Castle Quest - Reply to Topic

Forum:	Building Blocks
Topic:	Drawing a Realistic (or Not) Castle

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T O P I C R E V I E W
Radella THough I love fact, fantasy has always inspired me. SO has drawing and art. I'd love to be able to draw a fantasy-like castle (though perhaps not a logically "made" one for denfense purposes) More like ones in the fairy tales with turrets and towers and all kinds of stuff. Anyone willing to help me out a bit by giving me a good site or instructions? I'd greatly appreciate it!
Erik Schmidt No-one can help you with the artistic process, that's up to your imagination, but there are some important aspects to know beforehand.
I don't know how much you have been studying castles, but to draw a good fantacy castle it helps to know just what structures commonly make up a castle, but most importantly, the physical(technical) reasons for the shapes you see.
Knowing this will allow you to make up a castle from scratch and change and exaggerate the features to give you the fantacy look, without putting it beyond the realm of believability.
Some points to note;
1/ Stone construction has little sideways strength, the forces being directed downwards, so it tolerates only small amounts of lateral construction(angular forces).
2/ Towers fuction to protect the wall(both in front and on top) and act as lookout posts. Few fantacy castles retain this function in the towers. Towers can be placed anywhere along the walls, projecting out from them.
3/ Moats/ditches can be as deep as you like, a stone ditch in Syria is, I think, 30m(90feet) deep. But they must not rob the walls/towers of solid foundation.
4/ The main structures you need are walls, towers, a gate, and internal buildings, which could include a keep.
5/ Arches. Often used above doors, windows and to support bridges and ceilings, roofs and floors. The forces on the arch are transferred down into its ends at an angle, so the arch must end into a solid base, a wall or another arch.
I hope that helps.
For inspiration, just go to some of the main castle sites and look at the pics, and take the elements you want.
A good fantacy-like castle is Burg Eltz.
Try these sites;
The photo archive on this site
http://www.burgenwelt.de/frameset.htm Click on 'Burgen' on the top left.
http://members.spree.com/mari-cruz/castle.htm
http://www.weblandia.com/castillos/cindice.htm
http://www.castles.nl/
http://www.burgen.ch/
http://www.castellitoscani.com/index.htm
http://www.castlewales.com/home.html
Have fun
Erik