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Castle Battle Contest
Bruce 14 VI 13
Hey, several builders, including some CC members, are sponsoring a Castle Battle Contest in the LEGO War. Flickr group. Go there to read all of the rules and submit your entries in the 'Epic Siege,' 'Devastating Raid,' 'Single Stud Battle,' and 'Ultimate Battle' categories. Also, a quick reminder, you've got two more weeks to submit your entry for our own Classic-Castle Calendar Contest.
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Huge Keep
Bruce 6 VI 13
To simply call this creation a huge keep is perhaps the understatement of the year. In ages past, artists would often have a noble patron, so they could essentially create what they want without worrying about resources. That's the situation that Clarkryang is lucky enough to have. A wealthy castle fan has commissioned him to build a massive castle in a multi-year project. Clarkryang posted the Gatehouse three years ago, and now has posted the keep. He estimates that when this is all finished, the castle will cover a footprint of 5 feet by 7 feet. It's being built in modular sections, and he is now working on the curtain walls. Eventually we'll see the whole thing put together, and Clarkryang anticipates that it will be brought to AFOL conventions. Be sure to check out all of the details - did I forget to mention that it has a fully detailed interior? All of Clarkryang's MOCs can be found on Flickr and Brickshelf.
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Wrath of the Titans contest results
Bruce 16 V 13
Any Castlers also interested in ancient building should check the Greco-Roman LEGO group on Flickr. They've recently announced the winners of the Wrath of the Titans contest.
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Samostrel Castle
Bruce 8 V 13
Tommy Matheson is a TFOL from Minnesota, in the US, who you probably know by his forum handle Eklund. His most recent build is Samostrel Castle, which reinforces the Garheim border in the LCC. His inspiration drew in part on DNL's Foyk Castle, as he felt he could build something of a similar scale. He also wanted to experiment with some techniques that were new for him, including the arrow slits and the rockwork, and include his ballista. All of Tommy's MOCs can be found in his Flickr stream.
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Helm's Deep story tower
Bruce 3 V 13
Matthew Oh is a TFOL who goes by mpoh98 in our forum. When the Post-MOCathalon contest came up on MOCpages, he wanted to enter the 'illustrate your favorite book' category, and the Lord of the Rings was an obvious choice to him. He wrote, "The whole concept of a story tower was fascinating to me, with how you have to make each level support the one on top. The top level was one of the hardest, but most fun one to build, since I did a forced perspective on a 16x16 plate." The ultimate result was his Helm's Deep tower (top level shown above). All of Matthew's MOCs can be found on Flickr, Brickshelf, and MOCpages.
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House Lannister
Bruce 30 IV 13
Dave Ware, who you may know by his handle BrickWares, is an AFOL from Calgary, Alberta. For several years he's been building mosaics, and he's built up a reputation, winning back to back 'Best Mosaic' awards at BrickCon. As his work became known, he started getting commissions to build custom mosaics - last year he built a dozen commissioned pieces, and he's expecting to do about the same this year. This past weekend, he was asked to create something for an event at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. "An Evening With the Lannisters" brought together a couple hundred Game of Thrones fans for a chance to meet Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey from the HBO adaptation. Dave was inspired by the crest of House Lannister, and he even got it autographed by Peter Dinklage. He said he may be bringing this to BrickCon this year if he's able to go, so some of you may get a chance to see this piece in person.
Dave is a member of SALUG, and he is also a contributor to MosaicBricks. He regularly visits the main AFOL sites, but isn't active in any particular forum. In addition to mosaics, he also loves building modular buildings and rustic landscapes. All of his MOCs can be found on Flickr. If you're interested in seeing more about his mosaics, or if you are interested in commissioning a mosaic, please visit his BrickWares Custom Mosaics site.
