Minas Tirith Research

The first step I am going through before starting construction is research. I need to determine the rough size and shape of each of the levels. I also need to take into account how the terrain piece will be played on. I don't want to take all this time to end up with something that is simply not playable.

Doing a search on google provided me with lots of good reference pictures to design around. One of my favorites is of a model that someone else is working on. It provided me with a very good idea of how things are laid out for the top tier of the city where the Citadel is.

Based on this image and the base size of a large model (50mm) I determined that the upper level of the city should be 250mm across. This would allow 5 large models to stand side by side. The Citadel itself would be 125mm across and about 200mm deep. Each of the next 3 levels would be 50mm across. This will provide that narrow feeling you see in the movies where the paths are just wide enough for a troll to make it up. Tier 5 is 75mm out from the tier above it. Tier 6 is 100mm. And tier 7 is 175mm out. This makes for an overall width of 1.2 meters, which is just under 4 feet wide.

After doing some reading on wikipedia I determined that each of the tiers had the same height of 100 feet and that the spire on the top was equivelent to 3 tiers tall at 300 feet. Based on these proportions I decided that 6 inches per tier would give me the appropriate height. So the height from the first tier to the top tier where the citadel is would be 42inches and adding another 18 inches for the spire. This gives me an overall height of 5 feet.

Given this data my target size for the model is going to be 4' x 5' x 5'. This is going to be a massive model and because of that it will not be possible to make it a solid structure. I will have to make this using a modular method. On the plus side using a modular method means that this will be usable for other things besides just the one massive model!