work do, nano

[burntcopper]

Yesterday was the work do - lectures, team building activities, reports fromt eh different sectors, etc. Some reports over-ran. me, ross and Morag spent a large portion of the reports part doodling. Ross - cartoons. Morag - costume designs. Me - backs of heads, shoes, wrists, sketches of my conina costume fromt he back. The guest lectures were awesome and funny.

Fortunately, the team-building exercise was t-shirt design for the company, and sadly we had management on our team. Who had ideas that... it was an eclipse. That would take a paragraph to explain the relevance. Not to mention as me and the Liverpool boys pointed out, over-done, not original, would get mistaken for every other company/tv show that had ever used it as a symbol. Essentially too generic. So we beat them down and plumped for the design showing a stylised representation of someone's guts, theme being open access. With the classic moment of the management frantically poking me when there was five minutes to go (I'd volunteeered to draw as long as someone else designed because I can't design for shit) as i'd been idly sketching out the basics and placement of guts and heart and so on.
Them : "Shouldn't you start drawing the final thing?"
Me, loudly : "I will start drawing the instant you lot decide on the design. I'm not drawing until you decide where we're putting the slogan and logo."
Them : "Oh. Ah. Um, there and there."
me : "Thankyou." :draws it in two minutes flat:

:smug: we got joint second. For sheer eye-catching-ness and obviousness of image (the winner so deserved it. And they were funny, too.). Like me and the Liverpool boys said, the entire point of a logo t-shirt design is 'Catch the eye first, then if you're really lucky you might even get a clever second meaning.' Slightly peeved that we didn't get to use James' idea of matrix-style code text and then 'Biomed Central : No Password Required' (don't ask, it's the abstracts that you get and can't access the rest of the info sans subscription) but that would've required a decent design program with good fonts to stand out and look good.

Then we went to Loom, and laughed and jabbered and drank and danced and nearly everyone had gone by 9:30, and it was deemed a good night. Patrick leant me his camera when I wanted to take a photo, and then went 'how come yours are so much better composed?', so I pointed out that I spent three years learning how to compose a decent shot. (not to mention knowing how to keep the camera still even when you're pissed and you're not using flash) So then had carte blanche to play with it when I wanted it. And I do like having people who know how to pose when you're giving vague direction - Patrick, Morag and Kevin are good models. And we have a fabulous shot of Kevin looking ridiculously cool. Abi is bloody gorgeous, but kept trying to pout, so I got Kevin to make her laugh so we have good blurry shots instead.

Decided on the nano. I think. Going with 'the one where they stay in Prince Caspian'. Which will hopefully be a bunch of scenes rather than plot. And oh god. World-building and politics and vs. early renaissance which I'm pretty sure the Telmarines are. Research. FUCK. Not to mention I have no idea how to end it. All the other nanos I wrote had a plot, or at least a chain of events.

Um, do any of you lot know where I would find details on how long it takes to build a medieval castle?

Comments

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

When in the medieval period? Also where are we talking (I mean, obviously it's a fantasy world, but are you basing it on any particular region/country)? Construction is one thing, but there's also matters of local politics and getting funding, having people available to build it/oversee the building, etc. Maybe Google/Wiki various castles and see what's got info on building available?

Unrelatedly, I am considering coming over there for a week or so before the election, as I will undoubtedly go crazy with worry otherwise. I also have a shiny new digital SLR camera, so we will be having fun with that.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

CS Lewis is annoyingly vague. Because Cair Paravel has the whole fantasy element but the films and underlying theme make it clear that narnia was at war a lot, so definite defensive capabilities. I'm rebuilding that. Not so much funding and manpower - which will not be a problem (plus you've got minotaurs and griffons) I'm going English, thinking a combo of Norman/Plantagenet with pretty. It's what the film version looks like.

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

Given you've got incredibly strong creatures who make the heavy lifting/reaching high places easy, PLUS an incredibly strong base of support for very popular leaders (Cair Paravel, so I'm assuming we're talking the Pevensies, who circa Prince Caspian, as I recall, were figures of nearly religious proportions, so if your demi-gods come down and need a place to live you're going to get to work building them one right quick), I'm thinking it could get done pretty quickly -- five years at most seems reasonable, given the relatively ideal circumstances for them. If nothing else, if you need it done in a relatively short timespan, you can handwave it as fantasy.

Actually, the construction itself could be a pretty hilarious subplot.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

...Did I mention that the Telmarines will be doing full-scale bitching about it com9ng out of their taxes and resources when there's a perfectly good castle already?

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

btw, are you ever on aim these days?

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

Heh. Theoretically, but I get weirdly twitchy about chat things. Plus I always sign on and forget to sign off again, and then people think I'm shunning them and there's draaaaaaaaama. Well, not really, but it's embarrassing. I'll get on more often, though!

[celievamp.livejournal.com]

Doesn't specifically answer your question but gives lots of nice detail on the development of castles

http://www.britannia.com/history/david1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle#Construction

http://www.castles-of-britain.com/castle88.htm

The answer seems to be as long as it took... depending on the location, the materials used, the site of the materials, local transport and populace availability, what the castle was for, how many phases it was built in... Some seem to have been thrown up pretty quickly in the initial phases and then rebuilt and refined over time.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

ooo, ta. Yeah. most of the castles I'm familiar with are the type that started in early norman period, had bits burnt down, demolished, and modified over the centuries.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

It really depends on:

a) how fancy you were getting with location and size.

b) the labour available.

If the will was there, then your classic crinkly-bits-and-all castle could be raised fairly quickly; a couple of years or so.

As people have pointed out, many of the Western castles were built and rebuilt over generations as new fashions took hold in castlery; if you want an idea of how long a new build took, look at the castles that were constructed to meet a pressing requirement; the 1066-era Norman castles, various of the Crusader forts in the Levant in the 12th C. and Edward the First's castles in north-west Wales.

Chastellet at Jacob's Ford was started in October 1178; by the time of its destruction in late August 1179, the curtain wall was 10m high and a tower had been built; the week-long siege was only successful after undermining.

Also, Château-Gaillard in France was built in just over a year (1197-1198).

As castles got bigger and more advanced, the time to build them also went up; Edward the First's ornate Welsh-pacifying monsters like Harlech and Conwy took over five years to build from scratch.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

ooo, ta. and considering I have flight and some rather strong bods, I should be able to get the more complex bits done slightly easier. So probably about 2-3 years. (it's Cair Paravel, btw) Considering I'm not going for something that has a tonne of outer walls, it might be easier.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Welp, going by the books, the rebuilding happened sometime between the end of Prince Caspian and Rilian's 20th birthday; and the appearance of Wimbleweather in Prince Caspian does tend to indicate that there were still some good Giants around at that point.

From a quick look at the text, there's no direct reference to what Cair Paravel was built of; the illustrations show stonework in the Western European style - but some of the brick castles in the Hanseatic area went up very quickly indeed; if I remember correctly, Malbork Castle (the gargantuan HQ of the Teutonic Knights) was a functional fortress within two years of its foundation.

In terms of construction, Cair Paravel is like a number of the Renaissence-era Loire castles; halfway between a fort and a palace (which fits with the early-Renaissence Telmarines) - have a look at places like Saumur or Château de Langeais; it's certainly feasible to speak of rebuilding one of those in a few years, especially with surviving solid foundations.

(Of course, this might be getting slightly too picky and precise, but hey...)