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Assassination Of Henri IV
Bruce 25 IV 13
In the 2013 MOCathalon, one of the categories was "The Ides of March. Great men, falls by treason and conspiracy! Tell us a story of assassination, treason and crime..." TheBrickAvenger (Cyrille) is a history buff, and he was inspired to reach back into French history for the Assassination Of Henri IV. Henri was an important figure in the French Wars of Religion, which he helped bring to a close. On May 14, 1610, his carriage was delayed by congestion in the streets of Paris, and a fanatical assassin took advantage of the chance to leap in and stab him, as shown in this MOC. Cyrille drew on the design of the Carnavalet museum for the backdrop of this scene.
TheBrickAvenger is a French AFOL, where he is a member of BrickPirate. He also is a member of Classic-Castle and EuroBricks. His MOCs can be found on Flickr, Brickshelf and MOCpages. By the way, his team did quite well in the MOCathalon, coming in fourth overall.
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New admins - Blue and Dave
CC Admins 17 IV 13
Please join us in welcoming the two newest members of the Classic-Castle admin team, Blue and Dave. They will join with the other admins in creating content for the site, helping guide site policy, and conducting official CC events such as our annual contest.
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Narnia bookends
Bruce 9 IV 13
Annie is a TFOL from North Carolina in the US. In last month's MOCathalon, one of the categories challenged builders to come up with a pair of bookends. Annie loves the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, so she wanted to come up with an iconic scene based on the Pauline Baynes illustrations in the books. What's more natural than a wardrobe, leading into a wintery magic world, and so she came up with these. All of Annie's work can be found on MOCpages and Flickr.
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Castle Grayskull
Bruce 4 IV 13
By the power of Grayskull! Forum members in their 30's or so probably fondly remember the original He-Man cartoon and toys, and may even have played with the Mattel Castle Grayskull playset. Forum member Fraslund (David Frank) has done even better, creating a fully realized LEGO version, complete with interior. Now all he needs is Skeletor.
Dave is active in SEALUG and his MOCs can be found on Flickr. Some of his older work is on Brickshelf.
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Wrath of the Titans Contest
Bruce 22 III 13
If you're an ancient builder, you should definitely be aware of the Greco-Roman LEGO group on Flickr. They're currently holding the Wrath of the Titans Contest. You've got just over a month to build in micro, vignette/bignette, and massive scales. Good luck!
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Gold Samurai
Bruce 15 III 13
NickGreat is an AFOL from Singapore who has a particular love for minifigs. He's made a great series of custom samurai, going all the way back to CCC II. In recent years he's been in a bit of a dark age, but was inspired when recently rewatching Gladiator. The women archers in gold platemail sent him back to customizing, and he came up with this Gold Samurai. in putting her together, he wanted her to remain playable and use elements that LEGO might produce, like the flag based on clips and the working double katana sheath. By the way, the character on the shield and flag translates as 'gold'. All of NickGreat's customs and other MOCs can be found on Brickshelf and MOCpages.
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León Cathedral
CC Admins 11 III 13
Aitoruco is an AFOL from Spain who is active in the Asociación cultural de aficionados a construcciones LEGO de España, aka ALE! and HispaLUG. A while ago he helped design a poster for a LEGO gathering in León, Spain, and he used LDD to recreate the facade of the local cathedral. A friend suggested he should do the whole cathedral, and he decided to take up the challenge. It took two months of planning, including visiting the real thing several times, and three months of building and rendering to come up with the completed design. Unfortunately, the 38,000 piece count prevents Aitoruco from building it himself, but he said that ALE! is planning on constructing this as a collaborative project, probably next year. You can find all of Aitoruco's work in his Flickr stream and his MOCpage.
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CCC X Master Builder
CC Admins 7 III 13
We are extremely pleased to announce that the Master Builder for Colossal Castle Contest X is Mark of Falworth. This year's contest was very exciting, with the largest number of entries yet, and the quality of those entries was also outstanding. Three builders in particular stood out with amazing builds across multiple categories: Fraslund, Lolino and Mark of Falworth, and of these, Mark just edged out the other two. We would like to congratulate all of these, and also thank everyone who participated in the longest running castle building contest in the world-wide LEGO community.
