Tag Archives: Castle

Dragons! Knights in shining armor! Trebuchets & ballistas! From enormous LEGO castles buttoned up for battle to peaceful village market scenes, we’ve got your LEGO Castle needs covered right here.

A nomad’s life for me

LEGO has produced a lot of castle sets, but in my honest opinion there always has been a lack of travel carts! Markus Rollbühler is here to fill that gap for us. One of the best things about this creation is that the walls of the cart are positioned at an angle. The only straight wall, where the door is located, uses 2×1 cheese slopes to fill up the gap created by the slight angle of the other walls. But that’s not the only thing. This creation is filled with original details! One of the best used pieces has to be the blaster trigger. The blaster adds great playability to the set for kids, but as an adult fan of LEGO, I do not tend to use them. Markus used the trigger piece as table and chair legs and it looks stunning. Have you noticed the candle holder using the scuba breathing regulator. And don’t even get me started on that cute brick-built snail!

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With 100 magazine foil bags, the sky is the limit

Most builders love a good challenge, but everyone loves free LEGO. Such was my reaction when my LEGO user group, Brickish, selected me to represent them in a build challenge. In this friendly competition amongst UK and Ireland-based LUGs, the task was to build anything using the parts provided in 100 LEGO Star Wars magazine foil packs. These were provided by Fairy Bricks charity, and contained 10 each of 10 small sets. I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) challenged myself to take these small Star Wars models and… not build anything Star Wars related. There weren’t much of the usual grey bits anyway. So I had my next favourite thing in mind: microscale architecture.

I had no plan going into this build challenge. But the parts provided were surprisingly good – lots of small bits that I use in my building style. I knew I was going to surprised myself with the finished results, and I did, for such is the nature of any challenge. It definitely produced a beautiful build I am most proud of: The Voyage to Cirrus Palace.

The house of sand and coral

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part was a fun and amusing romp that reunited us with our friends Emmet, Lucy, and LEGO Batman. More importantly, though it released a few sets that featured a new color; coral. It’s a pretty color but limited and potentially difficult in its use. But builders like Simon Hundsbichler step up to the challenge and do it with amazing results. There are only three colors in this creation: Dark Tan, Light Royal Blue, and the aforementioned Vibrant Coral. A mix of plates and tiles adds intricate texture to the ground while a variety of coral bricks makes for a vibrant splash of color. Simon has proven to be a master of the LEGO medium, even with a limited palette. We’ve been smitten with Simon’s build techniques and color choices before.

Take your permanence on the go

Castles, fortresses, and the like have a big imposing permanence to them and appear as if they have been carved out of the very landscape they inhabit and have seemingly been there forever. But this LEGO fortress by WoomyWorld can lift itself and walk away. It is a re-imagining of Alexander, the Roaming Titan that can be summoned in the Final Fantasy games. Each section looks like it would be right at home in a fantasy microscale layout. I can just imagine the earth rumbling as it moves along!

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman

What do you get when four of the most talented castle builders out there collaborate on a series of LEGO builds? It’s a bit like alchemy, because the result is solid gold. Well, Grant Davis, Simon Hundsbichler, Marcel V., and Markus Rollbühler teamed up to show the life of a postman, carrying the mail across every bridge in the realm to make sure each and every citizen receives their letters on time. Each build is different in every detail, except the postman himself, but they are all scaled and shot to mimic the others, with the result that the builds complement each other perfectly. I’d love to have these framed on my wall, side by side, because these are not just LEGO builds, but art.

Click to see each of the builds up close

Schloss Drachenburg in LEGO: Here there be dragons!

There are castles that are blocky grey fortresses, and there are castles that look like fairytales come to life. One such castle is the ornate Schloss Drachenburg, which bears resemblance to the more famous Neuschwastein. Just a few miles south of the German city of Bonn, this 19th century villa was the passion project of builder Caleb Schilling who replicated this building with an attention to accuracy. A range of earthen tones dominate most of the exterior, while the dark grey adorns the top sections. The overall appearance of this build already satisfies my hunger for beautifully built architecture, but there are plenty of details yet to savour.

