Classic-Castle.com

Hey all,

We've all gushed over the 50th anniversary Town set that was revealed at LEGO World in Zwolle, but haven't commented on any MOCs. Here's your thread to link to cool MOCs and/or galleries from LEGO World. Oddly, when I look at pics from these European fests, there is not as much pure Castle as you'll see at a US fest. Instead, you'll often see castles and castle-related structures incorporated into a more modern Town setting. Perhaps this is because Europeans see castles and the remains of castles, and other centuries old structures (cathedrals etc) as part of their every day modern world, whereas we in the US see castles as something more wholly Other, encountered mainly in movies and books. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of some of our European members on this.

Anyway, here's what I do see:

Galleries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Castle and castle-friendly MOCs

Anyone know who built this series of castles and/or if there are more pics of them? They seem to be by the same builder.




I see that the Baixinhos were there.

For more pics see the original galleries 1, 2

Anyone know who built this church and cloister?


We've previously discussed this dragon sculpture by Elex:


This is Exo-Force, but take away the sci-fi trappings and you've got a cross between the Yellow Castle and a Japanese-inspired fortress.


This castle ruin is interesting. Building it mostly out of 1x1 cones gives it a rugged look. Does anyone know the builder?


Also, there's a similarly constructed castle in the middle of this table. Are there any better pictures of this MOC?


A huge Viking fortress seems a little unfinished. At least, it looks like there are the footprints of some missing buildings inside.



Okay, this is Star Wars, but I was just drooling over the dark green leaf pieces in the landscaping of this Endor Moon layout.


This Harry Potter stuff looks like official LEGO display material.


This tower is probably my favorite MOC from the whole event. Does anyone know the builder and/or if they have a Brickshelf (Flickr, MyImages, whatever) gallery with clearer pics? It reminds me of the Prague Clocktower.


A big DUPLO castle layout, plus ships:


A forestmen tree hideout might be by Megan Rothrock, as it seems to have been adjacent to other MOCs by her (podagon etc).


This looks like a Great Ball Contraption module decorated up with a castle theme.


Some castle ruins at Belville scale. I'm guessing these are by Leo Vermeulen, as he has done other Belville ruin stuff.


Anyway, go ahead and link other castle and castle-friendly MOCs.

Bruce

This was about an hour's drive away from where I live, but unfortunately I was too late to still apply to have my MOCs shown there. I went there though, on the saturday, and it was magnificent!

Bruce N H wrote:Oddly, when I look at pics from these European fests, there is not as much pure Castle as you'll see at a US fest. Instead, you'll often see castles and castle-related structures incorporated into a more modern Town setting. Perhaps this is because Europeans see castles and the remains of castles, and other centuries old structures (cathedrals etc) as part of their every day modern world, whereas we in the US see castles as something more wholly Other, encountered mainly in movies and books. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of some of our European members on this.

Owh yeah definitely, for example I find the red cathedral with the tram station next to it looking very realistic, like something you typically see around every major square in Amsterdam. Just as an example. I think it's harder, well not harder but less common for Americans to imagine castles outside the middle ages and possibly fantasy stories, but here you see a lot of medieval buildings in old city centers and places like that.
I'm engaged with a woman originally from the USA, who finds that one of the most enchanting things about European cities, that the old city centers were built centuries and centuries ago. The city I live in for example was founded around 200 BC as a Roman fortress and given city rights by the romans a little over 2000 years ago, approximately 5 years after the start of the counting of years, so walking/driving through the old streets downtown really shows a lot of historical buildings, but in a modern environment, with trains, busses, cars, traffic lights mounted to the corner of a 14th century house, stuff like that.

Aliencat wrote:so walking/driving through the old streets downtown really shows a lot of historical buildings, but in a modern environment, with trains, busses, cars, traffic lights mounted to the corner of a 14th century house, stuff like that.

I've only been to Europe once, and I remember being really struck by that. I kind of had this impression that all of the "old" stuff would be off in one place, kind of like an outdoor museum, but of course that was silly of me. Rome was particularly striking--walking along a street you'd pass a church that dated to ~1000, then a few modern stores, then there was some preserved wall and columns that dated to Roman Empire days, then more modern buildings, then something from the Renaissance era. Some Italian friends told me that new construction was always really slow, because any time they started to dig new foundations, if they found anything historic, by law they would have to bring in archaeologists, and it could be a year before they could restart construction.

Bruce

I love the castle made out of 1x1 cones. great pics!

Oh the plight of living in Canada... Sadly I am nowheres near something so beautiful.

Great pics though! Very awesome, to say the least.

