Brainstorm on Castle theme

[SEdmison]

Note: Even if you're not going to BricksCascade, I'd appreciate your ideas!

BricksCascade in Portland is coming up in March (the 9th and 10th), and I want Castle to have a respectable showing there. I figure if Castle can dominate BrickCon, there's no reason not to spread that domination south!

By December 1st I have to turn in an overall write-up for the Castle theme for the web site, including any special competitions that will be run, any awards that will be given, and any trophies that will be awarded.

So, here are some topics on which I'd like the community's input:
1. Should we have an overarching theme? As an example, a year or two ago Castle looked to Game of Thrones and went with the tagline "Winter is Coming". We could focus on themes from mythical to magical to natural.

2. What awards/trophies should we have?
Examples might include:
Best Castle Building
Awarded to the best single structure in the theme.

Best Castle Scene
Awarded to the MOC that best tells a compelling story of medieval or fantasy life.

Best Castle Character
Awarded for the best single figure, hero, villain, or monster.

or whatever else we can dream up.
(If you propose a category, also help propose the criteria on which it should be judged.)

All ideas and suggestions are appreciated!
Sean

[SEdmison]

No one has any ideas?! If not, I'll just choose whatever theme and awards appeal to me, and everyone else can just deal with it.

[JoshWedin]

I'll just choose whatever theme and awards appeal to me, and everyone else can just deal with it.

That's what I do for BrickCon.

Josh

[AK_Brickster]

Hey, if you've got one shot at totalitarian rule, you might as well take advantage of the opportunity!

[Justin M]

Best Castle Scene
Awarded to the MOC that best tells a compelling story of medieval or fantasy life.

That'd be a neat award.

[Bluesecrets]

So here is my 2 cents on this. As a person sitting there waiting for all the 9148610349861734981734601897 awards to be given, I can honestly tell you that I truly appreciate when there are only 2 or 3 per category and the people don't talk for hours. As a person who was in charge of a theme, I wanted it simple. Making trophies is not really fun. So...I guess...the fewer is better than 239481347018967103946817346091837.

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

I've never attended a con, but have been involved in CCC for many years. One thing I might suggest would be to have 'best large' and 'best small' creation awards (maybe bigger than a 32x32 baseplate footprint vs smaller). Of course there are always people who build massive castles for a con or contest, but there are also many excellent smaller creations that then get overlooked. With CCC we always have a variety of scales for our categories, both to allow those with massive collections to go nuts on categories like 'castle' and 'misc' but also to give space to those who may be excellent builders but don't have the resources to do something of the same size.

Bruce

[SEdmison]

So here is my 2 cents on this. As a person sitting there waiting for all the 9148610349861734981734601897 awards to be given, I can honestly tell you that I truly appreciate when there are only 2 or 3 per category and the people don't talk for hours. As a person who was in charge of a theme, I wanted it simple. Making trophies is not really fun. So...I guess...the fewer is better than 239481347018967103946817346091837.

Interesting. I actually greatly enjoyed making trophies for Battle this year, but I can see where it's not everyone's cup of tea.

I do take the point about not wasting everyone's time endlessly, though. Good feedback.

[SEdmison]

Hey,

One thing I might suggest would be to have 'best large' and 'best small' creation awards (maybe bigger than a 32x32 baseplate footprint vs smaller). Of course there are always people who build massive castles for a con or contest, but there are also many excellent smaller creations that then get overlooked. With CCC we always have a variety of scales for our categories, both to allow those with massive collections to go nuts on categories like 'castle' and 'misc' but also to give space to those who may be excellent builders but don't have the resources to do something of the same size.

Bruce

Yeah, I'm definitely sensitive to the scale thing. My thinking for things like Best Castle Character and Best Castle Scene is that they're not about being bigger, but about being more authentic or more evocative or just more interesting, and those are things were less can be more. But I guess having an explicit small scale award might be interesting.