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Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Bruce 4 III 13
Alice Finch is an AFOL from Seattle, where she is active in SeaLUG. She only returned from her dark age a few years ago when building with her sons. She was unhappy with the official Hogwarts sets, and wanted to build her own. Alice is no stranger to construction, since when she was a child her father was a general contracter and she grew up around architectural drawings. Once she decided to start Hogwarts, she really dug into this project, spending about 12 months on it over the course of a year and a half. Countless orders of tan and sand green bricks probably come to over 400,000 parts. Her family got involved, with her sons adding in their own touches and her husband adding his support. She even had the opporutnity to visit the Harry Potter movie sets in London to get better insight into her source material. The result is breathtaking. She brought an earlier stage of this project to BrickCon 2011 and won the People's Choice award. A year of further building, and at BrickCon 2012 she brought the finished* version and won both People's Choice and Best in Show. The end result is L-shaped, with each leg about 4 meters long. If you look through her Flickr stream you'll see that thoughout the massive layout are little scenes and interior details taken from the books and movies. She brought it out again to the Emerald City Comic Con this past weekend, and next week it will be at Bricks Cascade. She doesn't intend on taking it down any time soon, so there will surely be additional chances to see all or part of this MOC.
*BTW, I note that it is finished - at least for now. She said that there were some scenes she wanted to build but didn't get around to yet. Her younger son has not yet read the books, and she says that when he does they'll probably end up setting the castle up again and playing through the stories again. So maybe in the future she and her younger son will build even more to go along with this masterpiece.
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Middle Earth mosaics
Bruce 25 II 13
OneLug is a group of builders comprised of Remi and Alyse Gagne, Brandon Griffith, and Bruce Lowell. As I'm sure all but the newest forum members remember, a year and a half ago they amazed us all with their Last March of the Ents. This weekend, TheOneRing.net and Premiere Events put on the Unexpected Art Show in Los Angeles as part of events surrounding the Oscars, highlighting Tolkien-themed art. Alyse was one of the organizers, and of course OneLug brought along their amazing Orthanc scene. Brandon, Remi, and Bruce also debuted new works, mosaics of the emlems of Gondor, Rohan, and Saruman, respectively. Bruce said they'll definitely be bringing these to BrickCon, and probably also Bricks by the Bay, so members of the community will certainly have additional chances to see these in person.
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Colossal Castle Contest X Winners
CC Admins 21 II 13
Congratulations to the winners of this year's Colossal Castle Contest! This year we had our highest participation in a decade of contests, and the quality of the entries grows each year. It is inspiring to see what you guys come up with. Due to the great number of amazing entries, we also recognize a number of honorable mentions in each category. Thank you to everyone who participated in CCCX. Please check out all of the winners and honorable mentions and then head over to the forum to congratulate them.
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Balin's Tomb
Bruce 11 II 13
The Middle Earth LEGO Olympics has inspired a large collection of builders to create MOCs based on the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. There are many great creations, including Gimli kneeling before Balin's Tomb by Finn Tegotash. Be sure to check out Finn's other MOCs on MOCpages.
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Mike Crowley, Count Blockula
Bruce 10 I 13
Thirty-six is too young. I'm not an old man, but I'm old enough that I've lost several friends, including in our LEGO community. Some of these are just people I admired from afar, like Eric Brok, others I've exchanged the occasional comment with in a forum or a Flickr stream, like Nnenn or HeatherLEGOGirl, but others are those I feel I've gotten to know well as friends. Mike Crowley, aka Count Blockula, was one of these. I never had the opportunity to meet Mike in the flesh, but back in the day he was a regular feature of our CC chat. As he commemorated in the vig above, he was on pretty much every night for a year or so there. He was on the East Coast, and I was on the West, and he was still going until it was late for me, and so it was the middle of the night for him. He was a fun guy and a great part of the larger community. As I gather from notes by Caylin and Ace, and also his obituary, mike's long battle with illness, that has made him less active in the last couple of years, came to an end a couple of days ago. Be sure to check out his Flickr stream and personal site to see what a creative builder he was. I've featured his BrickFA samurai on this front page before, and he was also an early vignette builder. A couple of my favorite of his MOCs are probably his Sesame Street and his Bowser. His creative building will be missed, but his sense of humor and good-hearted nature will be missed even more. Thirty-six is too young.
