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All you need to get to this Hogwarts is a 3D printer

The Harry Potter films have been an endless source of inspiration for the maker community with projects like the Daily Prophet (complete with moving pictures) and LED-powered Spectrespecs being some of the standouts. Now the Hogwarts castle itself has been given similar treatment and turned into an extremely detailed scale 3D print.

Joshua Neil Arthur is responsible for this impressive project, telling us that the main reference material used here is the official book Harry Potter: Page to Screen. The primary source from that book was a layout plan of the castle used in the sixth movie. 

This was followed closely and used to get the exact layout of the various buildings, the tower elevations and other small details. Film stills and pictures of a Hogwarts model on display at the London studio tour also helped here.

This was all used in the modelling process which was done in Blender. Arthur tells us that this took “a few full weeks” to complete, working on the project during a break from university.

With the model finished it came time to print, with this step adding hundreds of hours to the project. With the printing focused on detail instead of speed, many of the individual pieces took 20 hours each to print.

With all the pieces assembled Hogwarts has a footprint of 45 centimetres squared. Not counting the base, the highest tower is 23 centimetres tall.

As you may expect from the size and the high level of detail here, finishing and painting work was extensive. All the individual pieces were airbrushed with a primer, gaps were filled in and then it was all sanded down. The rocks were washed with a series of greys and the buildings airbrushed with a pale sandstone colour.

“Roofs and windows were carefully painted with a fine brush. The ground cover was primarily Woodland Scenics fine turf, and the pine trees were made using pipe cleaners painted in varied shades of green,” Arthur continues, “For the lake, the base board was painted a grey-blue and airbrushed with a darker grey to simulate depth. Gloss Mod Podge was applied to produce a ripple effect on the lake surface.”

If all of that doesn’t sound daunting, the files to make your own are available for free over on MyMiniFactory. 

Aside from filament and paints, the print also sits on top of a wooden base board, so pick one of those up on your next buying run if you’re ramping up to finally get to a miniature version of Hogwarts.

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