Building a large caslte display, tips are very welcome

[6086ftw]

Hi,

I've been planning a 'huge' castle built for ages but haven't found the time yet to realise it, this summer however i will take a few weeks ( 2 or 3) off to fully concentrate on making the largest castle possible with my collection and incorporating as many bricks as possible from my collection.
I'm mainly a castle fig collector/army builder so I dont have excessive loads of castle bricks but it should be still enough for a reasonably sized castle.
From the top of my head the castle's i own (wont bother posting the smaller sets since i'm not too sure how many i have of each).

2 copies of 375
5 copies of 6080
2 copies of 6073
3 copies of 6074
2 copies of 6085
2 copies of 6081
3 copies of 6086
5 copies of 6082
2 copies of 6090
2 copies of 6097
1 copy of 6091
1 copy of 7094-1
1 copy of 7946

Just for the record i do have lots of regular lego sets/bricks i mean this is only a small fraction of my collection but it's more just to give an
indication of how many castle wall pieces etc i have (in my case the elements i'm going to have to rely on when building larger structures),like i stated before
i have multiple copies of the smaller castle sets so i definitely have an extra supply of those wall pieces.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a really beautiful creation, i just want it to be as big and as impressive as can be, it should house (although that might be close
to impossible) arround 2000 castle figs and about 350-400 pirate themed figs (i'm aware that its not going to be a historically accurate display but i just
want to give it a try). Pirates being the attack force with multiple ships ( have most of the pirate sets as well). I should add that I'm thinking of
the castle being build on those BURP/LURP pieces since i have a large supply of those (not sure how many though but really a lot), on one side it should have
a shore/coastline with enough water to put a few ships on (pirate ones). I'm also planning on building the structure on a really high elevated baseplate so it looks more sturdy.
I'm really looking to build a large/sturdy castle since with my previous attempts ( many years ago) i always ended up building structures that were'nt put toghether
well at all and had the tendency to fall appart.

The reason why i'm posting this is that i hardly have any building experience and definitely have no idea how to plan this,most of my collection is been locked
away right now so i sadly can't really verify stuff with my collection atm.

I'm considering mixing a lot of colours, black/grey/ white( if necessary) for walls (not being used in the same wall though) then red,white,blue etc for some tudor styled
building etc so it definitely doesn't have to be matching nicely.

So if anyone has any guidelines for me or knows what size i could be realistic to aim for (with the vague info being given :S) or any tips in how to make my
own custom building instructions/ plans.

I know that its still quite a lot of months until the upcoming summer but i really want to plan it out well so ill know what i'll be doing and will have the right expectations
(since i often seem to be unrealistic when it comes down to stuff like that).

Sorry for the utterly long intro.

[AK_Brickster]

Where are you going to display this thing? How big is your intended footprint? Do you need to move it after you've built it (to take it to a public display, for example)?

This sounds like quite the undertaking, especially if you're going to build something that's in the realm of 10'x10', as it seems like it would need to be about that big to house 2000+ figs! And only have 2 or 3 weeks to do it!
Once you answer the above questions, I can maybe give you a few pointers, though I don't directly have a lot of experience building anything that big myself.

[koffiemoc]

That sure sounds like a BIG project!
In december I've built my first 'big' castle layout, a wooden castle on a 96 x 96 studs base. (9 baseplates)
That's certainly not big enough for hosting 2000 men. And I was aiming more for 'beautiful' than 'impressively large'.
Nevertheless I've learned some things that could be valuable to you.

> Guess the time you need, as a rough estimate. You'll certainly need twice that amount.
> Make some sketches, how it is supposed to look, where do you put towers, gates, moat, tudor houses, etc. Do this on paper (or in a drawing program on the computer)
> You can sketch it with bricks on baseplates as well, it gives you a better feeling about the sizes. Give the height of the walls and towers some thinking.
> Use both sketches to compute some things. Like, how many wall panels you need to build a 128 x 256 stud rectangle which is 12 bricks high. Check if you've got that many. I use Brickstore to keep track of my parts. It appeared I needed a few hundred green slopes extra. A small moc allows improvising, but this large you'll really need to compute some things, as you wouldn't want to discover halfway that you're running out of certain bricks.
> Take into account wether you need to move/transport the layout. If so, you should build it in modules, which can be deconnected. That takes extra time.
> I didn't want to build directly on the baseplates. Instead, I wanted a small ditch -only three bricks deep- around the hill and the pallisade circle. I've put a lot of white, yellow and red bricks underneath the green surface and the hill, as well as technic beams. And that took a lot of time building and planning! So consider the invisible structure underneath, as you said you want to build it on a rock/cliff.

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. Have fun planning and building! And don't forget to post some pics afterwards.

[Eklund]

Well, if you are looking for some good inspiration and building techniques, see the featured mocs here and the how-to page here. Those both helped me when I was starting out.

