# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Building/Structure Mapping >  Castle of Azulhoc

## Tenia

Hi,
Here is a draft of the castle of Azulhoc (_headland of the wolf_). The architectural style is far from homogeneous, the castle having been rebuilt and extended several times over the centuries. The square towers are the vestiges of the original enclosure and the horseshoe towers are the most recent. Some curtain walls and towers will have machicolations and others not, etc. The towers, especially the main dungeon, are big, but I think the proportions aren't crazy.
My plans are to finish the draft with sketchup and then redraw this completly with Gimp or Artrage.

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## - JO -

Ah ah! A castle !!! If you draw a castle, you automatically have my support! (Yes, I love castles.....) It's a very good start, a very clean and very neat work on Sketchup! I see two or three elements that must have been difficult to draw ... Bravo! 
I like the way you choose to change styles... it's true that most of castles have different styles, due to the evolution of weaponry over the ages
I still have trouble identifying the dungeon (is it the biggest tower in the background?) But it also depends a lot on the configuration of the surroundings reliefs. 
Are you going to put a roof on the big bottom tower?
Anyway, I'll fellow your thread with a lot of attention !

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## ChickPea

Oh, nice start! Watching with interest.  :Smile:

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## Tenia

Thank you Jo ! I think I started on a long job  :Wink:  Yes, the dungeon is, at this time, the biggest tower. For the roof I'm thinking of something like one of these two towers in the background : http://www.chateau-fougeres.com/site...?itok=r4B_3ztQ : a "chemin de ronde" around a lesser structure.

EDIT : Thank you ChickPea too  :Wink:

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## - JO -

> Thank you Jo ! I think I started on a long job  Yes, the dungeon is, at this time, the biggest tower. For the roof I'm thinking of something like one of these two towers in the background : http://www.chateau-fougeres.com/site...?itok=r4B_3ztQ : a "chemin de ronde" around a lesser structure.
> 
> EDIT : Thank you ChickPea too


That would be great : a smaller tower on the top and an even smaller one for the stairs ! That's promising... and that means some more time on sketchup. Have you already tried to show the shadows on your castle ? I find the effect always breathtaking !
Actually I'm working on sketch up too... I try something for the December challenge but I'm not sure I'll throw myself in it yet...

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## Azélor

Nice battlements. 
The size of the dungeon doesn't look out of proportio n.

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## Tenia

Thanks guys. I probably won't be able to show some progress until the next week, but your encouragement motivates me  :Wink:

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## fol2dol

Nice start!
The more I see drafts made on sketchup or any other 3D soft, the more I say to myself to try it!
Your castle is very nice and I'll wait for the next week to see what you've done  :Smile:

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## Tenia

Hi all,
Some progress (?)
I fought with the landscape and I loose... It's totally screwed up and I erased some parts of it accidentally. Anyway, it will just serve as a guideline (the shadows also, which I don't like too) so I don't bother too much, I wanted a landscape to see the rendering of the drawbridge. This is an "Arrows and chains" drawbridge, quite common in medieval times, with a pedestrian one on the side. Added some roofs also, I find them better that the previous ones.
@fol2dol : Sketchup is very pleasant to use and it has a small learning curve. However, if you try it, don't do like me (I am the sort of guy who try before from scratch and finally RTFM after many mistakes  :Wink: ) : Read some tutorials before, particularly on moving things with axis and on the "follow me" tool.

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## ThomasR

I'd love to be half as good at sketch up as you are ! Il tabasse ton château !

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## - JO -

Fantastic ! 
I would estimate hat the visible parts of your castle have been built between 13th and 15th century
It really looks good and shows the evolution of defensive walls.

For the landscape, I don’t think you’ve lost. There is an option that just smooth the terrain you have built (sorry I don’t have the name in mind right now). If you search you’ll see that it looks OK

The draw bridge looks just fine and well defended, now I wonder where you will put the second door and how you plan to defend it. Between the two square towers ? If so, you might want to add some defense on the wall between those towers.

Keep up the good work ! It's just terrific !

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## Ilanthar

Very impressive! I'm looking forward to see what you do next with this wonderful castle!

