Keep I : November Preview

For November we are releasing a Keep. I'm going to work on resin stuff to furnish it. Most likely shelves of stuff that can be glued to the walls and other optional features that can be printed and scratch integrated into the build.  I also still have to deal with finishing the upper barracks and flush out some optional wall concepts for the lower levels. There is still time to take requests on scatter features and on the upper barracks if anything comes to mind.

Proportionately it generally follows the size of Newcastle Keep in London. The multi-story entrance is the main thing it borrows from that castle.  There are 4 full stories. The main stories are all open. Optional walls and doors will be available that you can glue in, to divide certain levels into apartments. Main features include a kitchen on level one, apartment area on level two, main hall on level 3, noble apartments on level 4, and 2 story barracks above that. Optionally there is a store room or cell on the 1st floor and a small 7th floor area.

This keep is following a traditional older keep design. It is stark with very few windows for arrows. The keep entrance is single file with 2 doors. It also requires the invader to ascend to the 3rd floor porch . This porch is covered by window fire and machicolations from the 5th level. It is a human meat grinder defensively, as 3d printed castles go.

I've spent some more time thinking about the interior than usual,  the 4 section cut up on each layer should allow for good interior decoration access on each level. I'll see if I can do some paint tutorials. I installed simple wainscoting on the upper levels. I guess we know that this was done decoratively in the dark ages but surviving examples are only from the late middle ages, so I just did something simple.

The Keep has straight walls at the sides so it can integrate into the walls we released. It does not have open lock connectors but the wall sections can convincingly be set alongside the keep. The walls are so large I do not see much sense in clipping together more than 2 sections anyways. This will allow it to be used in the walls or stand alone.

This thing is big. It is one of the largest single structure I've released in a Patreon. It is about the size of 3+ of the recent gatehouses put together. The images above go over the foot print in millimeters.  It is highly playable as well. It is large enough that it isn't to bad to see into the interior.

I ran across a couple things that I found interesting as I've been trying to dig up dirt on early medieval castles. One is from a well known source sharing theories on wooden castles. The other is a short article on the concept of rushes on castle floors.