MacFarlane,

Where in Canada are you? There are some very active LEGO groups around. Also, many Canadian AFOLs have come down to the various US events (Seattle, Chicago, and even Washington DC are closer to parts of Canada than they are to much of the US).

Bruce

Hello Bruce, just ansering the ones I can help you on your way with.

Bruce N H wrote:Anyone know who built this series of castles and/or if there are more pics of them? They seem to be by the same builder.

These where build by a team of members of the Dutch independed LEGO society "De Bouwsteen", in commission for the municipality of IJzendijke, for display in their historic defences museum "Het Bolwerk". The designwork was done by Bert, Silvio en Sybrand.
This series of MOC's show the different types of fortifications evolving one after another in during the ages. They depict a roman fort, an early medieval ringfort, a "motte"-castle, an earthwork redoubt from the Eighty Years' War, and the german WW2 coastal defences. Existance of all these types of fortifications have been archeologicly prooved in the vincinity of the town of Ijzendijke. The models are also used to great effect by the municipality, to attract attention for tourist promotion at large scale events.

Anyone know who built this church and cloister?

I know it was a FreeLug member, best you ask them:
http://www.freelug.org/article.php3?id_article=10

This castle ruin is interesting. Building it mostly out of 1x1 cones gives it a rugged look. Does anyone know the builder?

This tower is probably my favorite MOC from the whole event. Does anyone know the builder and/or if they have a Brickshelf (Flickr, MyImages, whatever) gallery with clearer pics? It reminds me of the Prague Clocktower.

Both were made by BeLUG members. The tower is after a real building, a Belfort of one of the Flamish towns. You best ask here.

This looks like a Great Ball Contraption module decorated up with a castle theme.

It was made by Duco van den Akker and Victor Hissink Muller. It runed glass marbles, wich were shot into the castle by a catapult device. Here some more pictures and a movie at the bottom of the page: http://www.open.ou.nl/aaa/legoworld2007/knikkerbaan.htm

Some castle ruins at Belville scale. I'm guessing these are by Leo Vermeulen, as he has done other Belville ruin stuff.

That's Leo Vermeulen indeed, showing his work in progress on a model of a still existing city gate in the Dutch town of Haarlem

With friendly greetings Manfred Moolhuysen.

Hey Manfred,

Thanks for the information on those. I always like to give proper credit to builders when possible.

One other castle MOC I found in going through Brickshelf galleries was something you don't see often, a Fabuland castle:


Bruce

Bruce N H wrote:MacFarlane,

Where in Canada are you? There are some very active LEGO groups around. Also, many Canadian AFOLs have come down to the various US events (Seattle, Chicago, and even Washington DC are closer to parts of Canada than they are to much of the US).

Bruce

I'm out in the boonies of Nova Scotia, Bruce. Perhaps I'll have to make a "pilgrimage" to one of these events sometime in the future? I had no idea that there were actually lego groups running up here though, that's pretty awesome, to say the least!

Also, there's a similarly constructed castle in the middle of this table. Are there any better pictures of this MOC?

Hi, that smaller "1x1 cone" castle is my MOC. It's not that good, because I hadn't much time to make it look very nice :p
It's actually a "haunted castle" for the theme park, with a graveyard.

There are also other MOC's in front of it that I've made, but not castle-themed (Stranded shipwreck, small resting place with benches, ... .


[The bigger one (Cone ruin + Red tower) is made by a fellow BeLUG member.]

Here some more pictures:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=278864

My future project has to be much nicer!
It'll be a guardhouse in the middle of a forest, with a charriot, a river (waterfall), and lots of other details into it. If possible, I'll add some electric lights into it, so it'll be lightened in the dark...

I'll take my time now to make this one!!

Grtz,,
Castlestrike666
BeLUG member [/quote]

Duplo Castle is nothing new but that display is actually pretty neat! Very unexpected! And I LOVE the Viking Wall! It's beautiful!

Hey a bit late but still wanted to add a reply here too. I´ve been to this event in Zwolle too. Its been my first lego event i´ve ever been too. I really enjoyed it and saw a lot of really awesome creations.

When i was walking around i suddenly bumped into this winning CCC entry: Death in the Library - Mark Stafford http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=157147

Since i loved this entry i was shocked, haha. I was jumping up and down screaming like a girl when i saw this awesome moc in real life ...I screamed to my girlfriend: "he is here! he is here!" haha, but i never knew who was the builder and if he actually was present on the event. Anyway i loved it, to see this thing in real life.

i am speechless those are cool!!! i wish i had those...oh yea i say that i wish i had that to about every lego thing i see. But its still the truth

Time to unstick this thread. Sorry it was up for so long.

Bruce

This is cool. I noticed the Torre de Belem. Robert Carney has one too at http://www.carneycastle.com/Belem/index.htm