TheTowers of Ilium

[steve_pickstock]

For the satisfaction that you will feel when this project is finished. That's why you do this! Go on Steve!

Er - okay - sounds good. We'll go with that.

Doesn't look like much progress -
[img]https://i.ibb.co/SRpvBtP
/327556576-753420236197369-6596867866226761688-n.jpg[/img]


The murder hole is becoming more defined but it's also becoming more and more difficult to do things without filling gaps and painting bits.

Spent the rest of the morning measuring and cutting parts for the front wall.

[steve_pickstock]

It's starting to come together now!

The last few weeks have been a lot of measuring and fitting, and now - all of a sudden, it seems - I can see the finished object. This is an illusion, there are still the crenelations to do and lots of little bits, and of course the walk way - THAT is going to be a bag of laughs.

So on with today's efforts.

First up three images with a figure - an Italeri gladiator - to show the scale of it all.
Inner Entrance

Outer Entrance - notice how small it is to make it less easy to force an entrance.

Testing the levels for the walkway.


The basic carcase with all of the Blotz parts glued into place and the walls of the murder hole fitted and glued.



I'm not sure I need to fit this element - the upright in the middle of the picture. It's not needed for support for the walkway, so much, but I do feel it will provide more gluing surface for when the outer walls go on.


The lower part of the outer wall in place, it still needs to be scribed and glued into place, and it will need filling but it's looking promising.


That's it for now, thanks for looking in. Take care.

[steve_pickstock]

Probably should have this on my headstone.

[steve_pickstock]

Yesterday I took the time to scribe the front wall and part of the back walk, and this morning they were glued in place.
The front wall - still trimming and fitting to do here.


The back wall around the tunnel in place and getting ready to set in and glue the remaining walls.


With that done - all that's needed is for them to set up and dry.

I cocked up with the final measurements - after all the measuring I did! - and the plinth is a bit narrow, but no harm, I'm not re-doing it.

Lastly two pictures showing the wall connected to another element. The fit isn't brilliant, despite every effort to get things vertical and on marks, but I have found this with some of the other laser cut elements as well, so I am not going to beat myself up about it.



Thanks for looking in, stay safe all.

[MABO]

Looks terrific. Maybe I should paint somme of my old Atlantic Troy boys to support you mentally...

[steve_pickstock]

Looks terrific. Maybe I should paint somme of my old Atlantic Troy boys to support you mentally...

As long as you don't bring that damned horse! It made such a mess last time!

So reaching an end of what I can do down here on the dining room table, which is probably a good thing as Mrs P is doing an astronomy degree and guess where she works?

So update pics.

The walkway is fitted and the first of the upper walls have been placed and it has been glued up.

This is why I need to take this up to the attic now. The crenelations need to be shaped by the dremel to finish them. Then it will need filling and sanding and obviously painting.

From the inside, I'm quite pleased with the fit, especially around the top of the steps.


One of the things I was trying to do was to keep a 20mm space on the walkway for my standard figure bases - job done!


Fitting the walkway was a much easier job in the end than I thought it would be. Partly that was because I used a previous version of the floor plan - as you can see from all of the pencil marks.


Lastly a look down into the murder hole.

[Peter]

Looking very good Steve! And I really like that message!

[Susofrick]

Oh, those stairs!!! Totally lovely project. I have seen, but I haven't looked before. Really marvelous!!!

[steve_pickstock]

:love: Oh, those stairs!!! Totally lovely project. I have seen, but I haven't looked before. Really marvelous!!!

Thank you.

Well, I moved everything upstairs, to start the filling, sanding and painting process.

But first some pictures to show some of the elements I've already done and the ones I've completed but not really shown.

These two elements are 30 degree bends in the wall, both internal and external bends. Still need to be filled, I may need some more of these external ones, to get the full shape of Troy VI's walls.



"End Caps" for the ends of the wall to make them all neat. I actually bought two sets of these, and used the internal structure from one set for the connectors on the barbican section.



Ruined walls. I think these are a great idea, and very cleverly made too. If you need to show a section oif wall has been knocked down - 'cyclopsed' or some other supernatural disaster - remove the affected section and put these on the ends of the adjoining wall to show it has been knocked down. I plan to add some piled rubble sections to go between them to enhance the visual experience.



The east gate of Troy VI, with the tower covering the gateway, from the outside (1st picture), the inside (2nd picture) and the reconstruction from the Osprey (3rd picture)




The south gateway of Troy VI, with the gateway on the right, the tower in the middle and the bastion on the left. the only thing that is missing is the row of standing stones at the base of the tower.



