Loarre Castle (Spain) by King Derelict - Aedes Ars 1/200

[king derelict]

21 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Glad it all went well  mate,  no worries  with your  build  we are  all  here   and  not going anywhere  -  look after yourself  and  heal.

 

OC.

Thank you OC. It a bit frustrating already but at least I can enjoy everyone's builds on here

Alan

[king derelict]

5 hours ago, Danstream said:

Your castle looks fine. I hope it is going fine with your eye, I went through that myself few years ago and all went fine. Of course, I need to wear glasses when I work at close distance, but I don't consider that a big problem, at my age (66) I would have needed reading glasses anyway.

Get better,

Dan

Thank you Dan 

it seems to be going well, no discomfort apart from the eye drops😎

I'm looking forward to getting back to the castle

 

Alan

 

[king derelict]

5 hours ago, AJohnson said:

Glad you are out Alan and good luck with your recovery. 
In the meantime I believe this emoji is now yours!  you deserve at least one or two Rums. 🥃

Thank you for the emoji Andrew. I'm already a bit wobbly with one eye so a few rums  might straighten me out

Alan

[mtaylor]

On 10/2/2023 at 4:49 PM, king derelict said:

Thanks Mark

I'm looking forward to getting back into the castle once binocular vision returns

In the meantime I have this terrible thirst for rum

Alan

Arrrrr......  seems appropriate along with the rum.  Just need a headscarf and a cutlass and you'll be set.

[Canute]

Sounds like it was more that a basic cataract remove and replace. Good luck with your recovery. Now take two tots of rum and call us in the morning. 👍

[king derelict]

5 hours ago, Canute said:

Sounds like it was more that a basic cataract remove and replace. Good luck with your recovery. Now take two tots of rum and call us in the morning. 👍

Thank you Ken. It all seems to be going well so far.  Yes it was a M.I.C.E. Procedure. 

Mitomycin Intravascular Chemoembolization

Not a lot of it around so I had to go to New Been for it. Your post up care is definitely worth following

 

Alan

[king derelict]

And that's New Bern - thank you Autoconfuse 

[king derelict]

Tomorrows the big day. Off to the local eye guy and hopefully confirmation that the eye has healed and permission to resume contact lens wear. 

As a project that was manageable with sub par vision I started sorting out boxes of files left to me by my old neighbour who was a B-29 captain in the Pacific 1944 to 1945. Some interesting experiences; he was on Okinawa and Tinian; knew Chuck Sweeney and saw Bockscar fly out.

He had quite a collection of nose art in amongst the pile of photos. I've scanned a few along with a sample of interesting images. 

Overexposed was a B-29

Shirley was a P-47

Nocturnal Mission was a B-24 

Okinawa Christmas card

 

Flight School  Orangeburg SC

Nashville TN

 

If anyone is interested in any of these images I will scan and post some more as I work through them. The nose art is especially interesting but I guess you need to see the rest of the aircraft to be any use as a modelling reference

Looking forward to filing thise old blocks down again soon

Alan

 

[mtaylor]

Feel free to open a new topic in Shore Leave.  There's some interesting stuff in post and probably much more in the boxes.

[king derelict]

On 10/12/2023 at 5:18 PM, mtaylor said:

Feel free to open a new topic in Shore Leave.  There's some interesting stuff in post and probably much more in the boxes.

Thank you Mark. I'll do that, there is quite a pile to sort through and some might find them interesting.

It seems I'll have the time.. I got a bit of a knock back yesterday. I had the two week post surgery exam which I was thinking would be a bit of a formality. Good news - cornea healing nicely. Bad news - two more weeks before I can wear a contact lens again. At this rate there is going to be some authentic moss growing on Castillo Loarre. Oh well at least everyone else's progress is excellent to read

Alan

[Old Collingwood]

3 hours ago, king derelict said:

Thank you Mark. I'll do that, there is quite a pile to sort through and some might find them interesting.

It seems I'll have the time.. I got a bit of a knock back yesterday. I had the two week post surgery exam which I was thinking would be a bit of a formality. Good news - cornea healing nicely. Bad news - two more weeks before I can wear a contact lens again. At this rate there is going to be some authentic moss growing on Castillo Loarre. Oh well at least everyone else's progress is excellent to read

Alan

Take it easy Alan,  no rush  we aint going anywhere.