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Between four eyes
Bruce 30 XII 12
Gearcs is an AFOL from the Czech Republic who posted this classic scene a while back: Between four eyes. Because dragons have to eat, too. Unfortunately for the princess, there is no knight in shining armor to be found. In addition to CC, Gearcs is a member of Kostky and Eurobricks. Be sure to check out his other MOCs as well on Flickr and Brickshelf.
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Merry Christmas!
CC Admins 25 XII 2012
We at Classic-Castle like to wish you all the merriest of holidays! Here's hoping your stockings are filled with lots of LEGO. Just a gentle reminder, you've got one more week to enter the Colossal Castle Contest, so between gifts and carols, take some time to finish off your entries.
The Christmas House above is by Rod Gillies, known in our forum and elsewhere around the LEGOverse as 2 Much Caffeine. Watch the video where you can see the house spin around to reveal Santa bringing presents inside. Be sure to check out all of Rod's MOCs in his Flickr stream.
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Fen Panther
Bruce 20 XII 12
Mark Erickson, an AFOL from Georgia, is better known as Mark of Falworth on our forum and on places like Eurobricks, BrickForge and BrickWarriors forums. He's a prolific builder and is quite active in the Lands of Classic Castle. The Like a Boss contest sponsored by the Brothers Brick challenges builders to come up with a video game boss. Mark has always loved big cats, so he built the Fen Panther. Beware the swamps! He's hoping to bring this and other builds to BrickFair Alabama next month, so if you go there you'll have a chance to meet Mark and see this MOC in person. Mark blogs at iBrick. His MOCs can be found on Flickr and MOCpages.
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CCCX - Thank you to our sponsors!
CC admins 15 XII 12
As you are busily building your entries for the Colossal Castle Contest, let's pause for a moment to thank our sponsors. Please consider their products for all your LEGO needs.
Sir Troy's Toy Kingdom - First let's remember that Troy is ultimately the sponsor of all things Classic-Castle, as he has donated the server space for our community. In addition to his Bricklink store, Troy also has two brick-and-mortar stores, so stop in if you're in eastern Ohio.
Skyhorse Publishing has books on all different subjects, but their LEGO titles include A Million Little Bricks and three of Brendan Powell Smith's Brick Bible series.
No Starch Press focuses on geeky topics. Their growing library of LEGO books focuses on the AFOL community with such titles as the Cult of LEGO and the LEGO Adventure Book.
altBricks - For years builders have asked LEGO to make leaf pieces in other colors. Steve Barile decided to make them for himself, and they are for sale in his store. He's recently introduced other elements as well, including several interesting architectural detail pieces.
BrickArms has supported the CCC for several years. They offer a variety of weapons and accessories (including the very useful u-clip) - lots of WWII and modern military, but also several swords and other historic items.
BrickWarriors is a newer (well, about a year old) customs dealer. Their catalog also features modern weapons, but the main emphasis is on weapons, armor and accessories for both historic and fantasy castle settings.
Blackrock's Blocks - For several years Rich Stehnach has generously donated classic sets for use as prizes.
LEGO has once again generously donated a large set as a prize. We thank them for their ongoing support to the fan community.
Again, the CC staff would like to thank all of these sponsors and we encourage you to check out the products they offer.
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Finders keepers!
