John Snyder takes a fantasy spin on Islamic architecture with Al-Danah, a fantasy fortress. His fabled fortress is exceptional in several aspects: lovely choices of color, simplified cartoony textures, and a unique cloud technique that makes its elevated location convincing.
Most LEGO castles appear to lie in the grassy woodlands of Northern Europe, the sun-baked sands of the Sahara, or in a dizzyingly vibrant fantasy land. Brick Monkeys, however, is ready to take us somewhere new. This castle is set in what appears to be a drought-stricken clime where you can almost feel the dry leaves crackling as they fall from the trees.
The extensive use of earth tones blends well in this arid scene. The castle itself features many great details also, from the stained glass windows of the great hall to the ramshackle upper roof of the round turret, where plates have been layered haphazardly for a unique texture.
Take a stroll through the medieval village of Daydelon created by Isaac S. Here you’ll find a bakery, general store, and even a toy shop. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the gallery where you’ll see neatly crafted vignettes of the building interiors that slide out of the buildings themselves. Just don’t forget to shake off all the snow from your boots when you go inside!
I bet you’re taking a second, or even a third, close look at this magical floating castle to analyse how it all holds up. LEGO wizard jaapxaap must have dreamt of this one night and woke up to make it a reality. The colour choices of white and gold, plus the bright blue of the domes and trimming helps provide an additional subconscious cue, elevating it into the skies above the clouds. A brilliant idea turned into reality with the execution of beautiful engineering.
Sometimes the old ones really are the best ones. Eggy Pop says this microscale LEGO castle was originally built back in 2009, but he’s now posted a cleaned-up photo of the creation. The low angle on this photography creates a misleading sense of scale in the image — this model looks much bigger than it really is. The white walls and dark blue roofs of the castle offer a lovely contrast to the surrounding sea. And the technique of placing coloured plates beneath the trans-blue tiles of the sea makes for some welcoming beaches.
I have no idea what the tiny attacking army is thinking, but apparently they are trying to besiege this cute, impenetrable fortress. The scene, built by Timothy Shortell, is as complete as they get. There’s ingenious use of parts in the siege equipment, the dark green plains are dynamic, the castle is highly detailed and, most of all, the intense cliffs at the back are amazing. I have never believed them to be useful in a serious creation, but at this scale and level of texture, the rocky wedges (part 64867) at the left and right ends of the cliffs actually look perfect.
This grand build of a castle titled “The Cliff” by Cao Mianyu is simply breathtaking in not only scale but detail. While most large builds feature a plan to be showcased for a convention of sorts, this build was built without any intention of a showcase! This labour of love took one year to build and an estimated 3 days a week of effort with 3 very focused hours on each of those days. One just wonders where does a person amass such patience and accumulation of bricks. Believe it or not, it started out with online inspirational views of castles, and with an intention to just build a castle with a waterfall, while working on the rock landscaping. Soon enough one thing led to another, the cliff and gate and… Well, the results speak for themselves. The final build consists of a grape vineyard, a pumpkin patch, a blacksmith, and even a tavern!
Hit the jump to see more details behind this stunning build
Video games are a constant inspiration for LEGO builders, as they are sometimes for me. I do try to avoid pop-cultural inspiration in my builds, striving to keep them as unique and imaginative as possible. But for a game that has been with me for about half my life, Diablo 2, an exception could be made. The build is a somewhat loose recreation of the titular final boss, Diablo – the Lord of Terror. The reason for this looseness of recreation is timing, more about which can be read by clicking on the picture, whose description has said information.
I am quite proud of the muscular torso design (let us not speak of the back) and the legs look good on some photos in my opinion, but the arms kind of need a rework, which would be done if time permitted so. I wish there were more pieces in dark red (and that I would own them!) so that I could have done a more gradual transition from black to red, because the current situation makes it nearly impossible to photograph, with black claws, horns and spikes standing out so much, that they get mixed up in pictures.
Surely there’s a strong positive correlation between the number of intricate and charming medieval LEGO creations one comes across and how many times one smiles in a given day. Or at least I think there’s something to that. This wonderful scene by “kofi” certainly brought a smile to my face.
This build is quite interesting as it doesn’t overly emphasize any one structure or area in an extreme fashion. While the lovely windmill (that moves by the way) and other small structure certainly draw the eye in, as a whole it’s a very balanced build with lots going on. The subtle gradient on the ground down to the right really draws the eye in too.
The more I look at this build, the more I can’t help but think that I wish photographing LEGO builds in 360 was more of a thing. Wouldn’t it be neat to get a look at this build from all sides? Maybe take a closer look from the top looking down? Ah what the future holds.
There’s two things LEGO Castle fans love to build: Trees and walls. Showing us interesting ways to do both is this microscale hideout by Dr. Zarkow. The wooden walls around the main structures are simple enough — just brown bars inserted into the hollow studs of flower pieces with some rubber bands for effect. The custom tree builds are the standout, providing a great reason why we need gears in every colour, and the two buildings are great little medieval builds. The base and the subtle twist of the chimney on the one building are nice touches too.
Winter is gaining a foothold on the northern hemisphere, and with it comes winter-themed LEGO creations, most notably so in the LEGO Castle theme. A great example is this recent winter cottage built by Andreas Lenander, complete with snow-covered landscape and minifigures going about their daily errands.
Surprisingly enough, the white walls of the upper floor of the cottage don’t blend with the snow too much, an effect achieved by using dramatically different textures for the two. There is just enough details around the base to show that this is more than just a house on a plate, and the landscape spilling out of the borders helps a lot to bring life to the scene. The best part, however, must be the roof – the tiles used are only half-way pushed in to give a very realistic texture, although it is not obvious whether the roof is thatched or just tiled with very bright tiles.
There is no shortage of excellent medieval LEGO creations out there, and at first look this metallurgic workshop by Markus Rollbühler might not stand out. Take a closer look however, and you’ll spot the cobblestone foundation is made out of silver ingots. The cascade of amazing details spirals out of control from here…
The tree is in a league of its own, built from several hundred pieces with every single leaf captured using green feathers. The chest lids used as roof eaves are a stroke of genius, and there are great textures throughout the build. Details like the birdhouse and the wheelbarrow are amazing, but the entire build is filled with ingenious techniques and solutions — well worth a closer look.
See more of this great medieval workshop!