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## Tenia

Thank you all !
JO : Yes i've tried to smooth the landscape (_adoucir les arêtes_ in French but when I do that it appears completly flat. Anyway I don't mind too much, I wiil redraw this or perhaps play with the style.
The second door is between the square towers. I added a _bretèche_  to defend it.
Some arrowslits. the ones on the round towers are staggered on each floor for more shooting angles.
The entrance to the main dungeon is raised to avoid ram attacks, as I've seen in some castles.
I should have finish with sketchup this year I hope  :Wink:

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## Mouse

My goodness!  This is all very detailed and impressive  :Smile: 

Landscape is not the easiest thing in Sketchup.  I gave up doing the landscape for my City district in Sketchup when I realised how difficult it was.  Yours is a lot better than mine, so I can only draw the conclusion that you are a lot better at it than I am  :Wink:

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## Josiah VE

Wow, I really love this! An ambitious project and a very impressive design.

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## - JO -

Excellet ! You've studied your subject ! Very well done !

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## ThomasR

Those roofs are amazing !

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## Tenia

Thank you all !
I finally managed to get a smoother landscape, perhaps not the best but smoother. I don't think I will work more on it with Sketchup as my plan is to redraw all this with Artrage (I still have to find the good pen brush) and so I consider I am nearly finished with Sketchup on this (may be add some chimneys, a _barbacane_ or other things you could see ?) For the same reason, colors here are just placeholders.
I redrew the bridge, added some doors between the _courtines_ and finished the arrowslits (there are too many perhaps ?)
Now that I've spent some time with Sketchup, the little challenge is tempting me  :Wink:  (doing something 100% sketchup)

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## Tenia

Okay, I begun to draw the castle. I have to smooth the shadows on the round towers and work on the landscape. I don't know yet if I will draw each stone of the walls  :Confused: 
As usual, criticise and comment  :Wink:

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## Mouse

Oh this is starting to look really really nice  :Smile:

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## ChickPea

Oh yes, this is gorgeous. I like your subtle shading.

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## ThomasR

Very "Guillaume Tavernier"  :Wink:  T'as vu le compliment ?

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## - JO -

This is looking gooooood !

I dont think you have to draw every stone of the castle. Im sure you can find ways to show stones without actually drawing every one.

I'm looking forward to see how youll paint the walls and roofs ! I'm sure I can learn a few tips from you...

The thing now is that I would very much see more of the landscape : is the castle defending a road, a harbour, a city, or its just a fortress ? I know we always want more of your map !

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## Tonnichiwa

This is absolutely beautiful! Well done! I can't wait to see more!

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## QED42

Can't wait to see how this looks finished!

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## Tenia

Many many thanks to all of you !
Thomas : I didn't know him, what he does is fabulous, _je ne pense pas que je mérite le compliment_  :Wink:  
JO : I don't think I will draw every stone, the tests I did make it all too overloaded and something that perturb and confuse me is that I found this beautiful drawing : http://brevehistoire.free.fr/Histoir...5_chateau1.htm that looks a lot (too much) like the castle of Azulhoc  :Frown:  As I was inspired by real castles to make the different parts it should not be surprising that there are similarities, but now my reaction is to move away from that style !
I could either draw only some stones or apply a rough brush that looks like stones, or even create/apply some texture with sketchup and see what a good filter can do with it, testing time now !
For the landscape I admit I haven't given it much thought, as I was focused on the castle and I was thinking about taking advantage of Sketchup to add some details as inserts on the white areas (like the bridge or a view from one of the towers) Initially it was on a _motte_ but then I added a moat, so...

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## - JO -

I guess we all take the same elements when we want to draw a castle ? 

I tried the texture from Sketchup, but I didn’t find it convincing. I’m looking forward to see what you can achieve and ready to take notes.

The inserts are a very good idea, because it’s always so frustrating to have so many fine views possible with Sketchup and only draw one... 

Anyway I'm looking forward for the next WIP !

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## Mouse

Some of the built in textures in Sketchup aren't too bad.  Their tiles and slates are pretty good, but I have found that others have rather a lot more redundancy than I'm prepared to put up with, so I often add my own into the mix.

The page to search for Sketchup textures is here.

If you are looking for some extra textures to experiment with on the walls, then I found this one quite helpful when I was trying to make my city wall in 3D in sketchup.  (You might need to reduce the size of it to about 1000 pi square first in PS or GIMP).  Even if you draw over the top of it in PS, it will give you approximate guide lines to do that drawing, and fill in any areas you don't have the energy to adjust to taste.