Bruce 11 XII 12
You probably know Iain Heath, aka Ochre Jelly, from his Stephen Hawking or his coordination of the Bricks of Character and Pythonscape displays at fests like BrickCon and Bricks by the Bay. Iain's LEGO passion is expressive characters, usually at Miniland scale or larger, as he documents on his blog, the Living Brick. He grew up reading Tolkien, so he wanted to build something to celebrate the new Hobbit movie. The meeting of Bilbo and Gollum and the exchange of the ring is so central to Tolkien's work, so he made that his focus in Finders keepers!/a>. He notes that the official One Ring element is way out of scale with minifigs, but it works perfectly with a 12-inch-tall Bilbo. These sculptures will stay together for a while, so in the coming year you will have a chance to see them in person at BrickCon and the Emerald City Comic Con.
While he comes from over the pond, Iain can be found in Seattle, Washington, where he is active in SEALUG. All of his MOCs can be found in his Flickr stream, and he also moderates a number of Flickr groups: The Living Brick, Bricks of Character, Mi-Fi, Lego Ghibli and Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. Follow all of Iain's antics on his blog, the Living Brick.
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Castelo de Guimarães
Bruce 4 XII 12
A couple of months ago we featured the Chapterhouse Window from the Convent of Christ built by Projecto Construir, a Portuguese group run by Romão Santos and a lot of volunteers who involve disadvantaged schoolkids in large LEGO projects. Their newest project is the Castelo de Guimarães, built by over 120 children and now on display as part of the European Capital of Culture events in Guimarães, Portugal. You really have to go through the photos in their Flickr gallery in order to appreciate the attention to detail, the massive scale and the fact that in places it is has a furnished interior.
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Kingdom of Halthas
Bruce 28 XI 12
David Frank, who goes by the name Fraslund in our forum and on Flickr, started planning for BrickCon back in March. He wanted to create a thriving village with an imposing castle in the background. He drew some of his inspiration from old D&D miniature models and also the Sleeping Beauty castle. He treated each building as a separate project, spending 8 or 9 months building. The ultimate result is the
Kingdom of Halthas. This was a collaborative effort, where David built the main castle and the area in front of it, while Jordan (AK_Brickster in our forum) built a city wall, gatehouse, and the country outside the wall, as seen here. This work won 'Best Castle' at BrickCon. David has begun to take down the village area to recyle bricks for future projects, but the main castle is still together and he may bring it to future events, so you may still have another chance to see this in the brick.
David is from Puyallup, Washington, where he is a member of SEALUG. He posts his MOCs on Flickr, though some of his older work is on Brickshelf.
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Classic-Castle Set Review: Black Knight's Treasure
Ben E. 18 XI 12
Join the 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 6011 Black Knight's Treasure.
Black Knight’s Treasure, released in 1985, was a treasure cart for the Black Falcons.
It has one falcon cart driver, a horse, and accessories.
This is the only set with the rare light gray treasure chest.
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History of Britain
Bruce 14 XI 12
James Pegrum, who goes by peggyjdb in our forum, has a fascinating ongoing project, the History of Britain,
highlighting important events from British history, such as the creation of Stonehenge, the plays of Shakespeare, and the Royal Air Force in the Second World War.
Here we see his depiction of the signing of the Magna Carta on 15 June, 1215, in Runnymead.
James is from London, where his involved in the Brickish Association.
He also occasionally posts in our forum and on Eurobricks.
His MOCs can be seen on Flickr and MOCpages.
Our English readers should stop by the Stratford LEGO store to see his most recent work,
the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes.
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Knight Statuette
Bruce 7 XI 12
Luke Johannesen is a TFOL from Los Angeles.
His creations can be found on MOCpages and he has some involvement with LUGOLA.
In the second round of the 2012 MOC Invitational Tournament he was challeged to recreate an object and recreate it at 1:1 scale.
He was inspired by an 8-inch tall knight statuette, and came up with this great LEGO version.
So far Luke has only a handful of MOCs posted publicly, but based on this one alone he is a builder to keep watch on for his future work.
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-----Troy's Surplus LEGO-----
For all your LEGO shopping needs.
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This is an unofficial fan created LEGO website, and is not sponsored, authorized or endorsed by The LEGO Group. Visit the official LEGO website: www.LEGO.com
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