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By GAMER - Dec. 31, 1969 With the first floor of my Norman Keep pretty much finished, I suddenly decided that I needed to test some of my ideas before using them in such a large project. The ideas I wanted to try out were:- Using foam between walls to make a very thick wall. - How to work the insets into the walls for doorways and arrow slits. - Making a period correct Ganderobe (toilet). - Building a circular stair into a square tower. - Using a peaked roof to cover the space between the tops of the walls. - A test run for the custom built splayed base pieces. I had a basic idea of a rectangular keep with a square tower on one corner. With that I just laid out the basic floor and started building. The splayed base pieces were made with the Pyramid Mold and the 1 1/2" Flagstone Floor Mold. I put a regular fieldstone block on top of a pyramid piece, then filed a floor tile to fit. Once the glue dried, I sanded the bottoms to a flat surface, 2 1/4" high. I made four straight pieces, 1", 1 1/2", and two 3" pieces. The outside corner was a challenge, but the inside corner was a royal pain! Where the edges joined I looked for blocks on each half that lined up and filled the gaps with putty. This helped to break up the lines. The pieces came out pretty good, although definately not Hirst quality. The first floor of the keep was pretty easy since it has no windows and only one inside door. I used 1" pink foam as a spacer between the wall. The tower section was a bit of a challenge, because putting a round tower inside a square tower makes triangular shaped holes on each side. I cut and played with the foam until it woud finally fit, then filled gaps with putty. Also, at one end I put a 30 degree sloped block on it's end to create the bottom of the ganderobe. (Or as I called it, the poop chute). The main floor was where the challenge started. I put several arrow slits on this floor, plus the entry door. This required several insets into the wall. Cutting the sections of foam to fit between each inset took some practice, but there was always putty to fill in gaps as needed. The ganderobe was topped off with a couple wooden plank pieces, one of which had the proper hole carved into it. The exit from the circular tower into the keep area took some filing and fitting to get all the floor and wall pieces lined up. Since the doorway is on the main (second) floor, a ramp was built outside the keep to allow access to the door. A gap was left, which is bridged by planks. I considered a type of drawbridge setup here, but in the end deicded against it since the layout I had did not really allow a winch on the roof. If there was a third floor I probably would have done it. The roof of the rectangular section of the keep brought the next challenge. Most of us, myself included, tend to build stone floors for the roofs of our keeps. In reality, most towers and keeps had wood or lead roofs to cover the gaps between the walls. I chose to do a wood shingle roof, since this small of a keep would be more of an outpost than a wealthy noble's residence. I discovered that after I knocked off a half inch for the crenelations, there was little room for the roof to fit and still leave room for figs to fit on the battlements. It took some trimming and filing, but I got it to fit snugly without overlapping the walls to much. The top portion of the tower is pretty simple. I put in arrow slits as the stairs wind up, and the top required some filing of floor pieces to fill those pesky triangular spaces. Painting was started with the usual dark gray followed by a medium gray. Before doing the final light gray coat though, I five shades of gray to create different colored stones. I used a 0 size brush and randomly painted individual stones. (You don't have to be super precise doing this, just go for a decent covering) This technique was inspired by the fielstone color tests that were posted on the message board a while ago. I can't remember who did the tests, but his work is greatly appreciated by me! The different colored stones really stand out, but that is fixed by the last step. The normal drybrush of light gray was the last step. This blends in all the different colors without totally covering them. The final result is very nice! After painting, three things were were needed to finish the keep. First, a mixture of kitty litter and sand were sprinkled onto the foam between the wall to create the impression of fill between the walls. Also, a tapastry across the front of the ganderobe was needed. After some discussion on the HA message board, I went with tissue paper soaked with a white glue and water mix. A simple round toothpick worked out for the hanging rod. Once this dried, I painted it off white and did a tree design on the outside of the tapastry. Lastly, the ganderobe needed the appropriate waste down the side of the keep. I started with putty, but the result didn't please me. I added pieces of sawdust, which was a big improvement. A few shades of brown made the impression complete. Needless to say, sorting through sawdust and actually trimmng some of the pieces I selected, all for the purpose of creating proper looking poop, reinforced the fact that I am a hopeless Hirst Arts Addict!
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