This grass texture may help as a background on the ground.  Again you may have to reduce it first.  Sketchup gets a bit slow if you have add too many high res textures.

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## Mouse

To make it a bit easier....

Sketchup stone wall textures
Sketchup grass textures
Sketchup roof textures

And don't forget that if its the right texture but the wrong colour, you can adjust the colour inside Sketchup  :Wink:

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## Tenia

Thanks for the links !

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## Mouse

Have fun  :Smile:

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## - JO -

T hanks for the links too, Mouse

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## Greg

This is such a cool project Tenia and it's shaping up really beautifully already!  :Very Happy:

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## Mouse

> T hanks for the links too, Mouse


You're welcome  :Smile: 

@ both of you - remember that you can change the scale of a fill to suit, and that when you are doing a lot of post processing in PS or GIMP you can cover or reveal as much of the texture as pleases you  :Wink: 

Sometimes a base texture just serves to break up the blank space so its not so hard to get to work on it all.

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## Tenia

Thanks for the tips  :Wink: 
I applied a stone wall texture I found, a bit distorded, even if I think I projected the teture correctly (I learned that the orientation of the texture model is very important here) and not really fit the overall style (even in B&W)

So I used it as a guideline (as I made for the roofs), begun to draw only some bricks like JO did in his Mostar Bridge, and ended drawing almost all the stones with a dotted brush :

I am going in the right direction ?

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## auke

Wow, beautiful!!

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

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## Falconius

> I am going in the right direction ?


Lol, what a question.  Yes, most definitely, it looks amazing so far.

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## - JO -

> I am going in the right direction ?


Definitely yes !   It’s full of promises ! 
Very good idea, the dotted brush...

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## Naen

Looking nice.  I think the stone on the black and white version looks consistent with the rest of the castle.

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## Tenia

Thanks !
The walls are finished, some watercolor tests. I'am pretty happy with the rooftops, the walls are perhaps too wellow (a mix of mustard and warm grey) and the interior buildings need improvement...

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## Diamond

That's so cool!  I need to stop by this forum more often...

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## ChickPea

It's fantastic, Tenia. Beautifully done!

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## zhar2

Just a few critiques based on some reading I've done, if your first gatehouse is breached you would want to turn your first courtyard into a kill zone but you cant effectively as there are no crenellations on the inside of the outer wall, an access door to that wall from the left tower would be desirable too. another critique is that your roof design is promininent for snowy regions and as such it would be desirable that all towers have the same design and no flat roofs which could collapse with heavy snow (If i remember correctly it even aplies to flat stone roofs). Also since you don't have a keep you may want to double up on crenellations on the inner courtyard too since your attaker will need time to breach the towers and its time that could be used to kill them and maybe turn the tide of the siege.

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## Bogie

This is coming along nice!

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## - JO -

Colors are great ! I think the colors of the walls can depend from the color of the terrain nearby. They usually tried to build castles with nearby ressources. If your walls are mellow, it can be because the castle is on a « molasse » ground ?

If youre plannng to color the terrain, and draw some stones, maybe you can take the same colors (or near that color) ?

I cant wait to see the whole piece finished ,

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## Tenia

Thanks all !
zhar2 : Thank you for pointing this, you are perfectly right, some battlements on the front wall of the _avancée_ (the first courtyard) are missing (the other walls are equipped with them, though), I planned to make them in my firsts sketchup drafts but they were scrapped... Let's say that the Count of Azulhoc found himself short of money during the construction of these walls and that the Hill Dwarves who supply the stones of course did not want to deliver them without being paid before. The Count must now either find money or declare war on the dwarves and steal the stones from them...
More seriously, yes some doors are missing, I will add them and I'll see want I can do with the inner buildings roofs (i already tried sloped roofs with sketchup but the "perspective" was not good)... although medieval castles, particulary but not only those partially rebuild and/or extended during decades/centuries, were not all an absolute logic model. For example, the last one I visited, the castle of Fougères (whose this one is for some parts inspired), a very big and strategic one, was built at the bottom of a valley and its _avancée_ has no battlements inside (there were perhaps wooden _hourds_ however but if so they disappeared) : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...es_Schloss.jpg
Regards

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## - JO -

The battlements inside were often avoided especially in the first defences, because if the wall was taken, the inside battlement would help attackers to hold their position. Without the battlements they could be targeted by defense archery posted on the second defense. (My English is so frustrating... sorry... I find it hard to be clear with technical words, I hope I'm understandable...)

