Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Veldhuizburg

I've had a moment of creative diversion that I thought I'd share. As the campaign focus moves to the river-crossings of Veldhuizburg on the River Schelve, I found myself sketching out maps for the small city/large town of Veldhuizburg. Here's a plan of the place:


It sits on the NE bank of the river, with a bridge across to a small (unwalled) docklands area on the opposite bank. Surrounding terrain is generally low-lying with scattered woods and marshland. I've also wound up doing my model in 3-D, and here's a view below:


As you can see, Veldhuizburg has a bastioned wall around it's perimeter, designed in accord to the scientific principles of the age. There are no ravelins around the works however on account of the relatively smaller size of the fortifications (outworks cost money, you know - do you fancy writing to the Elector about it, mister Burgomaster? I thought not!) The ditch in front has been cut into the river Schelve to create a moat around the walls, and a small Glacis to the front has been made by mounding up the sandy soil into a ramp (presumably, the money for Ravelins is taken up in paying some poor devils to constantly shovel the sand back into place and prevent the whole place slumping down!) The town layout is also on the classic Dutch fortress-pattern of streets radiating out like spokes from a central assembly area, allowing the garrison reserve to reach any point on the walls swiftly. On a whim, I made the central area a grassy little quadrangle to serve as the garrison parade-ground, town market, or promenading gardens for the well-to-do.

[Just as an extra note, I should add that the whole thing was drawn up easily on Google Sketchup, the free download for drawing 3-D pictures you can obtain, and can be used even by untrained amateurs like me!]


2 comments:

A J said...

An elegant design. I have Sketchup but haven't had time to get the hang of it yet. You've shown me a number of possibilities. Thanks!

Fitz-Badger said...

Nice bit of work!
I played around a bit with sketchup a while back. It is pretty easy to use.