Making Observations

The newest room in the Tower of Magic is the Observatory.  This is where the wizards of the ToM come to watch the stars and make astronomical observations.

The floor of the Observatory is vellum which was printed with a silver tile pattern.  I painted the back of the vellum blue and glued it to the floor.  Not a good idea as when you add moisture to vellum (paint, glue, sealer) it curls.  Badly.  After some hours under stacks of old miniatures magazines it has flattened out reasonably well, but I won't be trying this again.  The walls are 'papered' with a printed cotton fabric with a gorgeous peacock feather design.  There was something very Moroccan/Persian/Arabic about the fabric to me so I enhanced this impression with the shape of the arches that separate the main room from the balcony and in the 'tile' trim on the stair risers, the posts and the fake door that 'connects' this room to the rest of the ToM.  I'm not too sure the different designs on the posts really work, maybe I should pick one pattern and do all the posts the same.  As for the door . . . definite rethink needed on that.

 The roof of the observatory is open, allowing a good view of the stars above.  Turquoise drapes at the sides of the ceiling can be drawn across to close off the sky (OK, so actually they're glued in place, but it's nice to pretend).  The starry sky is another free desktop background image from the internet.

Additional star gazing can be conducted from the balcony at the back of the room.  The balcony has gold toned railings made from bamboo fan blades and is curtained with more of the turquoise chiffon used on the ceiling.

If you have a good memory, you may remember back when I first bought the "Le Petit Palais" from Peitie Properties, I also bought a second kit, the Old Rectory.  I have also now started working on this kit and to help give you an idea of the scale it has been photographed inside the Observatory.  Yes, the whole house fits in just one room!

The standard kit has six rooms, but by cutting out most of the floor of the upper centre room I now have a five room (plus gallery/balcony) house.  This centre room will be the 'great hall'.  The room is decorated with a black and white chequerboard floor and faux linenfold panelling.  The panelling is topped off with a Tudor frieze.  The frieze is the same one used in Dawncrest Castle's gallery.  I had the incredible foresight to scan a section of the frieze before installing it in Dawncrest long ago and have now reduced it in size enormously.  Technically, you should not do this, but as they don't make the frieze in 48th scale I figure it's fair enough.

The remaining room of the house have a variety of different panelling effects and wallpapers.  I think the outside of the house looks post-Tudor in style (i.e. Stuart, Jacobean?) so the interior is sort of being decorated to suit, but mostly I'm just doing what I think looks good whether it's historically accurate or not.

Finally, last time I promised a better picture of the lay in the Sorceress's Chamber.  This one isn't great, but it's better than the last effort.  As you can see I still need to replace the scenery outside the window as it was torn when I changed my mind about the layout of this room and had to rip it apart.