Grover

My order from Jan 17th shipped Jan 23, but there was no change in status until today. As for the BAM kiosks, it's great that they put out new, fun pieces, but since I'm nowhere near a Lego store, I wish there were a way to purchase the pieces. I'd buy them on BL if I could find them, but can't find the part numbers most of the time.

Other than getting unusual pieces, what does one want a white poop piece for? Decoration? Ice cream? I can’t see uses for it that I would really want it so I’d like to know if there’s something I’m overlooking.

OK, it's sturdy... now I'm really curious. I've been trying to figure out how you managed to get the slightly decreasing circle diameters going up while still connecting the bricks. I thought at first that you had one or two less bricks in a circle each time, stacked on top of one another, but that wouldn't make sense because there's no way to solidly connect those that I can see... do you mind sharing how you got the windmill walls to be solid? It's something that you have mastered and is obvious in most structures like this but I rarely see because it's too difficult to render in Lego. Great work in any case!

Really outstanding work. The path is detailed and very realistic, the whole composition with the classical columns works very well, and the giant dragon is amazing! This looks like something right out of the greek mythology. You deserved the front page on this, and I would be disappointed if they had not put it there!

It's a real shame that your order didn't come in. You build some really beautiful stuff! I love the scale, all the wonderful brickwork in the wall, and your lighting is fantastic. Also hilarious with the skeleton in the cage! Thanks for sharing here!

I had a few as a kid and other than the original build, they were kind of limiting. I realize that you can build a lot of things if you're creative, but the definitely weren't as flexible. They did make some really cool castle sets and other fun things, like that underwater neptune set possible. So I miss them in a nostalgic way but have never used them in any MOCs that I have built since I came out of my dark ages. On the other hand, I really do miss the baseplates on the regular larger sets, particularly in some of the city sets (like the gas stations), where I thought they lent a lot of feel to the set and were still quite flexible. I tend to buy a lot of the generic baseplates at the Lego stores just to build on.

I am in the same boat and doubt if I will see these figures in a store before I get there. Does anyone have the item ID for the ice man head, torso, and skirt on bricklink? I'm not sure how to look that up since they're not part of a set. Edit: Found the skirt. It's the Princess Leia skirt: 36036pb14 on BL.

I really like how you are laying out the colors and ideas. I always wondered how others did this, and you have a great sense of color and style. Very artistic! I look forward to seeing the progress of the mead hall.

When I came out of my dark ages a few years back, I originally found classic castle. I was excited and thought the forums were a great place, even if they were low traffic. Then the CCC began, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to build an entry. I built a couple, and thoroughly annihilated by the other entries. Not surprising, as my collection was old, the best builders in the genre entered, and I was new to advanced building. However, the one aspect that I did not like was that there were no feedback mechanisms. My goal with building is to get better. Even if the forums are low traffic, I would like to know what the judges thought. The opaque judging procedures were hard to understand as well. What were the criteria? Were points assigned? Did judges just rank which ones they subjectively liked the best? Even if I were to get a score, and they said "75/100, well done on these categories and poor in these", it would be something, but nope, nada. I need some kind of feedback to get better, and there was none to be had there, so I stared looking around and found the GoH here. Classic castle is now pretty much just the CCC annually (their front page didn't have any updates since the CCC last year), and even that appears to be slowing down as well. Because of the lack of feedback, it's basically a competition of hall of fame builders, and there's almost no novices entering (and no point to their entering since they won't win and won't get any feedback). I still have a login and check back once a year, even shared a build a couple of years ago, but once I found eurobricks and the GoH, I found a much more supportive, active, and helpful community, so here I am. If I ever feel that I might make a real run at one of the CCC categories, I may enter, but my skill level is not that high yet, so I feel it would be a waste of my time. I think that the contest this year had fewer entries because of the delay in its start, but also probably the decline in novice castle builders (see below). To more directly answer your question, I doubt many of those members would come here to our Historic Theme forums, and those that would will probably go to the GoH. The GoH is most directly related to Castle, as the historic themes also covers the Wild West, etc. I try to get out of GoH from time to time, but spend the vast majority of my time there, and try to make sure I provide feedback for people on their builds there, as that is what I find most valuable. When I see some stuff that is great out here on the main forums, I try to comment on it, but I usually only browse the Historic Forums about 1/20th as much as the GoH. I, for one, would love to see Classic Castle revitalized, but I suspect unless Lego releases a new castle theme, it will continue to die. There are security issues with the age of the site logins, and without a lot of dedicated enthusiasm and without fresh blood there both in users and admins (who appear weary from holding up a slowing site, much to their credit for doing so!), it faces an uphill battle. Eurobricks at least has enough peripheral traffic that people will stop in occasionally and may get interested. If you notice, most of the builds on GoH are pretty advanced. Some of the other forums that still have active themes, such as Town, you see a mix of advanced, intermediate, and novice builds. I suspect that the novice builders are attracted due to buying these themes in the stores, which means they need new Lego sets to bring them in. Some fraction of them decide to push their skills and develop over time into master builders (to borrow a term...), but without a current theme to usher in new builders, I fear that only those of us who grew up with the castle themes will continue it and we will grow old. I would also add that I speculate that the lack of current Lego sets in the castle them provides little in the way of usable castle parts and thus makes the entry barrier to novice castle builders high: parts are old, expensive on bricklink, or simply not available. I was lucky in that I grew up with the old castle sets and had a bunch of legacy figures and parts, but not everyone is that lucky (or that old).

