Thoughts about Framsburg (and some apologies)

[Bombur8]

I know this will not begin before a long time; yet I had some ideas i'd like to share with you.

First of all, we know that the main inspiration for the Rohirrim is the Anglo-Saxons, which originated from Denmark and northern Germany and Netherlands.
The Rohirrim descend from the Éothéod, which came from North-East (compared to Rohan), similarly to the situation of Denmark and England.

Then we have the location of Framsburg, which stands between the rivers Greylin and Langwell, above their confluence to form Anduin.

For these reasons, I thought that the viking ring fortresses could be a good inspiration .

Here are some concept pictures:

Spoiler

So, I think something like this could be done:


With the inner wall being reinforced with stone like in one of the pictures and the outer one being purely earth and wood.
The houses in the outer district would be those charming grass roofed houses and the ones in the inner circle would be the iconic reverse ship houses.

Also, I tried some concepts (reduced size) when we had the Framsburg project build, but didn't give it enough time, so I never finished it. You can still take a look if you want .


So, what do you think?







On another hand, I'd like to apologize for the unauthorized builds I did a couple of months ago when I was temp artist for the House of tarannon Falastur project.
I'd like to point out that I wans't like "oh, I'm artist, I'll build whatever I want"; I essentially did derp corrections, because I relly like when everything is perfect and it's just so much more fast, easy and sure (no risk of oversight) than the official derp report thread. Plus I know it annoy some people when I do massive der reports. Then I suppose I overdid it when I did some things like reshaping a broken bridge in the Moria into a less straight break.
But still, I was artist only for the Tarannon project, so I shouldn't have done it. So I apologize.

 

[Bombur8]

Some more concepts, because the last post had too much images:

Spoiler

 

[Ardelenia]

I don't have any good logical basis for this, just my own opinions and aesthetics.
I like the idea of an inner earth wall reinforced with a stone base and the outer earth wall and/or a palisade (or whatever similar thing you were suggesting). I'm not a fan of the square house arrangement - again, no good reason. I do like the earth-covered houses, but I don't think we should make the wooden houses exactly like your pictures. After all, they aren't exactly Vikings.
And, if this would use a Rhovanion texture pack or something, maybe there could be a block textured as grass so we could have grass stairs/slabs for the houses.

Just some opinions for the sake of debate on this obviously far-off topic.

 

[Bombur8]

I personally do like the squares, but I don't think it's the perfect arrangement for Framsburg because a king is supposed to live there. So I would see something like a big central kingly hall (like a smaller Meduseld) with reverse ship houses around .

 

[DynoDaring]

Since this sounds more like a Project application I am going to move it to the proper thread for a decision to be made either way

 

[SKy_the_Thunder]

So I was bored...

 

[Bombur8]

Looks really great ! Far better than what i did! But maybe a bit bigger would be cool. Anyway, Framsburg will not start anytime soon.

I'll try to make some wood shingle textures someday...

 

[Kjolsen]

You have to remember that Framsburg was abandoned somewhere around TA 2509. However, the ruins of Framsburg survived to late TA, start of the FA. So, it will have to be ruined.

I do not think the circle thing, and the houses outside would be a great idea, according to the style the rest of the server has. I've seen some paintings of Framsburg, and yes - some have a circleshaped wall, but is Framsburg portrayed as a circleshaped village in the books?

 

[Bombur8]

I never said it should not be ruined!

But I don't see the problem with the circle shape, nor with the outer houses. Nor with the rest of ther server...
Framsburg is never described in the books, and I think my first post perfectly explains why I think this shape would be a good choice.

 

[Portalrules333]

You have to remember that Framsburg was abandoned somewhere around TA 2509. However, the ruins of Framsburg survived to late TA, start of the FA. So, it will have to be ruined.

I do not think the circle thing, and the houses outside would be a great idea, according to the style the rest of the server has. I've seen some paintings of Framsburg, and yes - some have a circleshaped wall, but is Framsburg portrayed as a circleshaped village in the books?

Osgiliath consists entirely of one big circle/oval shape.....

 

[Bombur8]

And Minas Tirith and Isengard are even more perfect.

 

[Will_em]

Guys, don't focus on the execution of cities where the entire circle thing was the main characteristic of the build itself.
Instead try to focus more on the atmospheric aspects that you can convey. If you try to construct a believable story for the build, then the atmosphere of said build will be a lot better. You're not convincing yourself of what you like the best, you're trying to convince everyone else of what is best without saying a single word.

For example:

- ask why people of the city framsburg would build a circle wall and why that shape is important for the story of the build

- use the lore to paint a more believable story instead as using it as an indisputable fact

- scout the terrain of the build itself, is a BELIEVABLE circle aspect possible to be built without it losing the believability of it

- don't blindly copy other stuff in the creative process. 1+1 should be 3 and not 2. Blending and redesigning help here.

So as an example, I'll try to highlight these aspects more with questions:

- What is the story of the city? Was it rich and prospering when it was build? How well did the people of the city build? What sort of culture did they have (dwarven=straight sturdy; elvish=flowing curves)?

- What does the lore say about the POSSIBLE architecture that might have occured? Is it a cold region? Is it warm? Is it under siege? Is it big or small? When making new architecture (without explicit lore descriptions) go find stuff that are connected to the answers of these questions. For example in warm regions, people would like shade. So I made more spots for shade.

- Can you actually build a circle that looks good or is there a giant hill in the way that make the circle look weird? The circle might be the best option but if it destroys the convincing nature of the build, then it's generally best to find an alternative. Circles in osgiliath, minas and isengard are all on flat areas with enough space to make a pixel circle.

- If you're using styles/methods of other builds in a completly new area, then a newcomer should be able to not see the difference. This is needed because you want to give the newcomer a completly different feeling for completly different areas. This is however very difficult and you'll need to make tests. Ask people for what they feel when they see it and not what they think about it.

Another thing on layout planning:
There is a reason why most of the good layouts are placed on the site and not painted on a map. This is because you can easily see what effect your build might have. This gives you new ideas, let's you see problems, gives an idea for the scale/perspective,....
This is why architects in real life always go to the building site if they actually want to do something crazy.

I hope this might help you guys to decide what would work best.

 

[ooitsbirdo]

1+1 should be 3 and not 2.

Maths with @Will_em ,