I haven't worked on a kitbash in quite a while, so I was looking over some sets to see if anything would strike me as fun (or a challenge?). I noticed I had the Interiors: Castles & Keeps set, so I am going to try to whip up a set of TLX dungeon walls from those textures:



I have never printed the textures, so I don't know how these will actually look. I will try to whip up variations that use the doorways, with and without torches, in 3" and 6" variants. Then I'll see what else there might be in that set. I'm also going to take a look at the Castleworks set, since I've never cracked that one open...

I love Castleworks. You may find, as I have, that it is well-suited as a system-generic set as it currently set up. Because of the way the pieces go together, you can throw them on top of classic/TLX/TCP tiles and surround your buildings if needed. They could possibly be bashed to work in conjunction with anchors although they might be too large for anchors to be effective.

There's definitely some good stuff to work from - both for walls and for tiles.



I went and made this wall upside-down, didn't I... Well, at least it showed me there's enough open texture there to easily make some TLX walls. I saw there were two types of floors (not including the towers...) that should be super easy to turn into TLX floors in all sizes.

There's some great door and window textures to be had, so I'll experiment with combining those onto other pieces. I'll see if I can't get some 3"/6" walls made up in regular and double-height sizes. I've finally made some progress at home actually *building* some of the pieces I've been bashing... I bet the crenelations would translate easily into some TLX railings, and I'd really like to take what I've learned from the hinterland cliffs to make fold-nearly-flat versions of the castleworks towers... So much to do, so little time!

Well, walls and floors are easy to convert. Here's an example of one of the floors. In total, I whipped up (from the two floor textures available) 4x 6" tiles, 4x hallway tiles, and 4x small tiles. They come in anchored and anchorless formats.



I might try tinkering a little with the tile shown above, but the others look fine. My issue with the 6" tile above is that it's made from two 3x6" tiles glued together, and the horizontal seam along the middle really stands out too much. I can try a couple things to minimize the obviousness of the seam, but I won't spend too much time on it.

Maybe tonight I'll work on posts, so I can start building some structures. Posts usually require a lot more creativity, or a complete lack of creativity...

Yeah, once you get the TLX primaries cleaned up, the only real issue is coverting from the older 200dpi format to the 300dpi format that TLX currently uses and keep it looking good. If you're using Photoshop, though, this isn't much of an issue.

I found this post and it's really inspirational. I definitely want to get a TLX conversion done for myself, though I assume submitting it as a conversion kitbash would never fly.

I did a quickie build with some walls, so I can compel myself to move onto the next challenge.





I thought I'd work on catwalk pieces next, but I think I'll instead work on double-height walls, which will be essential for a couple of the things I'd like to do.

A thing of beauty.

Here's a quick shot of the castle gate wall piece:



I'm really happy with how it turned out. It was actually quite a bit of work. The fancy part on the top only extends down the front. I tried to do my best to erase it from the back side by laboriously cloning texture into new bricks. It's glued onto the wall, rather than being a part of the wall I fold flat. It was just easier that way.

I haven't bashed up any 2-story posts yet, so forgive the use of some Hinterland Cliff posts...

I built the ballast box that attaches to the door, but I think it's way too silly looking on a TLX build, where everything is so flat except for this HUGE box. I'm going to try a couple different things. First, I'll try making a ballast box that is 1/4 as thick, and see if I can't still get enough penny weight to drop the door open. If that doesn't work... well... I'm hoping it will work.

I have plans for how to keep the door closed, and even how to add the chains on transparencies (without the crank mechanisms...) but I haven't gotten to that yet. I'd rather build out the ramps to allow crossing the moat, get some water in there, and see how that looks.

I'm also still tossing around some ideas on how to add the moveable portcullis from above the gate.

I've been fighting back problems lately (exacerbated by hunching over to cut out pieces...) so I'm gonna shoot for a good nights sleep, and maybe take the weekend off from little paper pieces. (yeah right)

RE portcullis:
'Giant size' the templates for the FirstLight pull-up doors and go that route? The doors were given a slot-groove between two wall sections so they could slide vertically for 'open' and 'close'.

Thanks for the idea! I've got some tinkering to do, for sure. I'm trying to also solve the problem of a TLX drawbridge with a ballast box so it'll drop open, but some latch system so I can keep it shut. I also need to be sure that a floor above the portcullis won't get in the way (if that's even possible). Maybe I'll just be willing to cheat, and introduce some way to clip the gate on and off, though it seems like it'd promote more theatrics if the characters can see the gate closing...

