I’m not even sure where I would start with a tutorial, I honestly never expected to ever be asked that. If you have any questions about anything please ask me though and I’ll do my best to help. I’m a bit hesitant to write a tutorial because it would be pretty massive, so please ask me any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Started dealing with the terrain features. Gotta love the sculpt tool, makes doing stuff like this so much easier. There will be a river running under that bridge once i can figure out a decent water material.
wow, that’s amazing, wish I could do buildings, I don’t know how… do you use subsurf when making buildings? Because I’ve never done houses or anything before. Well, great work anyway! I’ll be watching this!
Looking great man! And for the water material just look at the blender material repository. They should have one there! Great work!
@Waiise
There is pretty much no sub surfing on any parts of that buildings, i find it makes it to hard to join things together…
I’ll hopefully get the main tower done today then start the hard job of materials.
Putting the main tower in, basic model with some decoration. Have to think of something cool to put on the top. Also a really terrible water texture, just don’t pay any attention to that. Im thinking of ditching the water idea all together and just making it a big gorge. Also trying to put some grass on the terrain features, once again just a test to see what it looks like. How do you set mist to start and finish though, I can never get it to work. I want it so the back of the image just fades into mist. I also need to find a really good rock texture if anyone knows of one. The ones in the Blender material repository aren’t that great.
I really don’t know what I was thinking with that tower, looks horrible. Went back and re-did the whole thing.Still having to do the top piece now.
New update.
Finished off the top of the tower and then just added a sky map to see what it all looks like.
Comments please.
I think the idea with the gorge might be great, in that case I would fill it up with a few particles to create the impression of fog. I also am not sure if this blue sky fits best, you might want to try a darker background.
You also should set up towers at the other side of the fortress, right now it seems it only has a front and one side.
By the way, the colours of the fortress are magnificent - I especially love the pillars with the blue streak in them. How did you manage this colour-band effect?
Oh, you have inspired me - I guess I will try something similar, maybe for dwarves or dark elves.
Dude. Teach me.
@Sebasthos
I may go with the gorge idea, although with the way these colours are working the current water doesn’t look to bad. It is obviously not photo realistic but still looks half alright. I’m going to make a version with the gorge as well though. You can just see the top of one towers on the other side of the wall. I also need to get the terrain feature on that side fully done.
The blue streak is a recessed panel the has a separate colour material on it running up the middle of the towers…
I was just testing with this sky map, I agree that it is too light, i will be getting a darker one when i get back to my own computer.
@ MasterOfTime
haha, he mate, what would you like to know?
I’m at the stage where I need criticism on this so I can really make it good, so please criticize away so I can make this great. Thanks
Bravo, wonderful concept design and modelling. As food for thought, i think of elves as beig light creatures and having light architecture, so white stone structures with bright coloured parst would work quite well; the blue you have there is too dark imo.
I love the modeling and the idea, looks great.
But the one thing that bothers me most is the sky. When you added the cliffs on the side, it gave it the feel that it was cut into the side of the mountain, and it really improved the feel of the whole image. For me, at least. Adding the sky kinda wrecked that, though.
And I agree with TheAnimal that the blue texture is out of place.
I agree with TheAnimal. Plus, I like the water idea, but not the gorge idea. I also like the skymap 
Did you use curves for that big fan thingy at the end of the bridge? How did that work?
I imagine elves as natural creatures, so I wouldn’t have done it this way in the first place. But, if you think of elves in the nobility aspect, than this looks great. I wouldn’t add grass to the mountain. The building seems kinda solemn and strict, and grass would make it seem more cheery, which doesn’t seem to be the way this is going.
Yea the sky seems too flat and looks like it just got submerged in the sea. It doesn’t flow with the scene but I do like it.
Well, I’d like to know how to use the Bezier curves and circles. It seems lots of people use them to add detail to meshes, but I can’t figure out exactly how they work.
@TheANIMAL
Ok, I’ll try to lighten up that blue on the walls and see how it looks.
@Hobo Joe
I just chucked on a sky map to see what it would look like with a sky in the background. I will change that particular sky map I think to something a bit darker. I still have work to do with the left hand side terrain, i have to make it much bigger because it is meant to look like the side of a mountain and at the moment it just looks like it set between two hills. I also need to figure something out to put on the bottom left where the water stops. It can’t just run into the sky, it looks silly, any ideas?
@Sammaron
The big fan thing was made using curves to begin with. I probably went about this a really stupid way but first i made the tubes using 3d bezier curves. Then i went into front view and used another curve to get the fan shape I wanted between two of the tubes. I converted the curve into a mesh and then extruded and scaled it along the 2 tubes. It took a bit of time and the wire of the area is pretty messy but I think it looks pretty decent.
@Dudebot13
Hopefully when I try another sky map it will look a little better. Maybe also if i smoothed the dome it is attached to it would work better. I need to do something with how it just drops into the water though. I was thinking maybe a waterfall, just not too sure at the moment how to get that effect.
@MasterOfTime
The curves and circles are pretty easy. I’ll write up a tute for you on the basics when I get back to my Blender enabled computer.
Im really liking this castle - It looks like it could be baked down to a normal-mapped low-poly game model really well. Would you mind reading my rant about grey? I think this is a little monochrome for an elven castle.
haha, yeah I agree with the rant. At the moment I have not tried playing with any kind of material properly yet. I just put the weird materials on the blue and the red of the wings on the tower top. I still need to find some good materials for the walls and especially for the terrain. Does anyone know of a good way to texture the mountain side that will look good?
@yogyog
Once i get back to my computer im really think of making the interior of this look really nice as well. Could turn into a massive project with house and everything held with this valley that is behind the walls, how do you go about baking it down to a normal-mapped low-poly game model?
this seems like something that would be seen in the dark…the sunny render wasnt making it feel evil/scary