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Peligrad Castle
Bruce 29 VII 10
Edward Conquest, better known as Reejoc, is an AFOL from Birmingham, England. He recently went on a trip through Eastern Europe, and visited a number of castles.
He was particularly struck by the Neo-Renaissance Peleş Castle in Romania.
He'd never seen anything like it in LEGO form, so he this became the inspiration for his latest MOC, Peligrad Castle.
He wanted to get away from all gray castles and include a lot of detail, without obscuring the overall form.
I think we can all agree he was quite successful.
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Village
Bruce 22 VII 10
Hardegon is an AFOL from Pilsen in the Czech Republic.
One of his favorite themes is Vikings, and he draws on their history and architecture to build a number of related MOCs, such as his recent
Village.
Hardegon is a member of Kostky.org and all of his MOCs can be found in his
Brickshelf gallery.
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Weekly Set Re-Review: Wolfpack Renegades
Ben E. 18 VII 10
Join the weekly Classic Castle set review discussion.
Please post your opinions on the set play ability, piece selection, design, etc.
Which sets stand up to our catapult of critique and which ones crumble in shame!
This week’s set is 6038 Wolfpack Renegades.
Wolfpack Renegades, released in 1992, is a smuggling cart for the Wolfpack.
It contains a secret compartment for a minifigure or treasure.
The set also has a driver, a foot soldier, and accessories.
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Schloß Neuschwanstein
Bruce 14 VII 10
If you attended BrickWorld 2010, or if you've looked at photos, you've surely been amazed by Bob Carney's most recent castle,
Schloß Neuschwanstein.
This project started in January of this year, and was completed just in time to show to other AFOLs in Chicago.
Neuschwanstein is not truly from the Castle era, since this was a palace built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the nineteenth century, but it is amazingly beautiful,
nestled up against the north face of the Alps in southern Germany.
Dr. Carney is a long-time AFOL, starting when he built LEGO with his kids in the 70's, and also has a great interest in the medieval era and castle construction.
Over the course of four weeks in two trips in 2000 and 2003, he and his wife visited about a hundred castles in Scotland and Ireland.
He extensively researches each of his LEGO projects, and has now recreated 128 historic castles in LEGO form.
These can all be found on his site, LEGO Castles.
Every fan of the LEGO Castle theme should spend time on his site to see his MOCs, learn about the history behind these castles, and even get plans to build your own.
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Micro Modules
Bruce 8 VII 10
Kecia Christine Hansen is an AFOL from the land of LEGO, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Over the past couple of years she has come up with a modular system to build microscale castles.
She felt these modules were a perfect fit for the concept of LEGO Design by Me, so with a slight redesign,
she has used LEGO Digital Designer to come up with over fifty different units based on 16x16 bases.
Defined connection points and the placement of roads and city walls allow these to be brought together in endless configurations to make huge, er, tiny walled cities.
You can get the files for twenty-five of her modules by going to the
Design by Me gallery and searching on the usename lara34
(I found that you have to actually click the green triangle rather than simply hitting the return key, or else LEGO's search engine comes up with no matches).
You can even then order these modules from LEGO. She's already bought several and plans to buy more, so she can turn her virtual designs into ABS reality.
In addition to displaying her MOCs in her Brickshelf gallery,
Kecia runs Adventurers.dk, a site and forum devoted to the LEGO Adventurers and Indiana Jones themes.
She also has a personal site, BrickPortal, which she says is out of date and due for a site redesign,
and is a member of Lugnet.
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Arte em Peças
Bruce 2 VII 10
From June 7 to 13, members of the Portuguese group Comunidade 0937
presented their work at the Cultural Center in Paredes de Coura.
This Arte em Peças (or Art Pieces) event was dominated by large group displays from each LEGO theme.
The Castle layout was organized by NaNeto and contained MOCs by
Tânia Baixinho, Luis Baixinho,
ZTP, Francisco & António Martins, Lumiosa,
Eínon, M. Guerreiro,
Marcos Bessa, Rupi,
Noro, and Romão.
Their work covers a hundred 48x48 baseplates in an L-shaped layout
four meters in one direction and six meters in the other.
Along the south arm (assuming a traditional east-west orientation for the cathedral),
figs live peacefully in a beautiful wooded countryside, while to the east an epic battle rages.
In the center sits a walled city,
dominated by the Cathedral of St Macário.
This display was a year in the planning, and they've already started laying the groundwork for next year's event.
I can't wait to see how this grows from year to year.
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