Dragon's Lair, a large, Fortified Castle

designed and built by Mike Isheim

I have some thoughts to share with you on this castle which I call "Dragons Liar". My motivation for building this came from looking at what all the great builders and designers have done previously. I have built many of the book designs, which I now appreciate. Something that looks relatively simple is really not that easy to design and "get right". But, I also wanted to see what I could design and build myself that would be unique and never done before. I made many different design sketches, but the idea of a castle with separate towers connected by flying bridges intrigued me, and I had just got some #130 stones from the factory that I wanted to use. I spent months building and designing the smaller towers, working to get the design correctly proportioned and with an appealing look. Once I had the out towers done, I started on the central tower, building many different designs for each of the 5 segments. Each element of dragon's liar was built and rebuilt maybe 12 to 15 times, with each revision looking better. I would spend hours just looking at the structure. After many hours of critical study, I would get an idea for a better design or a better proportioned look. The surrounding castle wall went through it least 6 rebuildings to it's current look. All 5 towers have solid stone fillers wherever possible, resulting in a very solid structure. In fact, due to the weight I had to reinforce the table with a very substantial central brace. 

It took me a year to design and build this castle.

By the way, I am a history buff with the era of the crusades being a favorite subject. I started out looking for a "few" figures to ornament the castle and wound up with an army! They are pewter caste figures from King and Country's Medieval collection in case any one wants to know.

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