Photos by the author
Part 1 ended with the completion of the upper part of the castle district. You may remember that the basic layout was a series of large buildings around the outside of an open plaza. St Vitas cathedral will eventually sit in the middle.
This part covers the area of the castle that sits on the side of the hill and slopes down from the plaza to the ground (or table top) level. It is also a very different layout from the upper part. This area comprises buildings on a much smaller scale and is where the people who work in the grander buildings "up the hill" would have lived or had their workshops.
I mentioned in the first part that this kit is designed to be built in sections and put together at the end. You will see how this works as we go through this part of the review. I also mentioned in the first part that due to the quality of the card, that blades became blunt very quickly and because of the thickness of the card tabs became almost unnecessary. This section was harder to complete because of the number of small buildings. I resorted to using scissors more and more as I went on. They are less accurate but much easier to use than blunt knives!
Enough chat, lets see some pictures!
This is the first section completed, as you can see there are incomplete
areas but these will be added as part of later sections. In the background you
will notice a series of trays. These are identified by sections, I mentioned
in the first part that there were 11 sections. As pieces are cut off the pages
smaller pieces remain and these were kept in separate trays.
Just another section. It looks slightly out of shape but this is rectified
when it's attached to the next section. Note again the white areas on the roof
for the chimneys.
You may remember in part 1 I mentioned the fact that some pieces are quite
big and have many fold lines on them, here is a good example. This piece makes
one of my favorite areas of the real castle. It's called Gold Lane, this is
where the goldsmiths worked. The workshops are about three quarter scale and
are now mainly gift shops. One of these shops was selling card models� need
I say more? At the top you can see the tabs that attach the roofs that are at
the bottom. This was one area where I needed tabs so I spent some time removing
layers of card so that I had very thin tabs. The basic form is a tall thin box.
Here is the completed row of houses. You will see how poor the corners
are. Part 1 will tell you about the problems I had with scoring.
Can you find the join? These are the first 3 sections glued together and
still not a chimney in sight.
Yet more complicated folding, but here we have the before and after,
well almost.
This shows the two earlier buildings joined by the path. As you can
see this area of the castle is built on uneven ground.
The roofs have been added to the buildings in picture 7 and have been
glued into the center of the group in picture 5. A great deal of dexterity was
needed to join these parts from underneath. Thankfully one of the better points
of this kit is the accuracy of the fit. The whole group has now been attached
to the main area completed in part one. The full extent of the model now becomes
apparent and as you will guess it's like handling a large rag doll with a long
neck, except the neck in this case is prone to bending and tearing itself apart.
Another section on the way. The holes in the middle will have walls
added inside. I had to reinforce the tower with balsa wood because the construction
arrangement made it fragile.
Here is a classic example of "tab overload" You can see the size of the
roof. With modern glues the card is thick enough to be butt jointed without
problem. I kept the small tab on the right because the small red area forms
an overhang under the roof and the tab keeps it in place.
Moving on from picture 10, the walls are now in place and it's "only"
a matter of attaching the roofs. I started with the two long sides and then
added the joining roofs. Quite a bit of cutting was needed to get a good fit.
This could never have been achieved if I had left the tabs in place.
We're now on to the home straight, So hang in there for just a few
moments. Here is the whole castle district, but still without St Vitas.
Quite an appropriate number for this picture I think! Remember the trays
I mentioned earlier? Well, this is what is left in each of them at this point.
These are the parts that have been mentioned all the way through this article.
I deliberately left them till last because I have learned from past experience
that in a building of this size, that takes a lot of handling, chimneys are
very vulnerable. The process for making them is to make a valley fold between
the red area and the lighter area and to fold the lighter area back on itself.
In some ways these chimneys spoil the final model because the "tabs" are glued
to the roof and the chimneys are flat. As with other areas the tabs are quite
often a different shade of red from the roof. Oh! I almost forgot. There are
over 160 chimneys to add. Try counting them in the next picture!
I hope you have enjoyed this so far, I know that most of it sounds like
doom and gloom so at least I deserve a little pity, or perhaps it's given you
a smile to think that I could possible enjoy building such a model
Part 3 will cover the building of the Cathedral. (make it shorter than this part I hear you cry!).... Not so, if I have to suffer for my art at least I can get some pleasure in dragging out my writing.
So, see you next time, I'll try to make it happier����.. but I can't promise!