Some help for a drawbridge construction, simple as possible.

Need:
* 2x small box with one side open
* 1x Triangular 'support' bar, runs length of door plus length of boxes
* 1x Door
* 1x Wall

Instructions:
Make wall with door opening as normal. Make two "hinge" boxes. Each should be 1/4" in length, 1/8" in height and depth. Make one 1/8" by 1/8" side of each box open. (I strongly recommend detailing these boxes with either wooden or iron decor, depending on how 'heavy' you want the door to look.

Measure out the length of your door. Make a triangular 'bar' piece that length plus a smidge less than 1/2". Each side of the bar should be 1/8" deep. (Make this piece iron or metal of some sort)

Insert bar into the two hinge boxes, then glue the front of each hinge box to the wall on bottom of the door frame. Be careful not to let the glue overlap onto the bar or that any parts dry together when they shouldn't.

Take your door piece, glue the bottom of the door carefully to the bar and allow to dry. The door will now hinge from the bottom, like a proper drawbridge, with enough "friction" from the assembly to keep it in place.

Once you're familiar with how this hinge joint works, you may want to make the hinge boxes more decorate or more naturally flowing with the door. So long as you have a cross bar that runs along the bottom of the door, you should be set.

Hope this helps!
(If I have time today, I'll make an example of this piece.)

Thanks for the description - that's actually not far off from my initial thoughts on what to do with the door, though what you describe sounds way more elegant and would fit better with the spirit of TLX. I'll give it a try sometime.

EDIT: Ok. Tried it with some single-ply cardstock that matches the dimensions of the real thing. It's pretty fiddly to get assembled, but it sure feels more elegant than my other option. I'm thinking a little tab added to the top of the door will hold it in place nicely when it's up. Thanks again for the suggestion!

EDIT AGAIN: I added the portcullis onto the wall too, and it all works great together. My mockup works great, at least. Time to make the real thing!

I can't express how happy I am with how this came out. I hope it holds together well! Here's a shot of the castle gate now:



And let's drop that baby down!



Oh yeah! The portcullis came out great. I had to double the size of the one that came with CastleWorks - this is 4" wide. I made cutfiles for it, and it came out perfectly. Double-cutting the page really makes a difference with these delicate cuts.



Boo yeah. The gate can open and close. Let's flip it around and see the magic.



Two things going on here. First, for the portcullis, there's actally a 2nd layer of cardstock with a gap between it and the main wall. That let's the gate slide up and down. Second, there's a cardstock bar attached to the base of the drawbridge. It's held on by some little boxes, allowing it to pivot open.



@greypilgrim - I like how the slotted gate came out, but I'm a little worried about what will happen when I add a floor above this... I can't wait to find out!

@Jaynz - thanks for the helpful description of pulling this off. This saved me a LOT of time fiddling around. I didn't make full boxes for the bar, so I'll have to see whether I've got a structural flaw on my hands or not...

So, the main gate was completed today, and I mostly finished gluing up about two dozen more walls, though they're all regular height walls. Now I really need to get crackin' and get some 2-story walls and posts done up!

That looks great, honestly. (My wife was duly impressed!) The combination of the portcullis and drawbridge works extremely well. You can use the hinge there for secret doors, drop traps, etc. It's also really good for paper robots.

As far as the boxes go, you get a little more strength by closing the far side, but the cardstock should be fine for the needed strength here.

Great test build mrproteau!
Marvey hinge solution Jaynz!

2nd floor...hmmm.
Perhaps if the gate wall is built so that the inner wall is flush with the outside of the main TLX wall: the TLX ear-tab being the inner layer with the gate slide assembly built outward from it so the portcullis rises on the outside of the 2nd floor wall. For appearance sake, you could construct a special wall for the 2nd floor for use above the portcullis which by virtue of similar 'slotting' allows the portcullis to 'disappear' up into it, having an outside facing of your exterior castle wall. I would make the slot a bit wider yet than the portcullis with at least one extra layer of cardstock for the slide frame groove to allow ease of drawing the portcullis up so it doesn't catch. Just make sure it all works as it needs to extend outward over the edge of the 2nd floor base as described above for the gate. You'll need a longer 'drawstrap' to come all the way through the 2nd floor wall height to pull the gate up - recommend making it with wall texture (both sides) so it blends into the build when it's pulled up.

