Inspired by classic Dungeons and Dragons archetypes, Guy Himber’s (aka V&A Steamworks) roving party of adventurers look like they will make quick work of any trouble they encounter. Built in Guy’s unique “Shakespeare” scale, the figures allow for plenty of detail and pose-ability. Thus far, the characters include a stalwart and stocky Dwarven King, a charismatic golden plate-mailed Paladin, and a dexterous dragon-helmeted Archer, with Guy promising more to come, including a Lich King.
Taking the train medium back to the days of yore, this lovely creation by Matt and Anita Henry (aka Matt_Henry_Aus and tikitikitembo, respectively) makes excellent use of train motors and tracks in a medieval pastoral setting. It’s great to see Castle fans branch out and add motorized bits to their creations.
Oftentimes we see applications of a new building technique on a small experimental model, but rarely do we see them applied to a large creation. I am delighted to see tiberium_blue‘s T’Met Monastery, which not only uses Technic liftarms for its massive stone walls but also depicts a refreshing subject of a fictional sanctuary inspired by a Star Trek Vulcan monastery.
Time is running thin for Classic-Castle‘s Micro Castle Contest, and I assure you, I do not envy the judge(s). Lolino weighs in with this impressive interpretation of Tartarus.
Wikipedia provides an excellent explanation of the location and purpose for any who are interested!
Over the last few weeks, Sean and Steph Mayo (aka Siercon and Coral) have been creating a strikingly skillful set of microscale dioramas for the Microscale Castle Contest at Classic-Castle, with each vignette depicting a scene from an epic struggle for a fantasy world. All eight of the individual scenes fit together, adjoining to create a complete panorama of the battle.
There are too many imaginative and implausibly tiny details to highlight them all, so be sure to check out the photographs carefully. A few of my favorites include the mounted knight, the war elephants, the stairs to the dark castle, and of course, the microscale angelic warrior (below). This is microscale building at its finest.
And, as if all this wasn’t enough, Sean and Steph have teamed up with Blake Baer (aka Blake’s Baericks), who is creating the second part of this saga. Although Blake has so far only shown the first vignette of a planned five, his work looks like it will be right on par with the first segment, so keep an eye on his photostream to see the rest.
This little treat was posted for Classic-Castle‘s Microscale Castle Contest by Toltomeja.
The presentation on this is quite lovely. All of the focus is on the castle, foregoing the need for landscaping. It just works for this build!
Dave and Stacy Sterling (aka ToT-LUG) have charmingly recreated the time-worn tale of the Deathly Hallows, as portrayed in the seventh Harry Potter novel. If you’re not familiar with the story, be sure to view the pictures in order, as Dave and Stacy have recounted the legend for us below the photos.
This scene was built as an entry for the 2011 MocOlympics, an annual competition which is bringing out a host of fantastic creations. It will be well worth your time to check out all the other great creations on display.
Over at Eurobricks Luke Hutchinson (Derfel Cardarn) is running a ‘live’ how-to guide to building a medieval village. It’s a great way to learn some new tricks and follow a builders approach to construction. Just be ready to buy a lot of 1×1 rounds if you want to build as you read.
Marko Velic posted this amazing trebuchet a week ago. Today I finally get around to posting it. It’s exceedingly clever because it works, is only 120 pieces and you can vote for it on Cuusoo.
Each year, Classic-Castle runs a number of contests. Right now we’re in the middle of the Mini-Castle Contest, a sort of precursor to the massive Colossal Castle Contest. You’ve still got until October 31 to enter!
In the meantime, I invite you to check out some of the competition. Ru Corder has posted this lovely micro-scale landscape/castle mix-up. I’m in love with the timber fence-line.
I have to say that Castle totally rocked this year. This was my sixth year being involved in the Castle section at the Con and I think this was the best so far. Everyone involved really stepped it up this year and they all deserve a round of applause.
The quantity of creations was overwhelming and we had to beg, borrow and steal more area (Many thanks to Steve Walker and Wayne Hussey for making that process virtually painless and to Scott Fowler for graciously giving up part of the neighboring Pirate tables). But quantity doesn’t really say much about a section. It was the quality of the creations that really blew me away. I knew that the builders who were coming had skills but they all out did themselves.
Our collaborative layout was packed with so many builds, flowing from one to another, that it was difficult to see everything and the section of stand-alone models was outstanding.
We had three categories for which builders could win a trophy and a LEGO set. The voters were very hard pressed to make their selections, but they finally did and the winning models and builders were:
Best Overall Castle Creation:
Hogwart’s Castle by Alice Finch
Photo of Hogwart’s by Bill Ward
Best Community Contribution:
Al Wahat by Sebastiaan Arts
Best Fly-in Dragon:
Whiskers by Myself
Hearty thanks also need to go out to the following people and companies: To Will of Brickarms for the awesome contributor packs and prototype weapons that he made especially for us, to Ryan of BrickWarriors for the sweet fig packs he donated and to Learning Loft Toys for the Lego set prizes they donated to our winners.
We all had a great time and plan to make next year even bigger and better. So if you want to ‘Go Medieval’ at BrickCon next year, please join us! BrickCon!!!
