Vindice

This is really good mate! That would look so nice in the castle i'm doing. please forgive me if mine looks anything like this when it's finished but it's so good anyone would be hard pressed to improve on it. It looks detailed and yet uncluttered at the same time. Can you tell me how you got 5 pictures on? I could only get 2 on my great hall mod post and that's after resizing the hell out of them on photoshop and lowering the image quality.

Unfortunately due to the 100Kb limit I could only add 2 pictures last night. (I'm sure someone will tell me what i was doing wrong.) I've still got to add lots more characters. Some of the teachers and students are missing after my nephew decided to dismantle them limb from limb and stick them in a toy milk tanker. I'm also considering adding a platform for the teachers table and some LED lighting. It should all be ready in time for the sorting ceremony!

Hi all, I've just recently got back into Lego collecting. I wanted something fun and practical to share with my 4 year old son as a hobby and as he loved Lego it seemed like a good fit. He loves the Harry Potter game on the XBox so when the new sets came out in October we purchased the Great Hall. I realised quick that as good as it was it was a bit small so we sold the minifigs and purchased another castle! One big brick order to Lego S@H later and we were rolling. It may not seem aesthetically pleasing to some but we're happy with it. the main criteria for the design was that it was open to promote playability and to enable stop motion animating. My brother is great at this stuff and my little boy is learning how to be a good builder and the basics of stop motion animation. Hopefully when he gets a lot older he'll have some pretty useful creative tools at his disposal. I aim to build most if not all the castle in around a year and publish this on the web as a blog entitled Blogwarts Castle. Hhopefully it will be a bit of fun for my family and anyone who happens to stumble upon it. We've got some nice ideas for animations and plenty of bricks for the castle! I hope you all enjoy the Great Hall, it's far from finished but work is well underway already on the large tower that will stand behind it. Any criticism will be most welcome! Thanks

Another great entry! Would look really cool alongside the Diagon alley set.

Damn this is good!! The statue is brilliant, can't wait to see it finished. Like others have said it'll be interesting to see how you can keep it under the brick limit but I hope even when the contest is over you continue the project as this could look amazing!

I'm a big fan of this. It may look fairly simple but it captures the scene from the movie so well. I don't think it is simple really i just think it looks understated and that is authentic. Great job!

Really nice!! I love this entry and for me as it currently stands it should easily be in the top 3! I suspect a detailed interior would put it over the brick count, is that correct? Maybe when the contest is over you could continue the project by building the interior. I doubt i'm alone in being interested to see what you would come up with. Well done though, outstanding entry!! Going to be tough to beat.

Tesco in the UK did a 3 for 2 offer in the run up to Christmas. I think it only ran for a day though and luckily they were the only place to have any castles left. Got double clubcard points too!

ermmmmm who says I stopped at 2?! I'm ashamed to admit that I may have purchased a few of the castles. In my defense tesco were doing a 3 for 2 sale on toys and they were the only place that had any at the time. I've also had a large tan brick order from shop at home and the castle is coming along nicely. I've been a little side tracked by the winter break contest but I've almost finished the big tower behind the Great Hall too. I'll post pictures around the end of the month or my Great Hall but at the moment I've lent it to my brother who is doing stop motion films inside it. I'm hoping he is going to re-create Harry and Voldemorts battle with some cool effects. He's done some great SW films so far.

Be warned, i'm modding this castle myself and be prepared to spend a lot of money!! If you look at the Potter lexicon on the web you will soon want to do the whole castle and it is huge! The new Hogwarts is a great playset for kids but all it did for me was make me want to make it bigger which soon ended up with having to buy another castle as you can't get most of the pieces from shop@home My advice is wait for one of the big shops to do a 3 for 2 sale and buy 3 of them! Split the sets down and sell off the minifigures. You'll be amazed at how much money you can raise from selling Voldemort, Dementors and the Professors. You'll end up playing less than for 3 castles than you would have for one. The only reason I wouldn't do this often is that I think it's a bit unethical as this is a popular set and was very hard to find at the end of the year (still is I believe). I didn't like to think that me being selfish would stop some kids getting it to play with.

