Okay so... this post has been a long time coming. I've been pushing it back until I was at a stage to do it and it's finally time. Last post was in December 2017 and the last time I had worked on Starpike was early 2018. Because of a lot of problems irl from personal, family stuff and school/uni I wasn't able to go online for a year and If I did, it was once or twice for 20 mins. But enough of that, last July/August I came back to the server with time and energy to swing right back into it. As I went through all the work I had, I realized my project was neither up to date nor was to my liking anymore. So this is the progress I made:
Starpike Castle: the first test I did, I loved right away back in 2017. But nowadays, there are a lot of inconsistencies, the castle doesn't follow the natural terrain, the mass of the buildings was too great (with large interiors), the overly decorated parts, etc. for reference here's how it looked :
https://imgur.com/a/7uHOjsa
So I did a second test that has a more natural floor plan, the volumes of the different buildings aren't enormous except for the big main keep, the palette was changed, the more white-ish stone has a reason to exist (I'll explain later), the overall style reflects a mix of the regions Starpike borders (Reach, Dorne and Stormlands) I also changed a bit my inspiration, although Alcazar de Segovia continued to be my main one.
Inspiration:
https://imgur.com/a/dYb26u3
I do understand that some of these castles are 19th century revivalism structures or have elements of that era but, I chose castles that stayed generally true to what a medieval castle would look like and took only elements that could have been (speaking of style and engineering feasibility) done in medieval period. The donjon of the castle was inspired by the Tower of Carlos II from the Alcazar de Segovia. I tried to maintain the same feel the previous test had.
Terraforming: I have done a big part of the lands (shape wise) but there's still a lot to do (the rest of the lands, ground painting, vegetation, streams and rivers, etc). The western most part will be much more hilly and green while the easternmost part will be the characteristic green valeys with drier plateaus
Images:
https://imgur.com/a/hZplrst
Other areas: I have made tests for both hf1
https://imgur.com/a/ThP2HBa and hf2
https://imgur.com/a/RDGKqqH (the village is subject to change) it was with this holdfast that I was inspired by Estremoz castle in Portugal
https://imgur.com/a/W5lTEKs and why I decided to change the palette. In Portugal there is a very specific stone only found in our country that's named Lioz, which when I was searching for an english equivalant term I found Lioz marble, but it isn't marble it's white stone that varies in tone (pinkish, brownish etc). Highgarden has plenty of buildings with the White Harbor stone in their palette. So the quarry that was planned to exist in the Starpike lands will be the equivalant of an asoiaf Lioz stone quarry, that was used for HG, Starpike and neighbouring projects such as dustunbury to the north that is coincidentally the previous Manderly castle from which the New Keep was inspired from.
I think that's about it. The only thing I wonder is about my approving mods, Enah was one of them and he no longer is a mod so I guess that needs to be figured out.
-Seri
