Thread: Tsue-jo Castle Town, Kaidan

Hey don't worry about, thread jacking, I do it all the time!

OK, I decided to try and tackle this now. For the time being, I'm only working on the castle portion of Tsue-jo castle. First I recreated my hand-drawn sketch of the castle walls only. I also did a quick rendition of the castle fortress by itself.

Image 1 contains the hand-drawing, and the hand-drawing enhanced castle.

Not shown here, I copied the castle object, selected the top 3 roof levels and cropped the rest away for use as smaller towers.

Image 2 contains bevels I created for the walls.

Image 3 added a couple of brown bridges, added drop shadows then placed all beneath my hand-drawing. In Xara, I can make images become transparent, works best with lineart like the drawing.

Next I'm going to create the beveled land stack in Xara with drop shadows, then print that out on my laser printer. I'll then use tracing paper to use the laser print as a guide then texture with pen the rocky island bluff walls. I'll include trees as well, when I do that - that's next!

GP

First two bluffs, not finished but well on its way. Have to fill in the forests as the one are on the second bluff. Still need to place additional buildings, walkways and grassy areas within, a pond in the administrative area, a better job on bridge shadows. Some of the slope I didn't ink properly, so got to get to that too.

Once all the forest/trees and the rest of the structures are placed it look much better.

Once I finish the castle, I have to start hitting the town - long way to go.

GP

looking great...It is proven Gameprinter style and coming better and better all the time. can't wait till you hit to the town part.

Coming along nicely...

Really love the pastel/watercolor style on the land there, GP.

Great stuff GP! That castle almost looks mazelike.

Agreed. You've really made that pen and ink / computer combo your own. Gives it a really nice feel.

Thanks for the comments.

Computer crashed when I chose a wrong line setting, and I was finished with the Samurai District, now I have to start again. I did save the last update to the castle before I started on the Samurai District. Oh well, I think I'll go it a bit different then what I had anyway. Got more ideas as I went along, in some cases too late for the design - so since I have to start over, I'll follow the new ideas.

@Gandwarf - you think the castle is maze-like, wait until you see the rest of town. (Too bad my PC crashed, I was getting wildly maze like in the samurai district!)

Anyway, in this update, I finished the trees. Placed lawned areas, walkways, ponds, tweaked the outer edge of the rocky bluff island, threw in some blue water just to enhance the current look (I'll do water differently, this is just to test.) Added the complete palace, residence and administrative center for the castle, in the second bailley just below the fortress on the hilltop.

My plans: north of the Samurai distict, I want to place the Hachiwara Kata - fighting school for the samurai of Tsue-jo. To the south I will place a cliffside Holy Shrine park. To the west of the entry into the Samurai district, will be a large Zao Temple, separating the castle and samurai distict from the merchant area of town, probably also separated by a wall and gate.

[Now I've got to restart the samurai district, a different way...]

GP

Combined samurai and temple district - still need to place samurai homes, trees, and the island beneath of course, but I'll do that last, once most of the town is complete. The streets are slightly maze-like, not overly so, but the town will definitely keep the maze-like quality of Tsue-jo.

By the way, "Tsue" mean cane, as in "walking stick". I was hoping to make the island, "cane shaped" as well as providing a cane-crafting industry in town.

Anyway, next update...

GP