Ugly Black Castle

For quite a while now, I've had a bunch of black castle pieces. These include the 1x5x6 wall pieces with window, two sizes of corner pieces, etc. When I finally do my "real" castle project, it won't include many (if any) of these pieces, since they make it hard to do reasonable interiors. I felt like doing a project this week, so I decided to do a quick castle, using up as many of my black "castle pieces" as possible. I ended up not using any of the half-hexagon parapet pieces - they just didn't fit anywhere.

Soon after starting the castle, I decided that one goal was to make the castle using only black pieces. Some painted pieces are OK, but otherwise all pieces except the baseplate are black. This includes hidden interior pieces. It's important to stick to your principles!

Building with the 1x5x6 castle wall sections is annoying, because they are 5 studs wide, which is an odd number. That doesn't fit well with most arch sizes. It also tends to use up a lot of 1x3 brick, which I don't have many of in black. I started out using 4 extra-large grey baseplates, but didn't think I would have enough of the castle wall pieces to fill them up. It turns out I was wrong, but I went with 4 regular large green baseplates, nearly filling them.

My first thoughts were about towers, and an upper bridge, so I built those first. I tore apart both of those upper roofs because they looked extra ugly without an overhang. I wasn't sure how long the bridge should be, since I didn't have anything to put it on yet. The current size is my second choice.

I have lots of the 11-high 2x2 round column pieces, so started thinking about using some of those in the main castle. I ended up deciding that they are too tall for normal use, and went with columns of 2x2 rounds instead. I did use a bunch of the tall columns for interior supports of the roof. Placing columns lead me to think of an interior courtyard for the castle. That developed, and ended up as a sort of cross shape. It is wider than the opening over it, since it extends sideways for 2 floors. It is entirely floored in black tile, to cover up the green baseplate. There are four gold-decorated wall sections on the first floor, and 1 on the second floor. There are doors on both levels on each side. Of course, you can't actually see any of that detail!. My 5 gold-decorated 1x8 arches support the 3rd floor. I also put my one black skeleton on a pedestal in the middle of the courtyard.

The height of the castle wall pieces doesn't match up well with the round-topped castle doors, so the height of the levels of the castle don't really match up properly - the interior has more like 3-1/2 floors.

I used up all but 2 of my black castle wall sections, all but 1 of my black castle wall corner sections, both of my black 4x4 quarter round plates, all of my black 3x3 diagonal castle parapet bricks, all of my black round-topped castle doors, my one black portcullis, both of my black 1x2x3 curve-top windows, both of my black old-style window shutters, and most of my black 1x8 tile. I had briefly used my one black pennant, but put it away and used 3 black blank flags instead.

It's still an ugly castle! It's too high - there should be one less level. To do that, there should be a "gatehouse" over the main entrance to allow the portcullis to rise fully. It was worse before I thought of putting the two turrets on the front, and before I did battlements around the top.

Rear and right side

Looking down to courtyard from the back

Angle view showing courtyard side

Looking down to courtyard from the front

Front and left side

Closeup of front middle

Front view of courtyard opening

Front view down into courtyard

Looking through the portcullis

Looking through without the portcullis

Another view down into the courtyard

Closeup of left bridge end

Closeup of the big tower