Today the Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection website has revealed a blueprint of Hogwarts Castle along with an interview with Art Director Gary Tomkins. To reveal the Blueprint go to the website and learn the wand gesture. A few snippets from Gary’s interview may be read below:

What was your specific role in the Harry Potter art department?
As well as working on lots of the full-sized sets on all eight Potter films, I looked after the model unit requirements, transforming Stuart Craig’s ideas and sketches into architectural working drawings (blueprints), and supervising the construction of not only the Hogwarts castle model, but Hogsmeade village, the Weasley house, Privet Drive and others.

Over the years, what were some of your favorite designs, and why?
Apart from Hogwarts castle itself, which has become quite an iconic building, my favourite miniature has to be Hogsmeade village which, although being seen only fleetingly in the films, had an incredible amount of detail, including fully dressed shop windows, working lights, and even tiny footprints in the (false) snow!

What is the purpose of blueprints for production? How many blueprints are produced for a film?
The reason architectural working drawings, or blueprints, are produced on a film is to allow the carpenters, plasterers and model-makers to make the sets and miniatures exactly as the designer intended. All the views of a set or miniature are drawn and dimensioned along with dozens of details of doors, windows, and whatever else is required to convey the ideas of the art department. During the course of all eight Potter films, over 10 years, 8395 working drawings were produced for the sets and miniatures!

Were there any challenges in the creation of the Hogwarts castle blueprints?
The main challenges were the changes that were made from one film to the next. Because of changing requirements in each new script, and the fact that not all of the books had been written when we initially built Hogwarts, we had to introduce new elements, such as the prison tower, Owlery, astronomy tower, viaduct and courtyards as they were required by the story. Integrating these into an existing and well-known building like Hogwarts without destroying its overall look was quite a challenge.