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IndyLUG's Castle layout @ C&P Expo

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:29 am
by Crazylegoman
Wow! I come here to post about our Castle layout, and I find that people are already talking about it. (see thread)

On the weekend of February 25 & 26, IndyLUG displayed at the Child and Parent Expo at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. (Bruce, you hit the nail on the head.) Half of the layout was Castle/medieval themed.

Thanks to Matt Bieda, Jeramy Spurgeon, David Gregory, John Kyle, Alex Taylor, Nathan Theising and Leah Cardaci for making this year's Castle layout another great one.

The Castle area started off with a sea full of Vikings and pirates invading the shore. I've seen large groups of ships before (Evil Stevie's Pirate Game at Brickfest), but there's just something super cool when you see so many grouped together on blue baseplates. To me there's also something a little more foreboding about the Viking ships as opposed to the pirate ships; I think it's mainly the sails.

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The layout also included a castle with a CCC wall around it. The castle is Matt's, and there were several people who made wall sections.

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In the center of the Castle area we had a scene from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The scene was, of course, the huge battle from the end of the movie/book. We were hoping that lots of kids would have seen the movie in the past few months and would recognize the characters from it, and we were delighted when many of them did.
Kanduu wrote:Aslan is...interesting, but an excellent size.

The main thing was the title, "Reincarnated Soldiers." I'd go with "brought back to life," or "de-rockified" :wink:, much more quickly.
Yeah, I was sort of torn between actually building an Aslan and using the new Duplo one. As you can see, I chose the easy Duplo route, hoping that a single piece lion would be more recognizable to all the kids at the Expo. As for the diction with the ex-statue creatures, the word "reincarnate" literally means to bring back into flesh, but your word "de-rockified" sounds more fun, so I think I'll use that from now on. :wink:
wunztwice wrote:I also really like the use of Duplo elements in this set-up. There are duplo knights, and the Duplo Aslan is a great size. The various bad dudes are also perdy great, and in good assortment.

One of my only gripes is the size of the ice palace. While a neat MOC the scale is way off. I would have preferred possibly just a face, or front, or gateway or something for the same about of bricks. More detail could be added, and the scale would be better.
Good eye on noticing the black Duplo knights. There's actyually a whole bunch of Duplo AND Quatro under the green hill that the female centaurs and Susan are on. I had a lot of fun making all the bad guys for the White Witch's army. Unfortunately, lots of kids over the weekend couldn't see past the movie icons that some of the figures carry. I was constantly bombarded with questions like, "Why is Jar-Jar in the army?" "What's the green goblin doing there?" "Why is Yoda on this side instead of the Space side?" And I thought that kids were supposed to have better imaginations that us grown-ups!

As for the White Witch's ice castle, I'll be the first to admit that it could do with a lot of improvement. The reason for its small size and underwhelming design is time. I was in a crunch to get things done the week before the show, so the ice castle was thrown together during a couple of nights after work.
Lord Nev wrote:I especially like how you used Gryffindor sheilds and crusader bodies as Aslan's humans.
I tried to make as many of the fauns and dwarves with Crusader lion torsos as I could (which involved a lot of bidding on ebay during the weeks leading up to the show). By a neat coincidence, the Harry Potter Griffindor torso works great with the Ogel shoulder armor, because the lame collar is hidden, but the rampaging lion emblem shows.

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And what Castle layout is complete without lots of castles, fortresses and other various medieval structures dotting the landscape?

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Then there's all the neato minifigs that you just have to have.

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Last but not least, the far end of the layout had a dropped down area. It's always nice to have some way to add differences in elevation to the terrain. Be sure to check out Alex's "double dragon" that he made from combining 2 of the ones that come with the Viking catapult. Lots of the nice minifigs in this valley area are Matt's.
ottoatm wrote:Oh... and it's worth mentioning... the landscaping is very nice.
Thanks. The dropped down area is actually a section that Jeramy built for a train layout. He made it for the National Model Train show last summer for his cool trestle bridge to go accross. Remove the train bridge and voila--you have a sweet valley.

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Here are links to the whole Castle area folder and the whole Narnia folder.

Enjoy!

David "Fuzzy" Gregory

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:20 am
by wunztwice
HEy thanks for posting this. I was wondering what was in the background of the Narnia pics. BTW I, in no way, was trying to discredit you or anyone else for the ice palace, I just thought perhaps just the entrance or something might have proven better for the amount of bricks. And that's too sad about all the kids and the characters.

Anyway, onwards... I like the baron's keep and the use of the 6090 baseplate, it's a hard one to incorporate sometimes. It's neat to see that sandy beach, too often I see a lack of sand (but what is that door in the rock behind it?) The simple house designs are nice and effective, and probably perdy historically accurate as well. The large castle is cool, and it's gatehouse reminds me of my own. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=164660
All of the dragons are great, I think I like the two-headed one the best, you don't often see one of those. Although the drago lair is well detailed with all the armor, etc. I like the use of speckled silver cheek-guard helmets for the elves, good idea. Incorporating the octupus into the giant squid was ingenious. There is great rock work (and waterfall) in the lowered area, good river shaping too. The use of duplo in teh landscaping is interesting too, you don't see that often. The black castle is reminisent of the 6086 castle. I like the humor in the sea serphent about to eat the pirates, but I would have loved to see it actualy coming out of the water!

Overall great job. I always like seeing these larger set-ups, and you guys did well. Huge enough to impress, but with enough smaller details to entertain.

So, sorry for the choppiness, I hope it wasn't too hard to read. I'm working on term papers, and I didn't feel like wording particularly well.

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:38 am
by Slobey
I really like large displays and this is no exception! The work that has obviously been put into this is amazing.

I'm currently at the start of a large display (7 x 14 baseplates- 32x32 stud) of a castle/town/forest scene and have my own versions of a dragon lair and stonehenge type structure planned.

Your MOC has certainly given me inspiration :D Well done!

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:55 pm
by architect
Hi David,

The creations look great. This type of thread discussing an event, even discussing the mocs in the event, belongs in the "Displays" forum. I will move the thread there. Thanks.

Ben

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:51 pm
by Crazylegoman
wunztwice wrote:It's neat to see that sandy beach, too often I see a lack of sand (but what is that door in the rock behind it?)
I think the door is supposed to lead to some sort of beach cave. I'm not sure though, since I didn't build any of the beach sections.
architect wrote:The creations look great. This type of thread discussing an event, even discussing the mocs in the event, belongs in the "Displays" forum. I will move the thread there. Thanks.
Sorry, I didn't realize. Thanks.