[6086ftw]

Thanks for the informative replies !
@ AK_Brickster I'm not exactly sure about how big the footprint's supposed to be, im afraid i won't be able to build (not enough bricks) anything close to the measures you provided.
To solve the potential excess of figs i might just add some sort of landscape that might serve as a battlefield where i line up a few hundred men of opposing forces. I would like to make clear that i'm not really sure of what i could potentially build , that's the main problem since i often seem to have unreasonable expectations when it comes down to stuff like this.

Also i'm really unexperienced so it's just gonna be 'displayed' at my home also as a testrun of what i'm capable of building (basically how big my collection is) and to see what i'll need for future projects.

@Koffiemoc that castle display looks awesome! Sadly i won't be able to build anything as nice looking as that, i also have pretty small amounts of green/brown pieces (atleast from what i can recall) so my 'moc' won't look quite as appealing as yours. I will definitely try to make some sketches and might also later on try to sketch it with bricks like you said. I doubt that the app you provided will work for me though (although i'll give it a try) since i've bought lots of incomplete sets throughout the years :S which is rather unfortunate since an app like that would be really helpful.

I was thinking of building it in rather large modules (maybe 3 to 4) since i normally won't be moving it other than once after finishing the project and will definitely rely on using lots of technic bricks and other stuff to use as a foundation behind the cliff/rock and under the landscape.

I will definitely post pictures as soon as i start since then advice will be even more appreciated.

[AK_Brickster]

I guess my first suggestion would be to break down what you want to build into sections, modules, or even individual buildings. That will allow you to complete a little bit of it at a time, and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment every time you finish something, instead of feeling daunted by the sheer mass of the total build. I'm sure we'll enjoy the pics once you start building. Good luck!

[Karrde]

Why not have a look at some of the previous entries for the 'castle' category of the CCC - they should give you some idea of what it takes to build big (and well).

[Blego7]

I have never had the piece quantity to build that large, though I have participated in a couple collaborative builds.

Whenever you are building large, its a standard rule to make it modular, whether you are going to be transporting it or not. Having the ability to come apart in smaller sections is invaluable and will make it much easier to complete. There are lots of advantages to this, not the least of which is the fact that modular builds are going to be a lot stronger.

Just my two-cents based on my limited experience. Everything else I may say is simply conjecture.

Hope it helps!

[koffiemoc]

Don't worry about colors too much, or about what you can't build with your current collection. Just give it a start. There's this gourgeous castle moc in mainly red and some black that I could'nt have made.

By doing, you'll get to know your collection of parts better, you'll learn to make better estimates about sizes and proportions and amounts of certain parts. Nothing beats hands-on experience in my opinion. So go for it, learn from it, and have fun with this already exciting mission!

[subix]

Well, if you want to sqeeze in 2400 minifigs it must be vast. My LUG build a football stadium on 130*70 studs and we manage to stand some 500 minifigs. Another 500 might fit on filed.

In linked MOC I fit 76 figs and more will be too much for my taste. MOC size is a little bigger then mentioned size of stadium:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19955&p=223606&hili ... ma#p223606

Good luck with your project! Please publish outcome.

[Canoehead]

I'm just a newbie here myself but I am working on a rather large moc myself and what I found helped me out was...
I got my pieces sorted by color and in some cases type of brick, makes it much easier to keep an inventory.
When I started I built from the middle out and I built a rough draft first to get an idea how everything fits and to troubleshoot any build issues.
I wish I had started building in modules, being able to pull that module out to get the hard to reach areas is invaluable.
Rather than looking at it as one massive build, it may make things easier if you look at it as a lot of smaller builds that are part of the same theme.
I looked everywhere I could for info and pictures relating to my build.. Believe it or not video games are great reference for Lego since they have a pixel resolution.. Fable or Oblivion are my first pics.

Good luck on your build

[Velliscig]

That sounds very epic, not to mention incredibly expensive! I've been wanting to include space in my own castle project for garrison quarters for hundreds of figures and 30-60 horses, but I've found it to be far harder to fit that many in without expanding the size of the castle to immense proportions... If only minifigs weren't disproportionate!

Another thing I've found is that I continuously need more bricks than I thought I needed, so if you think you have enough, buy more! You'll probably end up needing them anyways!

[mencot]

Here is some hints and tips too, http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.p ... opic=53197 check it out, it is very cool

[Elderon]

And also, I have found out that if you just build something to your capacity (brick-wise) you can always leave a couple of figs out of the set up. Unless you desperately need to use all your minifigs I suggest just using half of them. I mean 2000 minifigs is huge! Just putting them in rows already takes up several baseplates of 48x48! Holy melon farmer!

[WvdP]

If I put armed minifigs on a baseplate, they need at least one stud space between each other, but two is better (then they have the same space around them as the Collectible Minifigs on their black plates). With two studs space between the minifigs you can have eight rows of eleven minifigs on a 32x32 baseplate, makes 88 per baseplate. Even if you would house half of your minifigs, you would need at least eleven 32x32 baseplates to position them.
Do you have enough bricks to build a castle with a in inner court of 3 by 4 baseplates? If so, give it a try!! If not, rethink this project