Lastly, the point of a modular system like this is that you don't to lay these out the same way every time. It's true I am trying to recreate the walls of Troy VI, generally believed to be the Troy of Homer's Iliad, but these sections will pretty much do for any civilisation round that end of the Mediterranean, except perhaps the Egyptians.
So i tried a few other combinations - this first one is two towers (that would be a good name for a book that!) protecting the gateway (instead of the assymetric Trojan version - one tower, one gate.


And again, this time from the inside, but with the steps added in. (again, I bought two of these steps sections and incorporated one into the barbican section, and again, the engineering on these things is really very clever.)


Well that's it for today, now the finishing begins. Thanks for looking in, stay safe all.
Pickers.

[Minuteman]

These formidable fortifications are really starting to take shape, the end result should look very impressive.

[Santi Pérez]

It's amazing to see every new progress of your fantastic project, Steve. You're getting a very impressive model of Ilion/Troy. Very well done!

Santi.

[Bessiere]

Great looking fortifications. Your games must be pretty spectacular in person as much labor as we've seen you put in to making various urban environments. Your shelves are loaded with goodies like this I'm betting.
Cheers,
Bessiere

[CliosPaintingBench]

Wow, it's coming along very nicely, I can see how it matches your reference photos, great progress!

[steve_pickstock]

Wow, it's coming along very nicely, I can see how it matches your reference photos, great progress!

Thank you Owen.

The problem isn't just that it has to match the reference material but that it also has to match the commercially made elements.

Tho this end, I have been sanding today, sanding and shaping. I used my dremel to hack out the excess material of the crenelations, which is a nasty job as the dust from MDF is harmful when breathed in, but I had my vacuum cleaner running and a mask on as I did.

No pictures of that - it's just sanding after all, but I will post pictures of the final efforts.

Instead I started work on the ruined wall section.

So here are the two ruined wall elements.


Here they are in front of a long wall element.

The problem is that when walls get knocked down, they don't just disappear. A ruined wall is often a benefit to the defender. The attackers are going to try and come in, but with the heaps of rubble and the treacherous surface - it doesn't mean that the defenders can't make it harder for them ...

And that's what I'm trying to do with this

This section will fit in between the two ruined sections and form a substrate for the wreck of the wall, and I will try and make it all match up - somehow.

Thanks for looking in and stay safe folks.

[k.b.]

An absolutely incredible project Steve. Stunning is maybe how I would best describe it because I find myself in a semi-conscious state trying to imagine how brilliant your gaming will be with props like these.
Keep the posts coming…… am following attentively.

[MABO]

Looks really brilliant, Steve!!

[Peter]

I really like this project, but the ruined sections are marvellous!

[steve_pickstock]

Thank you every one that has commented, it's coming along nicely.

This week has been a surprisingly busy one, so while I haven't done much on the walls, I did get a head start on the city buildings.

Having looked at the illustrations from the Osprey and what little I can find on "domestic buildings Troy VI", it seems that the buildings had a distinct style, they were mud brick and lime plaster on top of a stone base, which seems to extend up to about waist height.

I chose, therefore, to go with a building which was 40mm wide, 40mm high, and multiples of 40mm in length so please excuse the drawing on the left - it got warped when I scanned it. This will be a basic 'nouse', while the one of the right will be a small dwelling, or a store or workshop. They won't all be alike but variations will allow me to use a basic design without it being too obvious.

I have some 40mm thick high density blue polystyrene foam - and I will cut the blanks for the buildings out of that, then scribe the details on them, press things like windows and doors into them. Finishing wise, with be a protective coat of Mod Podge, then painted.

Really, REALLY simple.



There will be variations as well, such as this double-wide building with a small courtyard.


Thanks for looking in, more tomorrow hopefully. Stay safe all. Pickers.

[steve_pickstock]

So I went up to the attic today, and really, all I did was filling and sanding. It's not very photogenic, so I spared you endless images images of it.

While I was up there, I tried the ruined sections against one of the Short Wall elements, to see whether it was worth doing a ruined bit to suit. But given the gap it really isn't practicable


However - if I was to combine one of the ruined wall sections with this Short Gate section ...

... cut the walk way, have one of the door valves hanging off it's hinges and a big hole where the gate used to be - that would work nicely, but I think that's a project for later in the year.

The only other thing worth looking at is the ruined/rubble section itself.

This got some more filler and I started chopping up sprues/runners/frames to make up bricks to embed them in the dust/rubble.
This is the section from the front/outside ...

And from the inside looking out.

I need to chop up more MDF to make bricks to scatter all over it.

Thanks for looking in, stay safe all. Pickers.

[Peter]

Real nice progress on this wall section!