Torre De Las Damas
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Image copyright Roger Hawkins 2010
This is "El Torre De Las Damas" (Tower of the Ladies)at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. I got tired of searching for details for proper columns and interior rooms so I took a break to play with composition.
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Nice image you got here...
I like the texturing and the silhouettes makes the images more dramatic...
allanx
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Nice. Totally different and unusual style.
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I really like the masonry textures. What you have modeled is nicely detailed, but it makes what's missing a problem. Two thing that stand out are: The openings on the tower's walls have no depth, and IMO, you need some kind of background, especially at eye-level behind the model.
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What he said. And I like the style as well.
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It is a work in progress, but I will get there "poco a poco." Actually, the background is not what you might think. This building hangs from a cliffside, so there is nothing but space for quite a distance. From a low angle, it would be nothing but sky. From a high angle, I might have some photos looking down on Granada. Right now I am working on the columns and windows.
One problem is that the reconstruction drawings in the Spanish archives don't match the "as builts." One example is the second floor room. Old drawings show the walls resting on the first floor walls. But as I look at my photos, the walls of the second floor are setback from the first floor. You can't image what happened to this palace after the Arabs were driven from Spain. In the 1700-1800's, the building looked like a Detroit crack house.
The other problem is that while the building may be low poly, the arabesque geometric decoration is very high poly. There are some pierced window screens are poly crazy.
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This project is getting to me, but I am in love with the building. Its fun to reconstruct and do the research and detective work. However I will be glad when I can get to a final render (If there is such a thing as final).
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I have revised the original post with a lot more detailed texturing.
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Nice progress, Your choice of building period is difficult. I assume that the building has been restored to some extent, and it appears that you are doing an "as is" build. At some point the "new looking" roof texture may create a visual problem. If it is clay, you may want to show greater variations in color that what you have. Wow, sounds difficult to do, wouldn't know where to start. Are the slender columns new, or old? Btw, love that interior render, especially the light. I would re-post it at the top. Thanks for sharing.
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This is what the building looked like in the early to mid 1800's. It had become a home for Granada's indigent population. Sort of a crack house rather than a Royal palace. Your right about the roof. I just have to find the right photo reference. When it was built by the Nazrid Moors, all the brick was coated in a bright white plaster. For now I am making due with what I have from my visit to Spain.
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A detailed Moorish column to substitute for the placeholders now in the model.
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Subscribed. I have been twice at the Alhambra (I am spanish) and I'm never tired of doing it. I want to return one day.
If you like this stuff, you may like the city of "Medina Azahara", in Cordoba. I have never been there althoug is near to me, and I have to visit it, it's from the Xth century and it's not very known outside of Spain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_Azahara
Ah, and the columns are from a wrong restauration in the XIXth century. In the drawing you uploaded you can see that they were made from brick, originally.
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Pichuenke, I feel very uncomfortable correcting someone who is Spanish and lives in Spain and has a degree in architecture (?) but the watercolor I uploaded shows a palace whose grandeur had been defaced by time and public disinterest. The original elegant columns had been simply bricked up to turn an elegant and princely building into a homeless shelter. The columns, as they stand today, are more or less correct. I did have XIX century drawings which are very close to today's reconstruction but just differed in some minor detail but both show monolithic stone columns, but just with minor differences in stylistic detail. Also, not all of the columns are identical, but I decided to forego that in the interest of keeping a lower polygon count.
I have been arguing with my wife about moving to Spain. I am for it. She is against. But we have agreed to visit Cordoba on our next trip.
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@roger said:
Pichuenke, I feel very uncomfortable correcting someone who is Spanish and lives in Spain and has a degree in architecture (?) but the watercolor I uploaded shows a palace whose grandeur had been defaced by time and public disinterest. The original elegant columns had been simply bricked up to turn an elegant and princely building into a homeless shelter. The columns, as they stand today, are more or less correct. I did have XIX century drawings which are very close to today's reconstruction but just differed in some minor detail but both show monolithic stone columns, but just with minor differences in stylistic detail. Also, not all of the columns are identical, but I decided to forego that in the interest of keeping a lower polygon count.
I have been arguing with my wife about moving to Spain. I am for it. She is against. But we have agreed to visit Cordoba on our next trip.
I knew I had read it somewhere, I have found another reference to the wrong restoration here (Torre de las Damas, also known as El Partal):
http://books.google.es/books?id=z6a4q6rdaA0C&lpg=PA5&pg=PA273#v=onepage&q&f=false
The sentence says in english: "A wrong restauration made in 1965, has replaced those original pillars by the actual columns". I don't want to say that I am right and you are wrong. But I know that there is "something" about those columns.
Another monument of Spain with an excesive reconstruction, with some mistakes, is the roman theatre of Merida, but few people know that. Not good for tourism
Regarding Spain, I live "inside the forest" and my point of view may differ from yours, as you live outside the forest and you can see some things I am not able
I believe that the coast may be a good place to live in your retirement, if you have money. But at this moment there is not work, and I am very lucky. I am engineer, not architect. If you want to know more about me, send me a private message. -
I hope you can find something interesting here:
And a present for you from that thread (I am subscribed)
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/7829/granada.jpg
Edit: Go here and search "partal", in the box at the top. You'll see a lot of old photos with a nasty watermark on it
For example:
http://www.alhambra-patronato.es/ria/bitstream/handle/10514/9617/F-13057.jpg
http://www.alhambra-patronato.es/ria/bitstream/handle/10514/9616/F-13056.jpg
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Pichuneke, gracias for all the great reference material and the advice on Spain. I will talk to you more about both, but I have to prepare for a photographic assignment on Thursday.
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