Although this is technically not an ebay sale, the buyer contacted me because he'd seen my camps on ebay and wanted to commission me to do this. He sent me a line drawing of a wooden, "Motte and Bailey" style castle set on a hill. After going back and forth about size, style and price, I agreed to take on the commission. I knew I could do it with the techniques I've developed for camps over the past few years. I just knew it would be time consuming.
The buyer wanted the camp to measure 80mm x 120mm. The base was built up by several roughly concentric layers of thick, craft foam. The core of the tower was a solid square of balsa wood, so I cut its shape out of the rings of craft foam once I was done layering it. This made it seat firmly on the camp, with epoxy attaching it to the styrene base and several layers of craft foam clamping around it. I used triangular pieces of balsa wood to lay out the foundations of the wall's perimeter -- the sloping edge to the outside (providing the base of the embankment), while the right angle faced inwards (making it easier to epoxy the craft sticks upright into place that would form the wooden palisade. The palisade is done, of course, with wooden craft sticks purchased at the hobby shop. And yes, it was very time consuming cut each individual one to size and honing it to a taper!
As I mentioned, the core of the Keep Tower is a solid, square piece of balsa wood that I simply epoxied the craft sticks to. The Gatehouse was a bit trickier. I lined up seven or so craft sticks tightly together, then epoxied a crossbeam 1/3 of the way up onto them. The crossbeam held them together, and also formed a ledge which allowed me to epoxy a square of bass wood onto to be the floor of the tower's fighting position. I then did the same thing for the front and rear so that the crossbeams for them rested on the bass wood floor. Sounds fiddly, I'm sure, and it is, to a degree.
The bridge/walkway to the keep is simply a slab of styrene plastic with tiny craft stick "boards" glued atop it. Once all the actual construction work was done, I put a layer of liquitex over the whole thing, smoothing out the stepped sides of the craft foam hill and the angular balsa wood pieces forming the base of the embankment. Then I painted the whole thing, flocked the inside with Woodland Scenics "Turf" first, sprinkling on bits of a grass blend afterwards. Add in a few pebble-like pieces of Woodland Scenics "Ballast," and it was all done, except for the garrison.
The garrison is composed of Feudal Castings figures, which are a bit small for 15mm's (which allows me to better "scale" the fortifications). The lord on the walkway is their "MacBeth" figure, while the green-cloaked spearman in the Keep Tower is Welsh. The soldier in the Gatetower, resting with his hands upon the walls, is actually a Gallic charioteer. I've used this pose before -- hands resting on a fence -- and like the effect. The scarcely seen knight riding through the Gatetower is a Feudal Castings crusader, I believe...
So, how much did I charge for this castle-like camp? I figured since it is as big as three of my normal camps, I would charge slightly less than 3x what they are "going for' on ebay. I proposed an even $100 to the buyer, and he accepted. Sooooo, if anyone ELSE would like one of these fine-looking models (if I must say so myself!), I would be more than happy to do a similar one for them -- at a similar price!
