Thinking About Hogwarts Castle

I know that this is a very old post at this point, but I did want to add a comment to it, as I am currently starting the preliminary stages of a smaller scale project centering around the Hogwarts Express -including Hogwarts School, Hogsmeade Station, the castle grounds, as well as King's Cross Station and Diagon Alley- that we can use seasonally which will be modular and store-able.

Its at the earliest of planning stages, but I will be sharing my goals and progress along the way, so would love any input people might have as the project progresses.   I'll not spam the web address, but if you're interested, you will be able to find it in my signature, as well as my profile.

I'll make sure to update a new thread I'll post, once I actually have something worthwhile to share.  Until then...

The station at either hogwarts or London would be a start. 

Photo from Universal last year. 

I don't ever think I have seen anything as impressive as TW TrainWorx Harry Potter layout>

Here is the link to the Facebook photo album of the layout:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/T-...m_id=688667714502440

Scott Smith

This Lego version certainly isn't small, has over 400,000 bricks.

http://www.brothers-brick.com/...-from-400000-bricks/

I had gotten the Lionel Hogwarts Express set for Christmas as a gift some years ago and run it as an elevated line. As it is towards the back of the layout (which is in a 12 foot by 9 foot setup) I started looking at murals of Hogwarts as background and I found some possibilities on Amazon.

JohnF

scott.smith posted:

I don't ever think I have seen anything as impressive as TW TrainWorx Harry Potter layout>

Here is the link to the Facebook photo album of the layout:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/T-...m_id=688667714502440

Scott Smith

Scott, that one was on a whole different plane than we're probably considering!  It is one seriously impressive effort, I was marveling when they originally posted the images here.

When the first or second movie came out, there was a plastic HW which looked S to HO, and figures which looked O.  The school is located at a corner of the layout.  Figures are over the layout.  I also have a bare willow tree with a Blue Ford in it.

Anything is possible if you have enough money: TrainWorx , Dunham Studios et al!

John F posted:

I had gotten the Lionel Hogwarts Express set for Christmas as a gift some years ago and run it as an elevated line. As it is towards the back of the layout (which is in a 12 foot by 9 foot setup) I started looking at murals of Hogwarts as background and I found some possibilities on Amazon.

 

JohnF

John,

I considered a Harry Potter layout at one point when I was in the design phase. I came to the same conclusion, a painting or mural of Hogwart's Castle in the distance would be visible from the train station at Hogsmeade. Much easier than trying to model the castle in terms of scale.

Bruce

I have two HP Lionel sets....but never cared for the books  or films.

Now the 'Fantastic Beasts' HP pre-quile set in 30's era NYC would make a cool layout.

scott.smith posted:

I don't ever think I have seen anything as impressive as TW TrainWorx Harry Potter layout

Wow, thanks for the link.  That is truly impressive and has given me some additional ideas / modifications on my current plans.  I doubt mine will be quite that well constructed...

AMCDave posted:

Now the 'Fantastic Beasts' HP pre-quile set in 30's era NYC would make a cool layout.

You'd need a heck of a lot of neon but yes, that would be fantastic.  Maybe mixed trolley and subway..
 

Thanks for the lively responses guys! My preliminary plans will have two separate 'trays' that will go on either side of our Christmas tree on the floor.  They'll be connected to each other by a series of looped tracks that will encircle the tree.   One half will be London, with King's Cross Station (a mix of backdrop and scratch built 3D model; essentially half a 'tunnel') and Diagon Alley (3D models).  The other half will be Hogsmeade Village & Station (3D models), Hogwarts Grounds (medium background 3D models) with Whomping Willow, Black Lake, Hagrid's Cottage, and the Quidditch Pitch and then Hogwarts Castle, again a mix of 3D model and backdrop, sitting on a cliff on top of a tunnel.

Something like this:

WOW, can't wait to see the pictures, this should be a really cool setup!

SILLY question: Is "3D" a brand or a modeling technique?

Tinplate Art posted:

SILLY question: Is "3D" a brand or a modeling technique?

Sorry about that!  Yeah, I simply meant constructed, dimensional parts of the display as opposed to a painted or photographic backdrop.

PRR Bruce posted:

I considered a Harry Potter layout at one point when I was in the design phase. I came to the same conclusion, a painting or mural of Hogwart's Castle in the distance would be visible from the train station at Hogsmeade. Much easier than trying to model the castle in terms of scale.

