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.

An artistic recreation of an artistic recreation of a medieval castle

Motivated by a fictional castle building contest, Isaac Snyder has made a questionable move by recreating the Lichtenstein Castle, located in the non-fictional Germany. Although it might seem like a complete miss on the contest’s rules, it turns out surprisingly appropriate, because the castle in question is not of medieval origin and never served a defensive role. It was built in the nineteenth century from romantic inspiration.

The LEGO version is as much of a work of art as the original. The colours themselves are notable, as most builders are afraid of doing what so many real-life castles do: using the same colour of stone in the castle itself as the rock it is built upon. The mix of dark green and dark brown in the landscape down a bit lower also add a very natural feeling. I love all the parts used throughout the build, from grille tiles and lever bases to 4×4 hinge plates used as crenellations.

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Pint-sized castle packed with style

It can be a challenge to find a unique perspective on capturing some of the things that make a good castle work on a small scale. But I think this model by Dwalin Forkbeard really nails it. To begin with, the multi-angled rockwork and landscape is an excellent rendition of techniques more commonly seen on a much larger scale.

Using loosely connected plates curved into an arched bridge is genius, and the wooden window shutter makes the perfect gate door. The fact that each tower is a different size and the combination of stone and wood create a neat effect as well. And did you notice the minifigure helmet as a roof of that interior tower?

A market raid worse than a medieval Black Friday

Unless you’re stuck in the Middle Ages, you’ll probably know that contemporary LEGO castle building techniques call for texture overdoses and lots of earth tones. That is all great, but I often like builds that are different from this new norm, because variation is key. Joel Tyer approaches the problem of originality from a different angle – the addition of white pillars at the side of the wall in this market scene gives the creation a unique and memorable appearance, without sacrificing complexity for uniqueness’ sake.

The terrace alone is not the only reason the build is so good, of course. The landscape is very fluid and the little stream outlines the base perfectly. The tower has an interesting hexagonal shape, rounded off at the edges with Technic pin connectors. This looks surprisingly good even with the different levels of textures in play.

And don’t miss the action at the back of the market, with soldiers and merchants going about their business.

A cute castle by the cute sea

Microscale castles are ever-present and always pleasant to look at, but often the width of LEGO bricks works best for minifig-scaled castle walls, making ones built at smaller scales too blocky. Aaron Newman has gone around this problem by using panels and the bottom sides of bricks as walls proportionate to the scale.

The build has a good sense of clutter naturally present in medieval castles, but my favourite part is the fortifications on the towers; the creation is made for a competition that stipulates using silver goblet pieces in unique ways, but all I can see is the brilliant use of upturned 2×2 round bricks!

A Peasant’s Castle

If you were a medieval peasant, would you prefer a cozy hut in the village, or a windmill in the countryside? Though it may be a bit drafty, I think I’d pick the windmill. At least, I’d pick this one, built by Sandro Damiano! With its quaint cabin and cobblestone path, it’s a peasant’s castle!

Sandro does a great job of capturing all the little dimensions and levels. It keeps your eyes wandering around the scene. This garden is full of tasty veggies to take to the market!

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Cross the bridge and find yourself

Many people use LEGO building as a form of meditation, but not quite as many use LEGO to literally build meditation. Andreas Lenander definitely uses it at least for the latter — that we can be sure of. The build is very atmospheric, but secretly, it is also quite technical in its construction.

The Journey represents an old traveler crossing a bridge amongst blooming trees. The surrounding landscape is not bad, but the bridge is really the impressive part. The railing uses Elves fence pieces with a well-known curve technique. The bridge itself is just stacked plates carefully curved to follow the railing’s curvature – a construction that seems very unstable, but Andreas says that it actually holds together quite well. The trees should be noted too, densely packed with flowers, nicely designed trunks, and lanterns hanging off the branches.

Which raven do you choose?

