mikemiller1955
Lieutenant General
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2008
- Messages
- 17,506
Be forewarned!
This is going to be a long post.
Please be patient on future posts if you get interested.
I have tons of photos and explanations that will take some time to put into script.
While my castle is finished, my diorama is still incomplete, but should be finished in the next few days or week at the most. If you just want to view the finished diorama, come back in a week or so, I should have full photos by then. I will post progress until I’m finished.
I have been working on building a scratch castle for 2 months now, first starting with wood, then trying styroprene and finally settling on Hirst Arts products.
The wood and the styroprene were failures in my opinion and scrapped, I’ll show them to you and explain why.
Both are discarded and on the trash or forgotten pile.
I have found that while I love viewing the finished products of all the talented hobbyist and modelers on here, that I mostly enjoy reading the tutorials, techniques, tricks and tips on how to make realistic dioramas. The directions on how they made their stuff look so real is what I like.
There is some fantastic talent on this forum. Some of the hobbyist on Treefrog can outdo the big companies when they put their mind to it.
Innovative ideas, creative work, fantastic painting and hours of work have turned out some of the best products I could have ever imagined by people on here.
I have nothing against “off the shelf” products. JG Miniatures, Pegasus, Build-A-Rama, Woodland Scenics, King and Country, just to name a few, are very realistic. I've bought their products and display them. We all have. It's hard to beat their products. I’m not comparing my work to theirs. Please don't get that impression. This is what they do for a living and they are good at it.
Some things, you just can’t build yourself as nicely, don’t have the time or the inclination to build it, can’t afford the price (they are expensive) or just buy it for convenience.
JG sells a fantastic castle, at $125.00 per wall and $125.00 per tower. Yes, there are deals, they do go on sale, but they are awful expensive if you want a castle with four towers and four walls. Not very practical for a large castle financially.
I found other companies that sell castles, mostly in 25-28mm for much less, but of course the scale was off for 60mm. I've seen prices that make JG Miniates look like a steal. I found some 54mm castles that were very nice, not cheap, but very nice. After researching these companies for weeks, I decided to try to build my own. I was very happy with my finished result, I’ll get to that later, but first I’m going to show you my errors and explain why.
I hope this information can help others if they decide to take on a project like this.
This is going to be a long post.
Please be patient on future posts if you get interested.
I have tons of photos and explanations that will take some time to put into script.
While my castle is finished, my diorama is still incomplete, but should be finished in the next few days or week at the most. If you just want to view the finished diorama, come back in a week or so, I should have full photos by then. I will post progress until I’m finished.
I have been working on building a scratch castle for 2 months now, first starting with wood, then trying styroprene and finally settling on Hirst Arts products.
The wood and the styroprene were failures in my opinion and scrapped, I’ll show them to you and explain why.
Both are discarded and on the trash or forgotten pile.
I have found that while I love viewing the finished products of all the talented hobbyist and modelers on here, that I mostly enjoy reading the tutorials, techniques, tricks and tips on how to make realistic dioramas. The directions on how they made their stuff look so real is what I like.
There is some fantastic talent on this forum. Some of the hobbyist on Treefrog can outdo the big companies when they put their mind to it.
Innovative ideas, creative work, fantastic painting and hours of work have turned out some of the best products I could have ever imagined by people on here.
I have nothing against “off the shelf” products. JG Miniatures, Pegasus, Build-A-Rama, Woodland Scenics, King and Country, just to name a few, are very realistic. I've bought their products and display them. We all have. It's hard to beat their products. I’m not comparing my work to theirs. Please don't get that impression. This is what they do for a living and they are good at it.
Some things, you just can’t build yourself as nicely, don’t have the time or the inclination to build it, can’t afford the price (they are expensive) or just buy it for convenience.
JG sells a fantastic castle, at $125.00 per wall and $125.00 per tower. Yes, there are deals, they do go on sale, but they are awful expensive if you want a castle with four towers and four walls. Not very practical for a large castle financially.
I found other companies that sell castles, mostly in 25-28mm for much less, but of course the scale was off for 60mm. I've seen prices that make JG Miniates look like a steal. I found some 54mm castles that were very nice, not cheap, but very nice. After researching these companies for weeks, I decided to try to build my own. I was very happy with my finished result, I’ll get to that later, but first I’m going to show you my errors and explain why.
I hope this information can help others if they decide to take on a project like this.
LOL 
