ashamed to say it has languished. I found I got bogged down in the Rochelle build. In that kit there is a large multi-curved tower that used about 80 blocks per tier and it seemed like in spite of the hours working on it, it felt like it was going nowhere, I'm hoping that this one might go better having a widen array of smaller elements but 2000 more blocks. I suspect there will be regular breaks to play with something less demanding. Inside the box, plans and general guides. Some basic landscape elements which will be ditched in favour of the Woodlands Scenics investment for the howitzer diorama. Lots and Lots of blocks The kit is built on a printed cardboard base which I decided to glue to a piece of 3/4 plywood. The finished kit is going to be heavy and a piece of cardboard as a base is not going to do it. The structures are created by building up the walls against card formers. These are die cut and just need easing out of the frames The kit provides lengths of scored card strips to create tabs to glue the formers together and to the base. The kit provides two bottles of glue which is unlikely to be enough. I switch to Weldbond when it runs out. A syringe is an efficient way to dispense the glue The curved sections of walls and towers require the formers to be curved. ts easy to crease and ditort the card but using the PE rollers produced decent results A variety of heavy things are used to hold the sections down until the glue sets up. And the first section of wall formers are up This may get very boring so I will only update at intervals when there is discernable progress. I'm hoping that with a bit of community spirit I can complete this without getting overburdened. I hope you enjoy watching it come together. There is one outstanding question - where will the completed model go. The base is 26 inches by 22 inches. Oh dear! Thanks for looking in Alan

Thats a great question. I am finishing off a few small models and experiments which probably don't warrant showing here - unless they are tremendously good of course, ! have a long-term project I want to start in the next few days that will be in this forum. In parallel I want to do something a bit shorter but can't decide between the Vampire, Typhoon, a 1/35 AFV, a 120mm figure or a 1/700 ship. I have a 1/350 Flower corvette that I want to make into a diorama but That might depend on the current experiments Alan

Mike That looks really good I feel like I want to make a frozen sea diorama Alan