Isaac Wieland: Project 1: Castle

Concept: I wanted to make a castle that would be on or surrounded by more interesting terrain. I was mostly inspired by the castle of The Twins in the TV show Game of Thrones. I wanted two main towers on either side of the river, with a bridge supported by pillars connecting them. Most of my modeling experience is in SolidWorks, so I wanted to use this project to learn how to transition from a dimension-based CAD software to a more freehand-based CAD software. The transition was rougher than I expected, but I hope to improve throughout the semester.

Process: I mainly used the ArrayLinear and Mirror tools to construct my castle. I would start with designed one repeatable pattern using the line and pen tools, then use a linear array to duplicate it to the extent of the bridge. I would then mirror the design to the opposite half of the bridge to form a complete object. The bridge body, pillars, and railing were all made with this technique. The gate houses were made from sketching the main body and extruding it out. I then used BooleanDifference to create the windows. The gates were made from sketching half of the gate with simple rectangular polygons, then mirroring it to maintain symmetry. The ground was made from several random sketches extruded up at escalating heights. The water was just a simple sketch with the intersecting portions removed with BooleanDifference.  

Materials: I admittedly struggled in the Keyshot portion of this assignment. I have never used a software like this before, and the slightly different controls made it difficult to navigate and create a good composition. I wanted to mainly use stone for the bulk of the castle, with metal accents on the gates and a translucent blue for the water. I ended up using wood for the ground material as it mostly resembled the earthy aesthetic I was looking for. I was not quite happy with the railing or gatehouse textures, but these were the best I could find in the preset texture library.