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## Tenia

Oh I didn't know that ! That's good news for the Count Of Azulhoc as he won't be obliged to declare war on the Dwarves.
Some watercolor tests a test inset of the drawbridge.

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## - JO -

Wow ! The castle is coming so nice !
I love the inset too !

Have you thought what’s coming next ?
Enlarge the map to add others elements, terrain, etc ?
Another inset ?
A frame and title ?

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## Tenia

ty  :Wink: 
For the moment I plan to do two insets (the other one below the first at the left bottom corner), a title (upper right), a border (don't know which one currently) and I will see what to add to "fill" the whole thing (trees, brushes, building ?). Very busy now but I hope to show some more at tne end of the week

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## - JO -

Cool ! 
I'm looking forward !

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## Tenia

My progression is slow, but here is a new wip. I'm not too fond of the insets, I think they don't bring much actually ?

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## - JO -

I think the insets are a good idea. Maybe you are not sure because of the one up, of the top of tower. I think the point of the insets are to attract attention to important details, and the one on the top sure looks nice but doesn’t show important detail (to me... of course). If you look at the inset of the drawbridge, it makes sense and integrate itself well in the whole picture... Maybe you could try another view for the upper inset ? At human height in front of the second door , for example ? Or, from the top of the tower south-east, looking down the courtyard (but then it’s no longer a detail...).

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## - JO -

Sorry to come so late with this, too... I didnt notice first, but there are no opening on the wooden top of the main gate towers (and the one on the left), and the main purpose of those temporary constructions is to serve defenses and allow archers to throw arrows on the attackers... 

Of course the castle looks already terrific like this ! No problem there !

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## Ilanthar

It's really great, I'm loving your castle, Tenia  :Smile: .

Apart from the excellent suggestions -Jo- made, another possible thing with the insets is to show other view of the full castle.

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## Tenia

Hi again, you are both right of course  :Wink:  and yes Joel some parts are missing, arrowslits as you said and also some doors. I should add a water well also, important in a castle. I'll correct theses later, I'm now focused on these bloody insets ! Here is a draft test of a foor plan of the castle, at ground level (except for the keeps, they looked weird without a entrance and I should add some arrowslits openings) and at the final resolution, coming from sketchup without reworking. What do you think ?

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## - JO -

That’s a very good idea for an inset ! Maybe colors the walls in black, so the eye instantly understand it’s a plan ?
But it’s a good solution for the question of insets...

I'm glad you worked again on this project, I was about to send you a message to try to give you motivation to go on ! I find your project very beautiful and I sure would like to see it finished !

(Have you worked on the coat of arms ? That could also help for your inset question : it would allow you to make a balanc3 in color and display with the insets ?)

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## Tenia

Ty, I just lack time to progress.. Go on for this inset so ! I need to polish it and see want I can do with the size constraint  :Question:

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## - JO -

You could put the plan instead of the top left inset ?
Or on the bottom right under the shield ?
Otherwise you can enlarge the picture to give you room for a birder, a title and the plan ?

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## Tenia

Yes I've planned to put it in the top inset, I want both inserts to be the same size, so I have to remove the pixelation, blur it without messing up the stairs...

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## Mouse

This is superb  :Smile: 

You have managed to find a lovely balance between texturing and drawing.   And I know from experience that isn't easy!

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## Tenia

Thank you Mouse !
Top left inset added, It's not much of a thing...

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## - JO -

I think it add a lot ! 
Maybe you can try to lay between the plan and the title ? I don’t know if it’s possible or even a good idea, but I thin it’s worth a try, to see if you can, I don’t know, hide the first ledger of the title with the plan, or the other way around ? Or use on of the tower of the plan as the « o » of Azulhoc ? I'm probably just delusional...

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## Tenia

Slow progress as usual... Border and coat of arms testing, don't know yet what is the motto of Counts of Azulhoc. As usual, open for criticisms and comments...

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## - JO -

The wolf is splendid !

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## Tenia

Thanks !
OK, reworked the border, added the motto and some missing entrances, I think I'm almost done now... Something missing or messed up ?

