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.

Well-made LEGO trees really get my gears going

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.

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Weather the winter in this medieval cottage

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.

Fresh building techniques make for a very modern medieval workshop

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!

For milling your tiny grain you need a tiny water mill

Microscale is an interesting LEGO building style for a few reasons. It lets a builder recreate ideas they could not otherwise due to the constraints of their collection or time. It also presents a unique challenge of capturing shapes and textures with only a few pieces, which would be easier (but perhaps less rewarding?) at larger scales. With this water mill by Robert4168/Garmadon, the grass and the front face of the house have the characteristic simple microscale charm, but the house’s left wall, the hill with the cute fence, and especially the thatched roof have a texture to them that even larger scale creations would envy sometimes.

A spectacular avail of scale

When you view a LEGO model in person, you’re limited to seeing things as they appear to the naked eye. In the digital realm, especially when a healthy amount of photoshopping is involved, scale is just as ripe for manipulation and modification as anything else. With Koen‘s latest build, it’s obvious that this point is understood fully.

From the castle on the left to the massive flag in the middle, the final product here is just as much the finished photo as it is the builds on their own. That’s neat.

It’s worth noting that this creation was made for the LEGO Ideas logo contest that we wrote about recently. While it’s hard to say if LEGO Ideas would be open to adopting such a maximalist logo, this is certainly a stellar build.

The eternal struggle rages on

The Warcraft series of games has gone through so much history that it almost lost the corny cartoony nature of the original, especially with the decade of World of Warcraft expansions under its belt. A simple matter of orcs versus humans has been turned around and inside-out so many times that some times, it is just refreshing to see someone like Kalais go to the roots and throw all depth of story out the window for the sake of pure fun. I do often complain how there are not enough LEGO Warcraft creations out there for such a rich universe, but lately this void has been filled adequately.

There is so much action going on in the scene and the iconic blue roofs of the castle look nice, but my favourite part is the portal on the right-hand side of the diorama with a red mist effect on the edges and ominous statues positioned right besides it.

Set a course for the East

We’ve perhaps not seen as many Eastern-influenced LEGO creations as we might have expected following the LEGO Ninjago Movie and sets, but here’s an excellent medieval/Oriental ship creation from ElviN. The colour scheme is a little sombre, but that’s helping me imagine this her slipping her moorings before dawn and heading silently out of harbour, bound for faraway shores on nefarious Imperial business. The vessel’s dragon prow is nicely-done, and the circular entrances, lanterns, and roofing all contribute to an Eastern feel to the ship’s lines. But my favourite touch is the line of oars — protruding from smart oarholes, and well put-together from clips and tiles.

The Great Wall of Forlorn Empire

The Great Wall of China requires no special introduction, and neither does Forlorn Empire. As the great wall can bee seen from space, so can mr. Forlorn’s building skills. While this segment of the Great Wall may not be the largest we have seen in LEGO, it is surely one of the best (and frankly, keeping up this level of detail and texture on an excessively large scale would turn out to be too much for pretty much any builder) in the terms of construction quality.

As I have mentioned, it boasts a high level of details and some nice angles, but what I like best is the roofed hut on the top of the tower – the roof technique is a stroke of genius. To top it all off, the builder has added a minifig on guard duty to fill the scene with life.

Colonizing the wilderness

Wochenender presents the first part of a planned series of builds illustrating the colonization of a remote wilderness on a fictional island called Sølvheim. This display showcases the expertly crafted landscape which features melting snow elements — something I haven’t seen explored much by builders, making this an interesting fresh concept. The wooden port and watchtower are the only structures at the moment, but I look forward to their evolution in the upcoming dioramas.

Sometimes you just need some time for yourself. In a castle.

And I know of no better castle for this purpose than this cute “little” fort built by Marco den Besten really has everything you could want. Built in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by a picturesque village and defensible to boot!

Every singe aspect of the diorama has something unique that deserves to be talked about. The castle’s textures are great, but even more so I love the architecture and layout of it, with tightly packed towers and walls that give an impression of a very sturdy construction. The houses are mostly simple, but the new quarter-circle tiles add a really nice texture. The best part of all, though, are the trees. I have never seen the dark green root piece used for pine trees and I have no idea what the actual technique behind it is, but it just seems so obvious now that I see it.

Autumn is the most beautiful season in the Allanar forest

With the Colossal Castle Contest XV starting two weeks ago, the greatest castle builders ready their bricks to compete in what is probably the largest themed annual LEGO competition. Lasting till the end of the year, it gets countless high quality submissions every time. John Snyder joins the competition with a diorama of an elven village, setting the bar high for any still considering to compete.

Unconventional colour use and stark contrasts are definitely the first parts to catch one’s eye, but there is more to see beyond that. I am sure many people will take a closer look at this creation, but some details I believe should be pointed out range from blue minifig legs used as waterfalls to the buildings’ textures and the somewhat simple but highly effective autumn trees. Indeed, taking your time and exploring every little corner of this diorama will surely be a nice experience.

A truly tiny village in the mountains

Break out your magnifying glass for Patrick B‘s mountain village. This miniscule hamlet has a distinct architectural style, with black-clad longhouses of a faintly nordic design. From the palisade wall made of Technic pins to the longhouse butresses made of teeth and a crossbow, Patrick has put all manner of elements to good use.

While the pickaxe as a tiny footbridge is quite clever, and the scraggly wizard’s tower made of robot hands looks appropriately sinister, my favorite details are definitely the covered wagons made with half-round 1×1 tiles. The grooved edges of the tiles fit perfectly as wagon bows under the grey bonnet, and the tile’s hollow underside gives the illusion of an interior.