Introducing the Colossal Castle Contest

[architect]

The CC Team is proud to announce our first building contest: The Colossal Castle Contest.

This contest is a bit different than other contests. We have a variety of categories each with one prize for the winner. Some categories require small creations and others need larger ones. Everyone, even with a limited supply of bricks, should be able to enter several categories. We are looking for creativity, not who has the most LEGO.

Check out the prizes. Every 1986 Castle set is a prize. There are several other sets and custom weapons. It truly is colossal! Thank you to LEGO, the Little Armory, and others who donated prizes.

The rules can be found here. Enjoy!

If you have questions or comments please post them below.

The CC Team

[Devari]

Wow! This is very generous!

I'm going to try this!

[Magnus]

Very very cool!

I realise that you are trying to gear the competition towards everyone, not only those who have masses and masses of brick and time on their hands. But I would say that there could (and should) be a seperate a "Large castle" category. Otherwise I imgaine that people who want to enter a large castle will enter it into the last "anything goes" category and will overshadow smaller MOCs which are also entered there. Also, I think it would be cool to see large castle category just because this is supposed to be "castle lego" and many people may want to build in a scale larger than the CCC standard or Lego castle scale.

Of course I am biased, as I have a project I am working on and would love to enter it in an appropriate category.

[architect]

Hi Magnus,

I would say that there could (and should) be a seperate a "Large castle" category.

We decided not to do this for several reasons. First, many other contests have winners that have huge models. We want anyone to be able to compete.

We also want to promote the CCC wall module. You can make a tower or a gatehouse that fits into a very large concentric castle with CCC walls. But we only will grade on the tower, gatehouse, or keep. Building at a smaller scale will cause more creativity to fit in detail. Plus it gives everyone a shot.

As for the miscellaneous category, we will add to the rules that gigantic or huge creations will not be accepted. We do not have more prizes, and I think we like the contest as it is.
In future contests, we may change this.

Ben E.
Sets Admin.

[lemon_squeezer2]

Can I make a modified official lego set?

(In this case, a modified Knight's castle and guarded inn)

[architect]

Hi Lemon Squeezer,

You should make an original creation. You can use the pieces from 6073 and 6067, but it should be a new design, not a different version of one of these sets.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[DaveOhare01]

*laugh* Well, I do have a rather big MOC.

But, for those of you with few bricks out there, the portion of my MOC I am most proud of is the Mausoleum. Not a lot of bricks at all. However, the lines turned out to be really clean and it is the best part of my MOC -- and by far the smallest.

The link is here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=60745

And the teaser pic is thus:



So, although the contest is 'colossal castles' I suspect the judges are looking for style rather than just big.

Dave

[architect]

Hi Dave,

Sorry about the confusion of the contest name. If you look at the image, the words "colossal" and "castle contest" are separate. The contest is "colossal" because of the abundance of cool prizes. Not because we want huge castles.

(Although as stated before, you can make elements of a huge castle, like a big tower or keep, just not the whole castle. Hopefully we can have events in the future, like Brickfest, where everyone brings their CCC compliant creations to make a huge castle display )

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[DaveOhare01]

Indeed, I figured as much but was more responding to the posts where people noted they did not a ton of bricks. So, I think I'm on the same page!

Dave

[David Girard]

Is it possible to submit MOC I already done. I put some teasing picture, recently, but they are not final. I have some MOC which can fit for the contest !

I'll make some news sets too for the contest. I have some ideas.

[architect]

Is it possible to submit MOC I already done. I put some teasing picture, recently, but they are not final. I have some MOC which can fit for the contest !

I'll make some news sets too for the contest. I have some ideas.

Hmm. This is probably not a good idea. The contest does say creations should be built and therefor posted after Nov 19. However, if noone has seen this creation, you could use it. Email Anthony Sava with links and we will make a decision.

Thanks.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[Bruce N H]

Ben,

What about something that has had no public display before November 19 (either on-line or at any AFOL event)? I know that is how the 1000Steine.de ISCC contest is worded. For instance, I've got a small siege weapon that I'm happy with, but haven't photographed it yet. It's not a deal if this is off-limits, but I was just wondering.

On the contest as a whole, wow! This looks like a great contest. I was wondering what sort of thing I should do for the ISCC, but now I think I'll scrap that and work on ideas for this. How did you get donations from LEGO? Did you approach them, or did they approach you? It's exciting that this web community is starting to build some direct ties with LEGO.

Bruce

[architect]

Hi Bruce,

What about something that has had no public display before November 19 (either on-line or at any AFOL event)?

These creations are fine. We would like new creations, but if noone has seen them, then they are perfectly acceptable.

On the contest as a whole, wow! This looks like a great contest.

Thanks!

How did you get donations from LEGO? Did you approach them, or did they approach you? It's exciting that this web community is starting to build some direct ties with LEGO.

The CC admins had been thinking of having a contest for a while. Then we went donation hunting and contacted LEGO and the Little Armory. Admins also donated old sets - the used sets.

We have been talking to LEGO since we started this site and hope to continue to have a good relationship with them. We were thrilled that they were very generous in donating sets. Thank you LEGO Direct!

In the future we would like to work with LEGO to set up local castle clubs (like ILTCO). Other special features given to theme specific websites would be nice too, but no guarantees on that yet.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[Dragon Master]

Excellent, I have two ideas for the misc. category. But I'm gonna get blasted by the people with the big collections. Oh well, it will be fun.

Dragon Master

[JPinoy]

Will an ancient fortified city-state and its main fortress count as a castle?