Click here to take a closer look at the many architectural details!

On the back of a dewy mountain

I love single-use LEGO elements, those pieces that are so specialized that they can only be used to make the one thing they were designed to build. Take, for example the head of a dewback from Star Wars. It’s very useful for building, well, a dewback, but not much else in the hands of an average builder. But in the hands of a master, like Simon Hundsbichler, that same piece becomes a mossy hill in a microscale creation. Add in one of the hip assemblies from the same creature, a video camera as a tower, a Bionicle leg as a coniferous tree, a werewolf head as a cliff, and about thirty other pieces, and you have a miniature masterpiece.

A nice place to be snowed in

They say all snowflakes are unique, and that seems to also apply to microscale castles in the snow. This excellent creation by Simon Liu is rich in clever part usage. Orange unicorn horns, tread attachments, and 1×1 roof tiles add just the right splash of color to the grey stone. In the castle there are plenty of clever angles and building techniques to explore. I like the use of rail plate to form the walls, and that inverted bucket at part of the main tower. For the snow, various tooth plates in white add texture and context for the scene. It’s a tiny winter wonderland!

As a cool bonus, this scene also fits inside a LEGO snow globe ornament for that added touch of whimsy. It’s a creation very much on the same level as Simon’s other great builds.

An icy castle of the Great North

When I first saw this I thought it captured “cold” perfectly. Cool colors and just the right amount of snow and ice in the right places. But this LEGO castle, built by Jonas Kramm, goes beyond that. What’s impressive to me are the angles, shaping, and use of so many different elements to achieve the look. For example, he fit a Technic pulley wheel into the new Minions eye element to create a unique window, and dark brown scabbards are used for trim detail. Additionally, there are a number of pieces making up the icicles and snowdrifts. Most notable are the minifigure accessories used on top of the lamp posts and under the eaves of the front door. A couple of my favorite parts are the fiber optic cable for icy flowing water and the hidden parrot. Find them? Zoom in to take a closer look!

Jonas has been very busy lately! Take a look at more of his work in our archives.

Sophie’s study is not just another brick in the wall

Sophie welcomes you to her LEGO study where you can not only find all sorts of books but also all sorts of parts being used in a very unusual and inspiring manner. Eli Willsea uses all kinds of bricks, plates, and tiles in dark grey to add texture to the castle walls. At first I was drawn to the creation because of it’s brilliant use of book covers and windows for the staircase. Both parts have a very distinctive purpose but are used for something completely different in a really creative way.

It took me a little while to notice that the book covers and windows weren’t the only parts used in a very original manner. The bookcase was made by using a boat. Adding some small bricks and bars made it blend in so nicely with the rest of the creation that you would almost not notice it at all.

Sturdy stone castle fits in the palm of your hand.

Designing castles on a limited footprint is a fun challenge and this 12×12 castle by Roanoke Handybuck packs a lot of detail into a small space. From the rocky outcropping above a sheltered cove, three tall towers keep watch. Dark red rooftops are picked up in the small wooden buildings at the water’s edge. A tiny boat with a brave captain risks the rocky shore, and minifig hands for flags are a nice finishing touch.

Just try not to sneeze on the pixie dust

I simply adore microscale castles, and microscale LEGO creations in general, too. There’s something about it, where even the slightest wrong choice in elements can ruin the whole composition, but the perfect usage of that one clever piece can make a masterpiece. Enter Markus Rollbühler, one of the world’s best LEGO master builders (seriously, check out his TBB rap sheet). His microscale fairytale castle and village are chock full of amazing and clever parts usages (and color, too; do I spy some sand red in there?).

While he’s used the party hats for tower roofs before, pairing them with cupcake liners is new. And there’s a mug in the tallest tower, Elves keys for the keep, wand sprues supporting book covers for the village houses, a katana holder for windmill blades, a roller skate as a cart being pulled by what looks like a non-production brown lever arm, a cupcake top as a haystack, and the list goes on. And don’t forget the unicorn horns balancing as trees. Even blinking near this thing must have the tiny denizens crying “Timber!”