The Classic Castle dot Com How-To's

Creation

Presentation

Castle Wall Offsets
Ben E. 30 VIII 06

This article will outline various techniques of creating offsets from castle walls. Offsets help us create the architectural details that give character to castles. First it is important to understand the units that each brick can be divided into. The brick below has the height to width ratio of 6 to 5. One plate is two units high.

Jumper Tiles: The jumper tile is the most common method of creating an offset. This 1x2 tile has a stud centered on it's width. It allows offsets of 2.5 units, or half of a stud. This can be used effectively to create details such as window and door surrounds, stairs, buttresses, and parapets. Check out the window surround instructions below.

Technic and Tiles: You may want even smaller offsets on your walls. Using tiles rotated 90 degrees is very effective. Tiles are 2 units thick. They can be attached to headlight bricks or technic bricks with half pins. Steve DeCraemer effectively used this technique at BrickFest 2005 and 2006 in his stone castles, one of which is pictured below. The only disadvantage of this technique is that all offsets are 5 units tall instead of 2 units found in plates.

Panels: I discovered the latest offset technique by accident this year by noticing the units of a common 1x2 panel. The back of each panel is a 1/5 of a stud wide. This allows us to offset details by one unit. Instructions of my White Tower corbel's below show how panels can be stacked and locked into place by other bricks. It creates small but very stable projections for the tower parapet. Discussion of the tower and technique can be found in this thread. The final result is a creation with more depth and detail than using traditional brick methods.