Okay, now the both of you have me itching to do this build... tearing me away from my Dropship and LEV! Aaargh!

I've been diverting my thoughts elsewhere since I really want to get more pieces built, but my current thought is to design a special wall with some custom geometry, so it will angle outward and be topped with some crenelations. I think this will leave enough room to move the portcullis about. As for a floor, I am currently planning the gatehouse base to be 6x6, and the 2nd floor to only be 3x6, leaving the front 1/2 empty (and therefore avoiding the whole issue. I might design a special 2x6 piece that helps fill in the gap, or a single 5x6 piece for the second floor as an option.

Give me a week or two, and I'll have the TLX gatehouse pieces (and more) ready for pictures.

Interesting project. Look forward to seeing more!

I will admit that the CWU conversion is one that has interested me since first talking about TLX being released. I am anxious to see this continue to take form.

It turns out I installed some version of GIMP on my mac (an early 2.8 packaging...) and now I can't seem to launch GIMP at all. I tried uninstalling and going back to 2.6, but that isn't working either. Oh well... I guess I'll have to RELAX on my vacation. I look forward to getting home tomorrow night so I can get back to work! Thanks for the encouragement, though!

It's getting a little overwhelming, the number of variations to consider. I realize now that I'm kind of (in poker terms) pot-committed to a plain stone wall texture. I had other options - there were wall textures with what looked like a solid stone base and top, there were "ridged" walls, and there were walls with busted stucco on them too. I'm sticking with plain old stone for now.

Here's what I've got printed out right now:

3" stone walls (plain)
3" stone walls (with torches, from the castle interiors set)
3" stone walls (with arrow loop - I finally looked up the term!)
3" stone walls (with large wooden door)
3" stone walls (with brown door)
3" stone walls (with yellowish door)
6" stone walls (plain)
6" stone walls (destroyed)
6" stone walls (with with single set of torches, from the castle interiors set)
6" stone walls (with with two sets of torches, from the castle interiors set)
6" stone walls (with arrow loop in the middle of the wall)
6" stone walls (with two arrow loops)
6" stone wall (with large wooden door centered)
6" stone walls (with brown door on one side)
6" stone walls (with yellowish on one side)
Arc stone walls (plain)
6" 2-story stone walls (plain)
6" 2-story stone walls (with two arrow loops)
6" 2-story stone walls (exterior uses ridged wall texture)
6" 2-story stone walls (exterior uses ridged wall texture, with one arrow loop)
6" 2-story gate wall with drawbridge door and portcullis

Regular 2-way posts
Angled 2-way posts
Regular 3-way posts
Angled 3-way posts
Regular 4-way posts
Angled 4-way posts

2-story 2-way posts
2-story 3-way posts
2-story 3-way posts with a left-side notch
2-story 3-way posts with a right-side notch
2-story 4-way posts
2-story 4-way posts with a corner notch
2-story 4-way posts with a side notch

3" corner moat tile
Hallway moat tile
3" castle floor tile
Hallway castle floor tile
6" castle floor tile

I'm assembling a pile of this stuff now so I can build something out of it. After that, I think I'm going to let myself get distracted with what I learned from this post. It'll feel good to build something out of this mess, since I haven't even started on the interior buildings yet!

Incremental progress, for sure. I apparently forgot the anchors when I made my 6" castle floor tiles... I'm working on the anchors now. I did whip up 3" and 6" crenelation railings though, after making the crenelations from the original set. I tried the simple and the moderately complex crenelations, and honestly, I didn't like the way the moderately complex ones rested against the walls, and I didn't like their lack of, well, crenelations. The simple ones fold just like TLX ones, so I really just had to modify their tabs to fit the TLX tiles. I also shortened them vertically, though I have them in their original height as well.

I had two minor setbacks today, though. First, I really frustrated myself with the posts. After hundreds and hundreds of pages printed out, I managed to somehow change acrobat to scale to fit rather than printing the original size. After struggling to figure out why the cutter wasn't reading the registration marks at all, I realized my error and reprinted a dozen pages of posts. Half way through, I discovered that I exported some of the images with several layers turned on, which really messed up the prints. Blech. Talk about a good time to just walk away from the computer and do something else for a while.