 

OC.

[Egilman]

4 hours ago, king derelict said:

At this rate there is going to be some authentic moss growing on Castillo Loarre.

That would be a nice detail touch..... {chuckle} (a mossy stoned castle in the English countryside, who woulda thunk?)

 

Patience is infinite brother... we will be here... Nobody ever built a castle in a day....

[mtaylor]

Kick back and let it heal, Alan.  Pushing it may not end well.   

[king derelict]

On 10/14/2023 at 2:29 PM, Old Collingwood said:

Take it easy Alan,  no rush  we aint going anywhere.

 

OC.

Thank you OC . Playing around with the WW2 Pacific photos is distracting me nicely

Alan

[king derelict]

On 10/14/2023 at 3:06 PM, Egilman said:

That would be a nice detail touch..... {chuckle} (a mossy stoned castle in the English countryside, who woulda thunk?)

 

Patience is infinite brother... we will be here... Nobody ever built a castle in a day....

Thanks EG. At least I can read as long as the print is not too small which is a major comfort. Tearing through the Trevor Reinhardt books

Alan

[king derelict]

On 10/15/2023 at 4:57 PM, mtaylor said:

Kick back and let it heal, Alan.  Pushing it may not end well.   

Thanks Mark

The doctor was pretty candid about rushing things so I plan to behave. Unfortunately I've found I can see well enough to order stuff off the internet

Alan

[mtaylor]

On 10/16/2023 at 5:00 PM, king derelict said:

Thanks Mark

The doctor was pretty candid about rushing things so I plan to behave. Unfortunately I've found I can see well enough to order stuff off the internet

Alan

Well, ordering is reading, not building.   I like your thinking.

[king derelict]

2 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Well, ordering is reading, not building.   I like your thinking.

And it stops Sprue Brothers worrying where I am

Alan

[king derelict]

Aaaaand - I'm back. The recovery period took longer than planned but now I'm back wearing a contact lens in both eyes and able to see properly again. Its early days but I think I see a little improvement from the surgery already although its supposed to take about six months to get the full benefit.

Anyway I am back with Castillo Loarre and making progress again.

The last area that needs blocks is the octagon tower. A suitably fiddly thing to finish with. Windows and the triangle on the template suggest there is some sort of bastion on the other four faces. The guide is notably sketchy in this area so its been back to the drone video of the real thing. That seems to confirm the bastions although at a much shallower angle than the template suggests. I also started the first rows of roof tiles.

The area at the foot of the tower is also difficult to make out but I installed a row of blocks and will sand then back as a slope

Looking over work from before the surgery I found an annoying fox paw. Note the two windows in the outer wall

And on the inside .... Maybe I really did need the eye surgery!

I deliberated for a couple of days about anyone caring and reluctant to start tearing stuff down at the end of the build. Fear of a visit by the Guardians of Loarre Castle finally won out and down it came.

The shaping of the bastions on the outer side of the tower has been completed. The inner ones need to be sanded to shape.

This whole area is only vaguely referred to in the guide. Back to the video to try to assess how to finish the area around the half dome. The model departs from reality here and seems to have blocks covering the floor and overhanging the outer walls. That will wipe out half the height of the dome. The real thing has a parapet part way round the wall so I'm going to try that and use the tile pieces to cover the floor

So I have started the parapet. The tiles are going to be a nuisance

So this is where I am now. I ran out of blocks although if there had been less damaged blocks I would have made it. Just tile pieces to use now.

I'm looking forward a bit, it occurs to me that I need to completely finish this element of the castle before adding it to the base. I need to add the ground material and that also means adding the figures because I need to cover their bases with the ground stuff. So after some serious sanding and filling there is going to be a switch to the paint bench

The ground looks like it is gravel in the videos. I need to think what to use for that. The kit provides a very small amount of white granules that is not going to cover the area in question. I need to start researching railway scenery elements I think

Its great to be back. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all the spectacular work being done on this forum while I have been recovering.

Thanks for looking in

Alan.