MY kids have always had some Lego to play with but one day, one of my kids got stuck building a model (7998 I think) so the wife got a old wooden shelf out of the shed and put it across my legs and me and my son sat there and built it together. Since then it has become a big thing between myself and 3 my kids (the other is 17). They receive town sets as presents and I buy the trains and the other sets they don't get. We spent 3 hours yesterday building the Emerald night train and it was great there was me my kids sat around the dinner table all looking for parts and putting it all together. love this post Sebby, I'm in a similar boat I've got 2 kids although one is only 4 months old! But my older boy and me love building stuff together out of his (my!) Lego. It's real quality time. My brother does fantastic stop motion lego videos and I do audio recording so we're tryign to teach him some of these things too so that one day he will have skills that we never got close to learning at school. is it nerdy? Maybe but i don't really care I'd rather drop £50 on a lego set that my whole family can enjoy then spending out £40 to £50 a week getting drunk at a club and going home alone to vommit in my bed.

WH smith or at least my local WH Smith doesn't have the series 3 minifigures out but to be honest although it's not a small store I don't remember seeing series 1 or 2 in there before either. Someone may have better luck in their store.

Well you could buy another castle and keep expanding. I've done that and sold the minifigs from the second set. 2nd Castle ended up only costing me about £25

Be nice actually to add a few more students in there. Have you got any duplicate figures you could add different heads too? The way you have seated Harry, Ron and Hermione you could have an owl there bringing harry his first broom from Professor McGonagall. Be a nice little scene, i was thinking of doing this in my one.

Argos are selling them for £1.99. I'll check WH Smiths at lunchtime and let you know if i see any there. argos had a few boxes out which is a good thing.

They are out in Argos today people! Just grabbed me four as i had some change on a giftcard! Grab them before someone riffles through the lot. Picked four from the top left and got race car driver, Elf, Sumo wrestler and Alien.

I hope you're right Lord Embo. It would seem that the set is likely to connect. If this is the case then may be they will be hopefully doing the courtyard where the battle starts before beign driven into the great hall. If so, I will think that we can expect to see Neville, and Nagini at least.

great Dark mark MOC. Well impressed.

I'm loving this MOC, I'm just putting the finishing touches on my great hall that will be part of a year long project to build a Hogwarts castle. Love the interior shot and the entrance hall too. I am doing the same thing with using the games to explore the castle properly. It's surprisingly useful! out of interest do you have any plans to buildmore of the castle?

you're probably right, i may have to just make a brickfilm about it myself. I'm an aspiring horror writer anyway so watch out for it next year! The forbidden forest would make a damned good crystal lake type setting! My mind is racing now, fortunately i'm doing nothing in work at the moment so i may have to start planning that out! Just to clear up my earlier post, the "horny hogwarts students" would of course be of NEWT age and not the earlier years. I'm not a pervert

Rowling stated on Oprah that although she has no plans to start, she could easily write an 8th and 9th book. And more importantly she still worries about money!!! Perhaps the recession will make her churn out some more Potter books and sell the rights to make a series. I'd personally love to see some HP spin offs. Imagine a HP/Horror hybrid where loads of drunk, horny hogwarts students end up getting massacred in the forbidden forest! It's got class written all over it!!

I would say that once the final fim is released we can't really expect many more sets after that. But everything depends on sales and from what i'm hearing and seeing, demand has exceeded supply and this would point to more sets. The over riding concern of any company that does movie tie-ins on their products is to continue making if there is money to be made. They will not care if there are no more films or books (even though Rowling has said herself she is considering another book). I love the HP line and would love it to be continued. there is a wealth of untapped potential in sets and HP is now as much of a giant in the minds of young people as Star Wars. Why shouldn't it stay?!

got to look at it commercially from TLG's point of view. The forbidden forest could be from almost any movie, there is no reason ot have it based on the final film unless they want it to be mini-fig heavy and include Voldemort death eaters and the ghosts of his parents (which is a possibility!) The battle of hogwarts would likely be on the grounds i think and you can count out some characters. Malfoy, crabbe and goyle have no part in it nor does Snape. I reckon you will get 8-10 characters based on their importance to the battle:- Voldemort Harry Bellatrix Molly Death Eater Neville McGonagall and/or Flitwick or Slughorn I would assume another Ron and/or Hermione too being that it's the final scene. Personally I'd like to see Kinglsey, tonks and maybe Lupin but I'm doubtful. What i would really hope for is a Giant or two and Nagini possibly even some call gargoyles and statues. I think we're hoping for too much with Centaurs as I agree that there inclusion in the film is by no means assured. Lets hope for some better Acromantulas but i ain't hopeful!

A brilliant idea. After you've perfected it i definately think you will get some extra consideration for originality. Hope you do!

Great MOC. The drain pipe and front door are really nice touches. I'm a bit unsure abotu the bay window though. Interior is good but I'd like to see more to be honest. More colour to be in keeping with the Weasley's personality and may be a bit more happening inside the building, i'm asking a lot but this is such a great start that with a few tweaks it could be outstanding.