My build of Howl's Moving Castle - free Epson file

[niebla de fuego]

This model represents a dwelling place depicted in the lovely Studio Ghibli anime film "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004).

I started building this model in September 2006 when a friend gave me as birthday gift the 26 printed pages of the free Epson file that was once available at Epson's site. This file is no loger available from Epson, but it still can be found in several other places.

I worked in it only in my free times, and when I felt I could do some advance. There were times when I left months without touching it.

I finished it in September 2009 (exactly three years after I started). But in total, acording to my notebook, it took me 43 hours.

This are some pictures of an early stage of the project (2007). Those were taken with a crappy webcam connected to the PC.

 

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The following photos are from 2009, at a late stage, when almost all the parts were finished and final assembly approached. Pictures were taken with a cell phone.

 

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This are photos of the final model.

All pictures from here on were taken with a Canon digital camera.

First, this is the model from different angles:

 

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This are some details. The first picture shows the rear entry. here you can see some of the methods I used in all the model: I coloured the white edges, and I coloured most of the parts in the back side of the paper. This can also be seen in one of the pictures above where the fodder of the trees was painted on the back side.
I used Prismacolor pencils to paint.

In the other pictures you see a touch I added: the images of Howl, Sophie, Mark, and the scarecrow. They were not in the original file. I had to edit the images and downscale them. After I printed hem I cut and glued to the terrace.
I don't like the borders of this characters, I cut badly. But they were so small in size that it was good that I even managed to cut a 9 mm Howl without beheading him !!!!

 

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Some other details. This is a very forgiving model. And small mistakes are passable. I thought some details could be improved, like the veranda of the watchtower, which I carefully cut out. I just didn't the original solid blue colour when it was assembled.

The final picture shows the size of the finished model as compared with my hand and my cell phone.

Overall, a wonderfully designed model. Details are great, and it offers a nice depiction of the animated movie's Castle.

Construction needs patience, and is definitely not for beginners. Some portions of the structure can be challenging, as well as the assembly of some parts. But it is worth the effort. The end result is very impressive and rewarding.

All with cutting, scoring, painting of edges and back sides of the paper, and time waited for some parts to dry it took me 43 hours to complete until it was done.



Oh yes, I forgot to mention the medium:

All the parts were printed in cheap photocopy paper.




This same pictures (as well ase several others more) of this model, can be viewed at insanely high resolution at my DA: http://rubenandres77.deviantart.com/art/Howl-Moving-Castle-papercraft-136555939

or directly at: http://www.deviantart.com/download/136555939/Howl_Moving_Castle_papercraft_by_Rubenandres77.jpg
(warning: the collage of 31 pictures is a 7326X15000 pixels image).

 

[goodduck]

That is so nice. Thank you for posing it. Did you do anything to the patio table and chairs in the garden. I was thinking painting that out in photoshop and make new one.

 

[niebla de fuego]

That is so nice. Thank you for posing it. Did you do anything to the patio table and chairs in the garden. I was thinking painting that out in photoshop and make new one.

Thanks ^^

At first I thought about the table and the chairs, but I soon realized that I couldn't do it. Working at so small sizes was very difficult for me, and probably the finish would have been too bad. ops:

 

[paulhbell]

Nice build, Canon have some really nice models.

 

[mauther]

Cool model, thanks for sharing!

 

[Henak]

This looks realy nice, one of the models I like to build in future.
Hopefully mine would look as stunning as yours.

 

[zathros]

Beautiful movie, Beautiful model. Muy Bueno Ruben!!