Most of us are familiar with princesses kissing frogs in fairytales to save their beloved from a curse, but this build by Revan New introduced me to a different, unique story, in which the girl is tasked by a sorcerer to guess her lover amongst four of the sorcerer’s apprentices, turned into ravens.

The creation is not a perfectly “realistic” recreation of the fairytale scene, as Revan adds expressive, artistic accents to the build. The snow on the edges of the beautifully constructed walls seems to have little logical relation to the scene itself, instead capturing the atmosphere and emotional aspects of the story. A few splashes of brown help to break up the build colour-wise without making it inapropriately cheerful, and the window is especially well integrated into the wall. The figures are well built too, with great details like the sorcerer’s boots and belt buckle, but most importantly, they are very expressive.

Elven underworld, so far from the stars

The Lord of the Rings is constantly present as a theme in LEGO fan creations, although less so in the past year or two. As an extension, other stories of Tolkien’s universe find their way into bricks, notably and in this example by Carter Witz, the Silmarillion. The build represents the gates of Menegroth, the thousand caverns, which is one of the most beautiful motives in the Silmarillion in my opinion.

As the obvious centerpiece of the diorama the stone door is beautifully crafted with carefully and effectively placed sand blue pieces to break up the gray, as well as some neat part uses, from the shields and a ribbed hose above the gates to the moustaches used as door rings. I should point out the landscaping, which has a good mixture of greens for a realistic grass effect and a neat tree with simple yet effective roots extending beyond the base.

The peaceful side of orcs’ life

The German online roleplaying game Nine Kingdoms (Neun Reiche) consistently provides high quality castle-themed creations of all sorts, from standard to quite unique. This build by Patrick B. is somewhere in between, containing basic village life elements, but in the shape of an orc settlement, which is not your everyday castle creation.

Somehow, Patrick has managed to make lime green look like grass, which is nearly impossible. Combined with light green, it gives a very unique look to the diorama. There are a lot of clever uses of parts like large figure and minifigure hair pieces as stones and gears as flowers. The hut has some exotic elements as well, most notably some scala parts and a DUPLO bearskin. It looks perfect and I think I would not need orcs strolling around it to know they lived there.

Night gathers and now my watch begins...

… for this night and all the nights to come. Even if they haven’t taken the oath themselves, it’s clear that at least three members of the Vancouver LEGO Club (Keith Reed, David Guedes, and David Gagnon), have a soft place in their hearts for the men of the Night’s Watch. Back in 2016, the three Canadian builders constructed this massive version of the Wall from Game of Thrones.

Although it’s mostly monochromatic, this gigantic LEGO creation is anything but boring. The wall itself has an excellent ice-like texture (a result of the SNOT building technique using plates) and appears thick enough to withstand a serious siege. In addition to being huge, this build also features a ton of details and action. At the base of the wall sits a fully-fortified Castle Black, while Tyrion Lannister relieves himself at the top the wall. Beyond, Jon and Samwell take their vows and a wildling army swarms the woods with brick-built mammoths.

Click to see more images of this huge build along with some close ups to show the action

It’s still hip to be square

The latest trend for castle creations have focused on organic and colorful shapes, showcasing complex building techniques and intensive parts usage. A leading pioneer of this style is Derfel Cadarn, who created a guide in 2011 showcasing some detailed techniques that many builders have referenced. Before then castles used to be square, which you can see in examples from prolific builders from the previous decade such as Rocko, Darkspawn, and even hachi from the early 2000’s.

This brings me to the latest creation by Brother Steven, which purposely features simpler building techniques reminiscent of the old style of castles. The white walls and the staggered towers are strikingly solid features, an effect that is best achieved with the bread and butter technique of stacking one brick on top of another.

Mesopotamian manor

Where do the nobles of Mesopotamia gather to discuss politics or who owns the most camels? Sam Malmberg will show you the way to his desert retreat where drinks are served and the dancers are divine.

This build features prominent Arabian-themed architectural elements, and the use of colored paneling adds character to the predominantly gray structure. The slanted stone railing and the angled brown awnings are great techniques that have broad architectural applications.