Bruce

I'm going to do somewhat like they did at Universal Studios, taking the scale down to 1:72 or perhaps higher.  It will look big from where the viewer will be or POV for Hogsmeade, but obviously be only a sliver of the Castle.  I do want some dimensionality to it though and I plan to have the village facing side lit and the Dining Hall large enough to be both lit and house a hidden Blu-tooth speaker to play music from.

I have always been looking for buildings and figures to add to the Lionel train since it came out. As I do many model train displays a year and would like a Hogwart's theme display.

This is what I have to date.  The 3D Puzzle 2 building sets came out recently and can be found in stores that sell puzzles. While I would like something with more detail I put the 2 puzzles together in a week and used glue and sticks and cardboard behind each wall to add strength and glued to a wood base with the green grass covering. The other buildings I found at Walmart near the start of the Hogwarts's craze. The figures have been an issue I have looked a long time for something suitable but nothing on the market, these over sized head figures were on the tops of pens that I chopped off.  Perhaps we could get Lionel to make a figure set to go with the train sets like the Polar Express figures they make? I also took photos of the Hogwart's castle in Florida with the idea that I could use this as a backdrop to the train set as a large poster size image, but the puzzle sets will do for now.  Click on the photos for a larger view. The platform with cart was from Hallmark a couple of years back, bit oversized.

These are the puzzle buildings and engine that are currently available.

http://www.wrebbit3d.com/products/27-harry_potter

I was very lucky and managed to find the Weasley family's powder blue ford Anglia on Amazon and it comes with a 1:48 Harry & Ron.  The rest I'll be scratch-building from materials as much as possible.  I found a reference to a now discontinued Quidditch miniatures game by Games workshop that had created a few sets of prototype minis for the players.  I'm hoping to created a mold from the images and 3D print a small set, even though they'd be the wrong scale for my purpose.

At this point, other 'people' in the display will need to have some work done.  It's too bad one of the Brit train hobby suppliers doesn't have an 'Oxford professor' set.  Oh well.

As for Hogsmeade, I know that there's a 1:32 scale model of Goathland stattion, so I'll keep looking for a 1:48 if it exists.  The rest will just get created form scratch most likely....

I was just looking at the 3d puzzle of hogwarts castle (with hall) and I'm totally glad to find pics of it here.   So it does look like it could be o scale?  It looks like several people on amazon had the same idea.

 https://www.amazon.com/Hogwart...Puzzle/dp/B01ABYSY34

Any updated pics or video?  My wife just found the hogwarts express lionchief on 50% clearance at barnes and noble (for 200 bucks) and got it for me as an advanced bd present.  Now, its time for me to build around it...

Do you think putting a village light inside the puzzle would light it up?  Is it transparent enough?

The 3D Puzzle is a much smaller scale would look good on the top of a hill over a loop of track for the train.

As for light in it, no do not think that would work, it is printed paper face and foam behind for structure. I think at best a light inside would just show up the jagged puzzle edges.

Sure wish there was a good source for the figures though, perhaps we could Lionel to make them?

Thanks for the response.  You just saved me 80+ bucks. People on amazon said O scale but I guess its not really.  You are probably right about placing it on the hill.  They have the diagon alley puzzle too.  Sigh.  

Regarding the figures, I wonder if the lego figures would work.  Size wise, it may... ?

scott.smith posted:

I don't ever think I have seen anything as impressive as TW TrainWorx Harry Potter layout>
Scott Smith

I would agree with you!! Thanks for the link as that is an amazing layout. Holy cow!!! Those guys at TW are beyond talented. 

kj356 posted:

The 3D Puzzle is a much smaller scale would look good on the top of a hill over a loop of track for the train.

...

Sure wish there was a good source for the figures though, perhaps we could Lionel to make them?

I'm planning on scratch building a proportional model for a portion of the castle to reflect perspective and use a backdrop for the rest.

As for the models, I believe Lionel lost their license to the Hogwarts Express as most merchandising is now being handled by Universal Studios under the Wizarding World of Harry Potter license.  I'm not sure if Lionel is working to regain the license or not .

Proportional model?  Sounds very very cool.

I hadn't heard that they lost the harry potter license - they still sell their trains everywhere. 

I did get mine on clearance at Barnes and Noble but I do see their lionel train sets go on clearance after christmas all the time. 

