How to draw a castle wall

What would a fantasy world be without castles, turrets, and battlements? Sneaking over the walls in the dark, belongings the crenellations from a horde of orcs, or landing on a turret on griffon-back – the castle wall is a staple of fantasy gaming. Hither's the steps I have when drawing a castle wall.

ane. Sketch an outline of the castle wall

first sketch an outline design for the wall map

As with all maps, you take to design the map before you draw it. Get-go with a pencil, and loosely outline your castle wall. Recollect a few simple pieces of castle design to make the design hold together.

  • Corners are a weak signal – they were reinforced with towers.
  • Towers were used to let archers to shoot forth walls, so they should beetle from the wall – and there shouldn't be large stretches of wall that an archer couldn't overlook
  • Y'all need to go up and downwards from a wall – make sure you add staircases
  • Defenders demand to go upwardly and downwards from towers – brand sure you add stairs, or in larger castles, interior staircases and trapdoors.
  • Afterward castles had rounded towers every bit they are more structurally robust
  • As shortly every bit cannons exist, wall thickness became more of import than top

Hither I've mapped out a elementary foursquare tower – enough for a few people to stand side by side. Nosotros're drawing a modest castle wall, so at that place are no interior battlements.

2. Draw the line fine art

Draw in the wall lines

In one case yous've got the design gear up out, go over and carefully draw the outlines. Often people hate drawing walls considering they are straight lines, and straight lines are hard to draw convincingly. But if you look at medieval walls they are annihilation but straight. The stones are weathered, croaky and worn. Hither I've started with the merlons (the taller piece of the battlement). I've fatigued them larger, and so drawn in the connecting wall. By increasing the size, it highlights which slice is taller, even with no shading. An detect – the wall goes in a directly-ish line, but I haven't had to draw a straight line anywhere.

I've used the aforementioned scaling trick with the staircase to illustrate the management of the steps. Lower steps are smaller, suggesting they're further away from the viewer. At this stage nosotros accept a usable map, that gives the viewer all the info needed. From here on in, we're just making it pretty.

3. Adding detail

Next step - place the details on the walls

Walls are constructed. Then, we add detail that shows that construction. I've placed flagstones along the peak of the walkways – using a thiner line weight, and 80% grey rather than 100% blackness. I've as well added detailing around the edges. This adds the worn corners to the rock. If you take these details correct along the side of the stone, they'll look sharp and clean. If you lay the edge details further from the border, the rocks volition look more worn.

4. Blocked in calorie-free and shade

render the light and shade on the walls

The last step – and the one that really can take some time and practice – is the light and shade. The overall principle is straightforward. Block in a mid-level grey to provide a starting bespeak. I lay in a slightly darker gray on the parapets, compared to the tower. This helps identify these elements further from the viewer, defining elevations.

Next upward is a new layer. On this layer – I have a grungy brush and shade each area that'due south lower than the surface area abreast it. Then the crenellations betwixt the merlons, the within edge of the battlements, and the lower side of every pace. I also shade the cracks between the flagstones.

Afterwards calculation the darker areas, the terminal step is to lay in the highlights. For this I use a low opacity large circular brush. I pick out the edges of the higher areas – the peak of the merlons. I also option out the edges of the other areas – the edges of the flagstones, and the edges of the steps.

And that'southward information technology. One quick, easy, set of steps to a fully rendered castle wall. Ready for you to siege or besieged.

A video of drawing the castle wall

This was illustrated on an iPad Pro, using Procreate, with the Apple Pencil.