 

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Fantastic  to  see   you  back  on this   and  Brill   news  about  the  sucess  with   your  sight,  I do  understand  about  you  changing  what  you  felt   stood out  on your   build,   we   are  our own   punishers  and  critics  with  our own works  -  look at me  with my  re doing  of  the paintwork on my figures.

 

Looking forward  to seeing more  now  you are  back  in the  seat.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

20 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Fantastic  to  see   you  back  on this   and  Brill   news  about  the  sucess  with   your  sight,  I do  understand  about  you  changing  what  you  felt   stood out  on your   build,   we   are  our own   punishers  and  critics  with  our own works  -  look at me  with my  re doing  of  the paintwork on my figures.

 

Looking forward  to seeing more  now  you are  back  in the  seat.

 

OC.

Thank you very much OC. It is great to be back. This will never be an accurate model but I want it look as good as I can make it and I try to minimise the mistakes. Its good to be making a mess in teh garage again instead of binge watching episodes of Warship (1970s BBC show based around a Leander class frigate - I missed it first time round)

Alan

[king derelict]

I made some progress with the roofing today. Its all complete apart from the nasty section of the semicircular dome roof. That is going to be very fiddly. I filed the corner bastions to shape and I think that finishes the work with blocks apart from some serious sanding of some sections

I tiled the roof for the octagon tower off model and I'm not too happy with it. Its very fiddly filing away at tiny shards of tile as you approach the peak. I will try to clean it up a bit and see how it looks then. In a perfect world I would have remembered to photocopy the templates onto card so that repeats could be done.

I indulged myself in a check of the lighting and I am happy that all leds are still working and there is no light bleed. 

Our test engine is due back so work is going to start to intrude again. You just can't seem to escape real life.

Thanks for looking in and the likes

Alan

[Old Collingwood]

Thats  some  complex  work   going on there  mate   -  its  really  taking shape  and  looking  very impressive.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

22 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Thats  some  complex  work   going on there  mate   -  its  really  taking shape  and  looking  very impressive.

 

OC.

Thank you kindly OC. Those roof tiles are terribly fiddly and frustrating. I'll take it slowly and move onto some of the cleaning up as a break

Alan

[king derelict]

Then it occurred to me that I still had the frames from the original templates

Roof for the tower at top left. There is even a big enough blank spot there to not need to hunt for another piece of card.

 

So another template ready for tiling. I think I have plenty of spare tiles

I started the roof tiles on the half dome and enthusiasm waned so I tiled the section around the dome and i think I like it better than the kit version.

 

Just the roof tiles left now but plenty of swearing ahead.

 

Thanks for looking in and all teh likes

 

Alan

 

 

[FriedClams]

Good to hear the surgery turned out well, Alan.  Very nice progress on the castle.

 

Gary

[king derelict]

On 11/12/2023 at 12:38 PM, FriedClams said:

Good to hear the surgery turned out well, Alan.  Very nice progress on the castle.

 

Gary

Thank you very much Gary. Its good to be back on the castle and approaching the end of the blockwork and tiling. These Aedes Ars kits make up into a nice model but the repetitive brickwork is killing. This one had about 8500 blocks but there are kits with 13000 - 14000 blocks.

Alan

[king derelict]

A momentous day in the build today. I added the final block and tile. I had doubts at times that I wasn't going to get this far so I feel rather pleased with myself for completing this phase of the project. The success owes a lot to the encouragement from all the people who have commented and added likes as the build developed. Thank you all.

I completed the second version of the tower roof and I am glad I tried a second version. To me its much nicer - on the right in the photo

The roof was glued in place and I have now started on the clean up. Opening up windows and tidying up the block work while I think about the floors and courtyard covering.

The tower roof is not sitting properly and has subsequently been adjusted.

After the clean up I need to add the figures and the ground cover. It will all be a nice change of pace before getting the baseboard and outer walls out again and building up the landscape. I plan to seal the walls before starting that but I am rather nervous about getting plaster etc all over the blockwork. Hopefully a supply of wet paper towels at hand will help 

Thank you for all the likes and for staying with this one

Alan

 

[mtaylor]

Looks super nice, Alan.  Congrats on a major milestone.  

[CDW]

Spectacular model Alan. I have never seen something like this done until now. It’s sure to be a conversation piece for guests at your home.