Dutch Windmill

In days long gone over 10.000 windmills stood in The Netherlands. A good part of them were so called drainage mills given the task to keep the land dry against the ever threatening sea.

This particular mill is called a 'hollow post mill' (or wipmolen in Dutch), which is named after the post supporting the red buck. The buck is turned into the wind by winding a rope between the white poles and the black tail structure. The sails drive via a transmission a shaft running down the hollow post to the thatched pyramid shaped lower structure where it powers a scoop wheel or other device for pumping out water.

In the western part of The Netherlands these mills were built from the 16th and 17th century and are often painted in bright colours with white details making them a rich addition to the flat landscape. As a small nod to history I decided to make the miller female: running a drainage mill was often a woman's job as the husband went out fishing or worked on a farm to supplement the low miller's pay.

Designing this model I've tried to balance aesthetics, technical accuracy and simplicity. While there have been trade-offs in all 3 of these departments, I'm quite happy with the final result.
Although this model comes with a green base plate, the mill itself has its own foundation for making it able to fit it in your own creations.