The Forbidden Tower

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I've been three times to the enormous folly known as the Forbidden Corner.

It's a weird little place tucked away in the Yorkshire Dales, a personal fantasy land of a wealthy businessman, opened to the public a couple of decades ago.  I wouldn't like to spoil to much of the place, but if you enjoy mazes, fantasy worlds, whimsy and a dash of horror, and have children between the age of 6 and 90, it is well worth a visit.

  

On my latest visit, a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a souvenir with obvious gaming potential:

Stan for scale

This is a moneybox based as you may guess on one of the folly features, cast in a thick and firm plastic that reminds me of the resinated plastic used for some modern games miniatures.  Aside from the garish facial details it also has a slot in the roof and a plug in the base for the insertion and extraction of your (modest) savings.  It was the princely sum of five pounds.

Which is peanuts really for something like this.  Most hard plastic or resin castle towers seen to retail from wargame companies around the £20+ mark, and lack much in the way of fantasy features (except GW of course, who instead have probably too many fantastic elements!).  Of course you may not find the retail outlet especially convenient to reach, but these can be purchased online for £10 with postage in the UK, which still seems good value.  Moreover, the model is perfectly scaled for 28-32mm models (and it would look okay with 20mm too I guess).

However, as nicely detailed as this is, I was not happy with the paint job, that needed improving.  And once I got to looking at the details I decided I wanted to add a small stockade to the model too.

Ready to paint

 I cut a hardboard base and then built up a parapet in card.  Then a small gateway with a bastion atop it.  The walkway was in part to make the door on the tower seem less tall and better protected.  Buy the model and you will see why.  Wooden coffee stirrers provided all the woodwork.  The gatehouse is modelled with a simple gangplank type bridge, but access to the tower is only by clambering up the inside of the wall with help from footholds on the battlements!

I.e. I forgot to add a ladder.

Painting was a simply affair.  I spray undercoated in black to seal everything, and then hit the base and woodwork with a deep chocolate.  Then it was a simple case of building up the layers of drybrush.  Greyish brown for the stockade wood, sandy brown for the soil, stony grey for the walls.

Note the steps behind the tower - they were a bugger to do! 

Then I did the wooden door and window panels a more reddish brown; suggesting better cared for, oiled wood.

Note the ajar gate in the wooden tower 

Lastly, I did the face, wanting it to look less goofy than it originally did.

Face now looking considerably more demonic

The interior was done a darkish brown flesh, the teeth then started from a lighter shade of this, toned up to white.  The eyes are about 6 or seven layers from a blood red up to an orange, with a few detail points, to give a flaming appearance.  I added a little off-source lighting to the brickork around the eyes - no more than a drybruash of midrange reds - which came out really well.

This looks great, and I'm really pleased with the overall result.  Although reasonably generic, I think the thematic place for this model sits with my Knights of Derpabury (fantasy-enhanced Feudal English).

I would urge you to check the source out, and if you like what you've seen here, picking on of these up whilst you are there, or online would be a great investment!

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