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## - JO -

Only my opinion, I would make the title bigger ! After all you have every reason to be very proud of this magnificent piece of art !

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## rdanhenry

Maybe add something in the lower right corner for compositional balance?

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## zhar2

Looking great!, maybe add fields, roads and other scenery props.

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## Tenia

Oh yes you're right, it's unbalanced... Have to find something now

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## Mouse

I don't think you really need something in each corner - not if your really scratching around for something to add.  

What might help is if you can bear to reduce the size of the shield.  Its colours are dominating the whole map - an effect that would be greatly reduced if you reduced its size quite a lot.  I might actually move it across to the opposite corner, move the plan down to be in the middle of that side, and actually shunt the whole castle a fraction to the right, so that the focus isn't bang in the middle.

Composition is a really tricky thing to get right, but where photographers tend to want the focal point right in the centre, its actually quite uncomfortable in an artistic composition, which is better divided into thirds or fifths on a subliminal level - hence the tendency for the horizon in most landscape paintings to be one third or two fifths from the top of the painting (or from the bottom).  If you arrange all the extras in a sort of 2/5 column down the left side and shunt the castle to be central to the remaining 3/5... or even use sevenths - 2/7 and 5/7, then plop a signature or copyright thing in the bottom right hand corner it might help.

All of this is just me babbling away - just ideas, that's all  :Wink:

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## Tenia

Thank you all for your comments.
JO : Yes, I will test a bigger title.
Mouse : These aren't babblings but excellent advices (btw : Welcome back!), I thought the castle and the cast shadows were sufficiently on the right but... I will definitively shrink the coat of arms, about moving it on the left side (alignment and render with the insets) and shunting the castle (and so cutting part of the shadows on the right) I'm wondering... testing time now.

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## Mouse

Thanks, Tenia  :Smile: 

I would never follow my own instructions to the letter, but maybe only consider them.  I did think about the shadow thing long after I made that comment, and didn't get as far as an actual solution.  Maybe you will come up with a completely different arrangement that's much better anyway  :Smile:

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## - JO -

> Composition is a really tricky thing to get right, but where photographers tend to want the focal point right in the centre, its actually quite uncomfortable in an artistic composition, which is better divided into thirds or fifths on a subliminal level


Actually, photographers tends to use the golden numbers too for their composition...

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## Blaidd Drwg

Balance thingy aside, this is really very beautiful!
Small nitpick: is the motto correct? It looks like there's a space in "Jamais" --> "Ja mais".

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## Mouse

> Actually, photographers tends to use the golden numbers too for their composition...


Maybe some of them do, but at all the Photographic Society talks I've been to the main speaker is always on about 'filling the shot', and getting the focus right in the centre of the shot'.

Mind you, things might have changed since then.  It was a few years ago now  :Wink:

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## - JO -

I don’t know about those photographic societies, but as taking picture is a part of my job, I was thaught to put the strong spots of the picture in one of the 4 « strong points » defined by the golden numbers because it’s supposed to be the first points where the human eyes goes when looking at a picture... (damn language... it’s so hard to be precise in English for me...)

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## Mouse

Well its great to hear that things have definitely changed  :Smile: 

I always _try_ to put things at the intersection of the thirds, fifths, sevenths or ninths - always an odd number.

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## Tenia

Many thanks Blaidd ! It is intended (maybe not appropriate ?), it is an old French form, from _ja_ : already, now from Latin _iam_ and _mais_ or _mes_, negation.
I tried to shunt the castle to the right but the cutted shadows gave a badly framed look, so I just expanded the title a bit, shrank the coat of arms and added a stamped signature on the bottom right, hope it is enough...

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## Mouse

I can only speak for myself here, but to me it looks just about right  :Smile:

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## - JO -

Yep ! It’s just fine !

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## Blaidd Drwg

> it is an old French form, from _ja_ : already, now from Latin _iam_ and _mais_ or _mes_, negation.


Oh nice! I had no idea it came from Latin "iam" (not surprising, since I know nothing about modern or old French  :Razz:  But I love (historical) linguistics). And is that "mais" the same one that means "but"?

The pic looks great now. Absolutely love it =)

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## Tenia

Thanks all  :Wink:  
Blaidd : Yes !

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## Ilanthar

It's gorgeous, Tenia. The moats are very clean, no  :Razz: ?

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