I figured I'd run to Staples and pick up another ream of cardstock. While there, I went to get more grey Bic Mark-It pens for edging all these pieces. I've been using the grey pens lately for just about everything. Sadly, Staples doesn't sell them anymore. I checked two other local office supply stores, and could only find them in the variety packs. Poo. Back to black edging I guess.

I'm going to try to take pictures with the crenelations tomorrow. They do add a lot more character to a build.

Pictures of the simple crenelations:



Those are the original height, which I think is too long for a TLX set, so I've made shorter versions too.

I've got some more shots of my "medium" complexity crenelations (you can see one on the back of that little build) over at my blog if anyone's interested in seeing how it came out, and why I'm not going to bother with them...

Ok. I've been slogging through making the tiles and posts necessary for the first floor of my castle. Here's my initial take at the layout using the TLX planner:



It turns out it's not that far off from the promo build. Today, I started laying out the tiles necessary for the first floor:



This let me experiment with the walls. I've got a LOT of walls printed out, but it turns out, not a great selection for a big build...



More shots will follow today after the next round of posts and walls being assembled. After this, I can FINALLY get to some more FUN parts...

I finally have enough walls and posts done for the first floor of the castle. Still no interior buildings assembled.



I used a wood beam texture already in the CWU set for my catwalk supports. I like how they came out (despite the dark photo):



I have some 6" catwalk pieces coming along tonight, so I can finally try out what that will look like. I'm going to have anchors on the top and bottom, allowing them to latch onto the posts underneath, as well as support posts.

While laying this out, I learned that I am going to need to print out some 3" double-height walls for this thing, and I'll probably want to have a LOT of railings available to cover up the edges of the tiles as I work my way up the wall. I was originally thinking double-height posts all around, but I want to see how well these catwalks hold up - I have enough of both types of posts to try it out now.

+1
Looks like you're getting it on there, mproteau.
I've got to get some scenery base stuff done for my spaceport - as soon as I get my Dropship completed...

I made a couple of the catwalk pieces, with anchors on the top and bottom. It works pretty darn well, slotting them into the posts below them. It'd be too wobbly without the support pieces, but the support pieces (after some adjustments down to the proper size) seem to work really well.

I had enough time this evening to also kitbash the tower floor tiles. They're based on a 6" tile, but are 3/4 round and squared off in the remaining corner - kind of tear drop shaped. This will allow me to make the exterior of the castle towers rounded, but the interior will use standard 3" walls to facilitate doors, and abut the catwalks nicely. The edging is done a-la Hinterland tree bases. I've done it on other tiles, and it's worked well (and it spared me from making my own cutfiles!)

It's going to take a couple days to get all of the catwalk and tower floor pieces assembled, so no photo yet. After that, I'm probably going to do up a ton of the crenelations, making the castle look more... well, castley. Hmph. Spell check doesn't think 'castley' is a word. Maybe it will once it sees the photos...

I'm still thinking about how to do rounded TLX crenelations, but I have some ideas for that too.

Well, this project has taken on a life of it's own. And, it's taken over my dining room table...

I redid the scale of the supports I was building. They work GREAT. Combining that with TLX anchors under the catwalks, and they become very sturdy. Here's a shot:



I'm going to try to whip through another seven tear-drop-shaped tower floors tonight, and hopefully this weekend, I'll get enough posts and walls done to finish the towers. Here's a shot of what the tower floors look like:



I'm also thinking of ditching the TLX railing system for the crenelations. I'll see. I am going to instead try 1/2 height posts and walls for that. I think it will be a more flexible system, and will allow me to do the curved crenelations pretty easily. I might still do some railing pieces to cover tile edges, but then again I might not care...

There are some additional shots over at my blog if anyone is interested.

I took a *quick* look at what it will take to start porting the building textures from CWU to TLX, and they will be a fun challenge. They're the wrong dimensions in all sorts of ways. Last time I tried this with Harbormaster walls, I had to remove a lot of details in the process. No way, this time! I'm much better with GIMP, so I'm going to do my best to keep the character of the walls intact!

+1 ... This is shaping up to be an impressive looking build!
I hope you don't give up on the idea of those TLX crenallations. Were you thinking of those for the straight sections or the curved teardrop towers as well? Curved crenallations would be awesome!

Yes, they'd be awesome. Just don't scare the guy off - getting the geometry right for those could be a little 'challenging', me thinks.

Meanwhile, keep up the stunning work mproteau.