Hogwarts Model!

Hey Potter-heads!

I'm sure each one of us have been fascinated with various aspects of the Harry Potter series. Personally, I felt Hogwarts was the best! So here is a magical tutorial to make one such model. I made mine last vacation. I'm gonna repeat the same process. I have demonstrated only the basic structure in this tutorial. The rest I leave to your imagination!

For this project you will need the following items. They are quite easily available.

Materials

• Card board/ foam board (for the base)

• Newspaper (for the mountains)

• Boxes of different sizes (for the buildings. You will need one rectangular one, a tube-like or long one and an open match box)
• Straws/candles/old pens... anything cylindrical (for the towers)
• Old printing sheet (for the conical tops)
• Tissue paper (for the paper mache)
• Small LED (optional)
• Battery (optional)
• Switch(optional)
• Purple paint (you can use grey as well)
• Brown paint
• 3D liner

Other

• Tape: cello tape or masking tape (for keeping everything together)
• Glue (for the paper mache)

Tools

• Scissors
• Blade
• Brushes

In case you want to add lighting to your model, you need to make a channel beforehand. Later after you have finished painting, you can add a small LED. You are free to skip this step if you wish.

Steps

1. Using a scissor, make a hole in the center of the card board or foam.
2. Cut a piece of straw.
3. Glue the straw in the hole.

The LED will be in the gorge of the model. It looks beautiful when lit! Super mysterious!

Let's begin by making the mountains.

Steps

1. Crumble the newspaper to make tight packages. Keep it as tight as possible so it is strong enough.
2. Tape it down to the board.
3. Keep adding the packages next to each other.
4. Leave a part in between to make the gorge.
5. Let it be uneven but ensure its tightly packed through-out.

Recommendation: to make the right part a bit higher. It would look much better and natural

Now, we will work on the first floor of the model. Gather a bunch of rectangular boxes. You may not need all that you have, but it's better to have a wide range of sizes. Based on which ever fits, you can choose the boxes.

Steps

1. Choose a box for the left-most building. You can alter the height as per your wish. Tape it in place.
2. Pick a box as shown in the image (3). I used the lower tray of a match-box. This will be the terrace.
3. I did not have an appropriate box for the left-most building. so i cut a pencil pack box in half and placed it beside each other. You can make it the same way, or directly use a box that's proper and fits.

Creative variation: Although I haven't shown it here, you can add a clock tower near the terrace and a gate near the other building. Use cardboard for the clock tower and a small box for the other gate.(refer to initial image!)

It's time to make the towers. For this you will need cylindrical objects of various sizes like straws, pen refills, candles etc.

Steps

1. Gather your materials. You can also wrap paper on straws to make them fat. For the main tower in the center, you can either use a fat candle or roll cardboard into a cylinder. Tape the main towers in place.
2. For the roofs, cut a rectangular piece of card stock/stiff paper. Fold it half length-wise and place it over the boxes. Tape it down.
3. For the long tower on the right, fold a piece of card board so as to make it a long cuboid. Cut one side of it and make it slanted. Refer to the picture 8 for clarity.
4. Tape this on to the right most box.
5. Now continue adding smaller straw towers. Add them anywhere you wish. To make the towers on the roofs, cut a triangular wedge in the straw. Place the straws in such a way so as to fit it in. Tape them in place.

By the end of this step, you must have the castle structure minus the roofs of the towers.

This step is fairly simple. You will need printing paper (it doesn't have to be plain white), a compass, scissors and tape.

Steps

1. Draw circles using a compass. The radius will be the height of the cone. So basically for the bigger towers you must draw larger circles while the smaller circles will be for the smaller towers. Cut the circle out.
2. The use of a compass is recommended as it will be easy for you to locate the center of the circle and draw the radius. Cut along the drawn line.
3. Fold the circle into a cone. Glue the open edge down.
4. Attach the cone to the towers

Now, the model should look like picture 5.

This step isn't necessary but it looks really cool. I had made two bridges. One joining the terrace and the tower and one joining the largest tower to another tower behind. Over here I am just showing you how to make the first bridge. If you want to make the other one as well, just take measurements accordingly and repeat the process.

Steps

1. Measure distance between the terrace and the tower and the height you want.
2. Cut a piece of cardboard accordingly and draw two gates (like in the picture). Cut the them out.
3. Cut the lower side of the bridge so as to fit in the gorge. If you observe, the right needs to be slightly shorter than the left to fit.
4. Tape it in place.

At this stage, you basic structure of the castle is done!

This step is undoubtedly the most important step. It will add texture, make the model stronger and also make it entirely white in the process (making it easier to paint). Don't worry if its getting too boring or tedious...the end result will be great!

Steps

1. Mix one part glue and one part water. I used Fevicol. I haven't tried it with other types of glue, but I don't see why any school glue wont work.
2. Tear the tissue into pieces. Make sure there are various sizes of paper. It will come handy!
3. Dip a brush into the glue-water solution. Using that, keep placing the tissue on the model. (basically, place the tissue on the model, and paint it with water-glue.)The glue will help it stick properly even after drying, while the water will make the paper soft and allow it to take the shape of the model. Your aim is to cover the entire model with tissue but you should take care that the model doesn't loose the initial shape and structure.(Be extra careful while covering the conical roofs!)
4. Keep repeating the step till the entire model is white and strong.
5. In case you are doing the lighting, make sure the tissue don't cover the hole. The straw will ensure that the hole remains intact.( Also cover the outside of the straw so it can be painted and camouflaged.)

In the end, it should look like picture 6.

Recommendations: Take a day or two to do this step. Only when the paper dries you will be able to make out if you have left anything uncovered. Also look at it from different angles and make sure everything is covered in tissue.

This is my favorite step. Painting! I chose a purplish shade for the castle. You can make it grey or brown or any color you feel appropriate. Let's get started!

Steps

1. Get your colors and a palette. My violet was a bit too dark so I needed white too. You will need brown for the mountains. I used burnt sienna.
2. Start painting the mountains using brown. You can add water too but keep in mind that the tissue will soak it up. The more the water you add, the more the time is needed for drying!
3. Now, work on the buildings. Make sure you paint all the side thoroughly. Look at your model by tilting it to various angles to ensure everything is painted.
4. Finally, the roofs. I recommend that the roofs are a darker shade of the color used in the buildings.

Take a lot of care while painting! After all, the paints make the model actually presentable.

This is the final step. You need to detail you castle and make it look complete. I used a 3D out-liner from a local craft store to do the outlining.

Steps

1. Just trace the gates in the bridge, draw windows and doors, highlight the tower roofs.. etc
2. Refer to the images if you need some idea on what else can be done.
3. I added some greenery near the front side of mountain as you can see. I used some green foliage from a diorama kit. You can use some crumpled crepe paper or anything that looks like clumps of trees as a substitute.
4. If you had initially made a channel to put the LED, now is the time to do so. Fit the light in the straw and complete the circuit using the battery and switch.Let the battery be located behind the model so as to not hamper the looks.

You are done!!! Congrats!

That's about it! By now, you must have been able to make an magnificent Hogwarts. I hope this Tutorial helped and if you have any doubts or if you need any clarification, leave it in the comments. I will try my best to help you! Harry Potter Forever!!!