Castle black was built but needed to be furnished and manned! I decided the ground floor would be the armoury -lots of scope here for making miniature weapons!-, the second floor would be the mess hall, next would be Maester Aemon’s library, and finally the top floor would be the Lord Commander’s Chambers.
Research first, I did a lot of googling and rewatched certain episodes of GOT and made some sketches of weapons and weapons storage. Now, if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know that time is a huge factor for me so I contacted my old friend Morticia from Petite Maison de L’Amour to make the weapons racks. That left crossbows and shields for me. You know those wooden coffee stirrers you get at certain coffee shops...well I appropriated quite a few of those -many cups of tea and cakes were consumed in the pursuit of this venture, I suffer for my art 😉- and they, together with black cotton made my tiny crossbows. I made the shields out of polymer clay.
The mess hall was a lot more straight forward and consisted of tables (made life easier for myself by using PP kits) , very utilitarian with no frills just a few candles I made out of tiny beads and fastenings. The Lord Commander’s table was a bit grander with large chairs and posher candles.
The Lord Commander's quarters were slightly more grand but I did want to reflect a sense of neglected grandeur so for his four poster bed I used lovely rich fabric but distressed and muddied it so it spoke of better days. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished. I made another medieval chair, a bookcase and a chest but that was it.
Maester Aemons library meant books books books. So that meant a lot of bookcases. I bought some PP kits, adapting them for what I needed. This did mean covering the back window, but I figured it was a case of function over fashion. The books were made out of mount board with paper covers courtesy of Robin Betterly (with some pictures from an Google search shrunk down in word) and there were LOTs to make! As well as historians, Maesters are healers, so I filled the small bookcases with potions and lotions. To finish, I made and dressed another table and added a chair for the Maester.
And so Castle Black was finished ready to be manned...I was proud of my efforts thus far. All I needed now was some miniature men to defend The Wall.... but here I hit a bit of a problem....I couldn't find anyone to make them 😳.
Next Time..And So My Watch Begins!
