Yadira Anguiano: Week 1 Castle

 


CONCEPT

Princess Peach Castle

I chose to model my castle after Princess Peach's. I wanted to go for a more "cartoon-ish" look in my design. There are various versions of her castle, but I went for the simpler four-tower version used for toy models. I also decided to focus on the castle itself rather than the moat that is often pictured with the building. 

Pedestrian's view

TECHNIQUE

I began the castle's geometry with a large cylinder shape as the base. I then created the roof with a cone shape. I used the same process for all three layers, stacking each on the last. Princess Peach's castle is very round and almost cake-like, so I wanted to preserve the tiered look of it. 

Ghosted perspective

To create the towers, I used cylinders and mirrored the first tower across each axis. One of the biggest challenges in this project was figuring out how to make the second layer railing, which is a staple part in Peach's castle. I ended up creating a few rectangle shapes and using polar array to have them go around the entire building. I tried to preserve the symmetry of the building by using Rhino's axis lines to mirror geometry. By working in each panel, I was able to have the castle centered and symmetrical. 

Layers/Group

My original three layers included each tier's elements grouped together for simplicity. After moving into KeyShot, I realized that method was inefficient for assigning materials. I ended up going back and detailing my layers by material. I grouped the roofs, walls, and windows together. 

Edge analysis

MATERIALS

I chose materials through the library, and adjusted the scale of the textures to suit the castle's look. Though I would have preferred something more vibrant and toy-like, but I went with the brick and marble since they closely suited the materials of her castle. As for the lighting, I chose the original environment settings and adjusted the exposure to make the materials seem lighter in color. 

Perspective