Frozen Shack

First off, everyone look at the front door of this shack and acknowledge the NPU. I mean, seriously, a boat for a front door it doesn't get much better than that folks! I'm also loving all the angles, so many unnaturally delicious ways jaapxaap has put this house together yet made it look congruent. I am, however, a little disappointed in the lack of murder(?) in this scene, though I am hoping we will see that in part 2 of this build.

Ulandus Keep

Sometimes you have to stop and really look at someone's creation to fully appreciate the design. Upon initial inspection we find only the simple gatehouse to a yet-to-be-built castle, two basic towers and a gate. But if you look closer we find some really cool new building techniques that we may have missed during out initial inspection including the two-tone patched walls and a very excellent and possibly never before seen Merlon design.

The Old Watermill

I am an avid fan of the Warcraft series of games. I can still remember the first time I sat down to play Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, clicking away for hours while I tried to destroy my opponent’s base before they got the best of me. These days people are all about World of Warcraft and this mill would fit right in to one of the many forests of Azeroth. Alas, this amazingly detailed structure is actually from another magical place - the nation of Avalonia from the Eurobrick's Guilds of Historica series. Make sure you spend time admiring all of the little rugged and earthy details that puts this mill into a class of its own.

Oh, and in case any Warcraft fans wondered, "For the Alliance!". Everyone else, just move along, no nerd to see here.

Dwarven Affairs

There's announcing a build challenge and then there's announcing a build challenge with style. Ecclesiastes has just released the latest in a series of challenges over at Eurobricks featuring the on-going saga Guilds of Historica and he has done so with a bang! I personally would feel extremely intimidated to submit anything to this contest as my MOC would only hide in the proverbial and literal shadows of this amazing castle. Seriously, it is OK to sit, stare, and marvel at the scale of this beast. I won't tell, just clean up the drool when you are done.

Dragon Keep

This latest castle by ZCerberus falls somewhere between humongous and massive in scale. And, a lot of times, when we see builds this large they tend to lose detail due to the magnitude of time it takes to build something on this scale. This castle is clearly the exception. You can tell that a lot of thought was put into the typically more boring parts of the castle, including the injection of color and symbols into the traditionally bland castle walls. Additionally, ZCerberus has done a nice job of creating an interesting and foreboding environment surrounding the keep.

Battle At Hell's Gate

Well, since Tommy is gone on vacation and far away from anything resembling an internet connection, I guess that leaves me in charge and there are going to be some changes around here! Starting right now we are going to feature Castle MOCS and Castle MOCS only. I'm thinking we should re-brand the site, CastleNerd, and slap a kettle hat on nerdly.

OK, not really, but it was a good thought.

Anyway, on to Mr. Patrick Massey's latest MOC, THE BATTLE AT HELL'S GATE! Dun dun dun. All joking aside this is a pretty sweet creation that Patrick has put together. I am a huge fan of the stellar rock work and the exceptional minifigure posing. Also, and take note fellow builders, I really think the evil under-dark of the fantasy castle genre is heavily under represented and would like to see lots more of this.

Make sure to click through the entire series of pictures in this build so you can see all of the little up close posing details.

Belynia Extended

Some of our loyal readers will instantly recognize this castle from a previous post we did on Belynia Castle. Well Belynia is no longer just a castle but has been expanded out to an entire village. Simon really took this village in a direction that I was not expecting and that is more than OK and I am really floored with the way it turned out. When taking a closer look at the village make sure to check out all the additional details he added including the docks and the water technique on the shore line.

Belynia Castle

Castle Belynia by Simon Schweyer feels like it was carved out of the forest instead of built on top of it. Simon does a great job of leveraging rock inclines and angles to pull of a visually interesting earthen fortress. I hope Simon creates additional sections surrounding this castle, including perhaps a small forest village?

Serpentine Hall

Within the LEGO community we tend to glorify new part usage but not always unique MOCs that fall outside of the normal LEGO themes of space, castle, city, Star Wars, etc. Builder robuko has succeeded in both NPU and building outside the box with his latest creation, Serpentine Hall. While technically a castle build for the ongoing Eurobricks Guilds of Historica building challenge this structure transcends the classic castle theme and really puts it into a class of its own.

Dancing Bear, Hidden Dragon

Initially I was drawn to this build because of the excellent tile work and motorized dancing bear. Upon further inspection I discovered that it actually tells a wonderful story, as well. On one side of the MOC you have what appears to be a very silly Lion king being entertained by the peril of others. While on the flip side we join the Dragon Knights in the midst of their plan to assassinate that same king. This is creation is a great example of quality that we have come to expect from zCerberus over the years and look forward to many more.