Its too bad that they don't sell the accessories like they do with polar express. 

I'm going to do some measuring to see if this might work:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HARRY-...%26sd%3D162489911248

I take it back, the figures look terrible :-/

7years ago I had a Polly Pocket Hogwarts on the top of my mountain, since been replaced with a mine.

If you all are looking for accurate HP figures, there are some options on the way.

Knight miniatures is coming out with a Harry Potter miniatures game. If it's similar to their other games (They make the Batman and other DC miniatures games) the figures should be very close to 1/48.  Knight models are typically what is known as 35mm (sole to eyeline measurement of an average human). That is right around 1/43 scale,  Should be out soon.

Their page for the game is here.  Not much there yet but a bunch of pictures of the figs painted up are here. They look dang good which is no surprise from Knight models.  The figs will be nicely cast in metal and top notch quality but they'll also likely be 7-12 bucks each.

Those figures you posted look good but the link you have says they are 28 mm high and unpainted you have to paint them. An average O scale figure is around 50 mm high!

As for the Diagon Alley puzzle this is much closer to O scale the the castle and I was thinking of getting it as a background building for the layout in general.  The Hogwart's Great Hall and Astronomy Tower I have pictured above built up you can see the scale with the train passenger car in front of them. The board I have them on is 3 feet by 18 inches just the right size to hold them.

I would not give up on the Puzzle of Hogwart's Castle as I think it is the best thing cheap enough on the market that looks good and if you use it at the top of a forested hill looks about right for forced perspective. As an example the Universal studios versions of the train and Diagon Alley and Castle towering away high above!

Link to the puzzle website.;

http://www.wrebbit3d.com/produ...10-diagon_alley.html

Eilif posted:

If you all are looking for accurate HP figures, there are some options on the way.

Knight miniatures is coming out with a Harry Potter miniatures game. If it's similar to their other games (They make the Batman and other DC miniatures games) the figures should be very close to 1/48.  Knight models are typically what is known as 35mm (sole to eyeline measurement of an average human). That is right around 1/43 scale,  Should be out soon.

Their page for the game is here.  Not much there yet but a bunch of pictures of the figs painted up are here. They look dang good which is no surprise from Knight models.  The figs will be nicely cast in metal and top notch quality but they'll also likely be 7-12 bucks each.

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice figures. How many characters in total?

Sean

Sean007 posted:

Eilif posted:

If you all are looking for accurate HP figures, there are some options on the way.

Knight miniatures is coming out with a Harry Potter miniatures game. If it's similar to their other games (They make the Batman and other DC miniatures games) the figures should be very close to 1/48.  Knight models are typically what is known as 35mm (sole to eyeline measurement of an average human). That is right around 1/43 scale,  Should be out soon.

Their page for the game is here.  Not much there yet but a bunch of pictures of the figs painted up areA. They look dang good which is no surprise from Knight models.  The figs will be nicely cast in metal and top notch quality but they'll also likely be 7-12 bucks each.

  

Very nice figures. How many characters in total?

Sean

The link shows 10 so far, but that's just the initial offerings.  Most games launch with a small selection and grow from there and this will likely be no different.  There will probably even be different sculpts of major charachters over the various releases. I personally wouldn't mind some more sedate and less in-the-wind versions of the main charachters.

kj356 posted:

Those figures you posted look good but the link you have says they are 28 mm high and unpainted you have to paint them. An average O scale figure is around 50 mm high!

 

A bit of confusion there. In current wargaming parlance, "28mm" is a catch-all term for most wargaming minis that range from 28-35mm in height (measured from sole of foot to eyeline). The size range seems to get bigger every time a new figure comes out, a phenomenon we refer to as "Scale Creep".

I don't think Knight has officially named a scale but their previous models were some of the largest in the industry, being around 35mm from sole to eye which is about 1/43.  

I will defer to you about O scale figure height, but 50mm seems shockingly tall.  A figure that is 50mm high  is probably about 48mm to the eyeline, which would make it somewhere between 1/32 and 1/35.  That's considerably larger than O gauge which I've understood to be either 1/43 or 1/48.

You would definitley have to paint them or pay to have them painted if you didn't want them all to be sliver-grey.

For more about the vagaries of scale and how millimeter and fractional scales are calculated, there's a very handy document at The Miniatures Page .