Small Medieval Castle

myminifactory

This castle was born out of necessity due to our printing volume and time constraints. I needed a design that looked realistic, could be populated on each floor with furniture and people at 1:72 scale, yet still fit within a 223x223mm printing plate. These constraints may mirror those faced by the owner of an impoverished hilltop in South Germany, Bohemia or Austria: limited space, limited construction timeframe, and limited budget. My requirements included a tile roof, a clockwise spiral staircase for mobility between floors, a fireplace on each floor, and sanitary facilities (two privies are located on level 3 with a stunning view). A watchtower with interior wood stairs was also essential to observe and track approaching merchants, boatmen or other potential victims of banditry and extortion. The walls, tower bases, and gate are interchangeable with my previous post for a Roman-style frontier wall (the crenellations in this file are smaller) and share the same dimensions as all elements here, so you can use any of the wall and gate files to further customize your castle. Note that the keep has three levels, main hall, spiral staircase roofs, and a rooftop floor. A drawbridge is still missing but could be easily added. A complete version of the minimum-size castle that can be printed using these files is shown here in 1:144 scale, printed out at 50% size with PLA on an Ultimaker 2+ using a 6mm nozzle (this was a test – more details appear when using a 4mm nozzle). The diorama in the picture includes a moat (not part of the model!). As another test, I have added here also a 1:288 scale printout (25% size) of the entire castle, printed using a 0.4mm nozzle next to the 1:144 scale one. It still looks nice and not much detail has been lost. This castle would also look great in a model railroad display at 83% size (= 1:87 HO scale). A picture shows the main keep as well as the Watchtower with some of the walls in the much larger/majestic 1:72 scale (100% size), with some appropriate figures added. The third level is a version that had more windows, which was more a fantasy castle. This version is more grimly realistic. Adjustment 24.10.2019: I removed the left window on the staircase side in a new corrected mansion's roof file – the window shutters there tended to interfere with the top of the spiral staircase. Adjustment 30.05.2020: On level 2, the tops of the two doorframes that lead to connecting walls were sticking out a bit too much. This caused problems when adding wall sections that had roofs from the Roman wall post. To avoid tedious manual adjustment of these parts of level 2, I have added an updated version that should work better with the wall sections that have roofs.