[MOC] The Sleeping Castle

[lisqr]

The build process updated.

Last time our brave explorer stepped into a mysterious portal, and when he gets out he saw...

A sleeping castle shredded in more mystery.

The lifeless castle is covered with magical blue flowers.

front gate

The main tower

Bridge leading to the side tower

3 spirals

gazebo

tomb of fallen kings

riverbank

aerial view

The sleeping castle

Hopefully you enjoy this as much as the explorer

brickshelf

I started this moc when I got a PaB box of 1x2 dark bley log brick. It turns out that there are >2400 of it in the box. But for a moc of this scale I quickly used up all of it.

The main castle is built with a technic frame and snot sidewalls. The technic frame is sturdy and light too. It's my first time building something this size, so I learned a lot about structure strength.

Edited November 21, 2011 by lisqr

[Corweena]

Wow. Just wow.

Amazing work.

[Silver.Smith]

wow, did not expect that!

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

This is a very impressive creation. I am stunned at the amount of detail you put into this. Thanks for sharing!

[Hiawatha]

I can't believe this MOC! It is amazing! I really like the gravestones and the tops of the castle towers are well built by using the drill .

[Jedi master Brick]

Wow, this is amazing. The details and snot work make it look stunning . I love the tall towers in this Moc

[Sandy]

Oooh! This creation looks very cohesive for a fantasy castle, I must say. I love the architecture, and you've managed to create an illusion of an enormous building by making it not quite minifig scale. Usually I prefer castle creations with minifigs to liven up the place, but in this case they would only do harm.

One thing that bothers me is the lack of doors. All the beautiful bridges seem to lead to a solid wall. Since you're using SNOT technique, it wouldn't be hard to put a black plate to represent a door onto most of the walls, for example.

[Hartfan]

Oh WOW ! This is huge ! Looks so darn impressive. GREAT MOC !

[slovakiasteph]

This looks very impressive in person, too! (I saw it yesterday at Brickworld Ft. Wayne). Takes a lot of time to admire/notice all of the details!

[TheLegoDr]

Can someone say ridiculous?! Very impressive.

[lisqr]

This looks very impressive in person, too! (I saw it yesterday at Brickworld Ft. Wayne). Takes a lot of time to admire/notice all of the details!

Nice to meet you. I'm glad that you liked it.

The show was quite successful. I had a lot of kids saying that they want my castle for Xmas.

[Peanuts]

Brilliant architecture! Your castle looks really astonishing, I like how round everything is.

[lisqr]

I just took apart this castle, so I thought that I'd share my build process. Also just to document my biggest moc yet.

I'll mainly talk about my main castle.

I first built a technic base.

The corner is done with a basic 3-4-5 right triangle.

Then fill in the vertical support beams.

Then I built a "lid" with technic brick

Cap the lid on my base.

The end result is a very sturdy and light frame.

As you can see all sides are built with technic bricks facing sideways.

Next I do the corner towers using hinge plate and bricks. They are connected to plate in a SNOT fashion using clip pieces.

gradually build up

Final tower ready to be connected to the base frame.

attach to the diagonal corner.

Then we attach the SNOT walls to the empty spaces. The corner transition is better covered up with this

Then we add tiles and 4 studs to be ready to connect to the upper level.

The upper level is built with the same kind of technic frame but not SNOT wall this time.

Then attach the upper level to the base level.

The whole thing then sits on a "rocky" base.

The side spirals are built like this. I took the idea from maydayartist's tree trunk technique.

Thanks for reading

[Artanis I]

Thanks for reading

Thanks for sharing! That was really insightful and clever.

[I Scream Clone]

Most helpful tutorial lisqr, I plan on building some larger projects soon, so this will be most helpful. Great castle design too!

[NiceMarmot]

Thanks for documenting in detail how this is constructed. Many times we see fabulous MOCs with interesting techniques, but it's not clear from the final pictures how it was built, especially to someone just coming out of their Dark Ages who might not have ever built SNOT as a kid.

In the side spiral towers, I'm guessing the whole scheme alternates every other layer, essentially rotating 1/12th full rotation each layer?

[Angeli]

that is one beautifull castle, my friend ;)

[lisqr]

In the side spiral towers, I'm guessing the whole scheme alternates every other layer, essentially rotating 1/12th full rotation each layer?

I'm not sure if I understand your question. But here's how I learned this technique.

Here's maydayartist's original pic.

To save on bricks, I used this technique to form a 2-brick-high 9 pieces total "ring" then use 2 or those rings to lock in 8-brick-high columns bricks. So instead of using 9 pieces every layer, I use 6 pieces for most layers.

[Si-MOCs]

Wow ... I admired your castle from afar before, but to see it like this ... is eye opening!

I usually don't think about Technic frames in anything besides Scifi SHIPS (and I guess Technic too. ) Some fantastic tips, definitely will revisit this when I ever attempt my castle layout.

Thanks so much for sharing, it really is appreciated.