I believe your link meant to point to this.

I've waited months before, with 'in warehouse' for most of it. Wait times for me have varied from 3 weeks (rarely) to 18 (usually between these two).

If you're looking for inspiration, the Historican Settlements Index from the Guilds of Historica subforum (a larger, rough storyline over a bunch of independent ones with custom builds) has a lot of interesting MOCs, ranging in size, setting, and quality. If you're looking to pursue a storyline and not just building a number of historic MOCs, the Guilds may be a good place to go, with lots of good feedback.

I was going to suggest posting some pictures, particularly of MOCs, to go with your story. Usually people on here are looking for MOCS and will skip all text posts. The story isn’t bad, and the Tudor style house looks pretty good. Putting a white or gray sheet behind the build and getting more light on it can help with pics, too. Overall nice little build!

I always love seeing your builds. You do a great job incorporating new, more detailed building techniques into the older 'classic' style, while retaining the classic feel. First, all the good: The colors are amazing, the detail level is perfect, the castle looks great, and I love that you incorporated an interior to the castle ward. The inner ward of the castle has a Medieval Marketplace feel to me. The jousting is great and the colors are fantastic. It is reminiscent of the Knight's Challenge to me. The stone path is great, and the whole thing has a very much 1984 King's Castle vibe to me. Nothing bad here, but if you're looking for suggestions: the jousting lists should probably not have a bleachers at the end of the lists. They were typically on the sides, both for spectating, logistics, and safety. A few of these someone else mentioned, but there's a number of things that were important enough for most castles to include them within the walls: well, kitchen (sometimes with buttery), blacksmith shop, stables, barracks, and apartments. I assume most of what we see is apartments. Typically there was a great hall made of stone, and much of the lower towers were used as food storage in case of a siege (aka, a granary). The kitchens were sometimes made from stone and somewhat detached from the other buildings, like the blacksmith shop was, for fire danger. These are pretty detailed for what you have here, but maybe they can give you some ideas. Keep up the great work!

This is a great creation! I particularly like the gradually decreasing diameter of the mill as it goes up--that must have taken quite a while to do! The rounded mill roof is well done, too. Is this a fairly sturdy build or are the walls delicate? It's a nice technique.

Ah! Gotcha! We should think of something interesting for having an HSS settlement in a region, like a small castle with relevant flag colors or something...

How does one earn one of the cool guild shield badges? Do you get one for building a qualifying HSS in that region or something? I think it would be cool to be able to earn an Avalonian badge.

Amazing work! I love how you are so detailed with small items and have a great sense of coordination. You must also have a large library of minis to work with, as there’s a number of pieces I have never seen before in there!

I understand that. I try to force myself to build, and I usually get 1-2 hours a month to actually build between work and the family. I wiped myself out with a build that ended Nov 1 and haven't spent a minute building since then. Look forward to seeing your Asian style town plan, please share it when you're done!

They were available 20 April 2019 at $0.32 each USD. @Megbricks, so... what do you build with all these crazy piece orders you put through? Do you build a lot of MOCs or just collect the rare pieces? I tend to buy pieces with a purpose in mind (i.e., specific projects or pieces that are widely applicable to medieval builds), so I am curious what you're building!

Great job! I love the whole scene. The brickbuilt bison/ox is superb. The way you built the snow with the water undercut is outstanding and looks very realistic, especially with the wedge pieces there. I like the tree with the upside down seaweed (a willow I assume) looks good, and I like the simple, yet effective snow you have placed on the trees. I would like to see a couple of shots with more light and from a lower angle, akin to where a minifigure's sightline would be. Parts of the tree trunks are obscured by the leaves from the current angle. I really like the story and the use of the downed tree as a blind to hunt from. Great work!

That’s a misquote of me, as I copied another. I never said mudded was not a word, merely pointing out the original poster could have meant a few different things with ‘leaning’ and was not necessarily incorrect in their usage. I would like to point out that this story was very well written and completely understood. I would hate for grammar sharpshooting to discourage people from writing, as these stories are great and I love seeing more of them. I have seen many native English speakers write far worse and much less intelligibly. Keep up the good work all!

@Boindil Lego, I thought that dish would be great for mushrooms, too, but when I looked it up (the Lighthouse of Darkness set), it's one of the big dishes, so unless you grow 4x4 mushrooms, it's too big.

You could theoretically write it like this, with leaning: His eyes stopped at a hill, its rock wall leaning over the valley.

Very cool! I like the idea of the bookends, and they fit nicely with the scene. You have a great sense of color and are daring in your incorporation of newer shades, particularly the lime, which is well done. I like the underground and the use of dark brown and reddish brown to help give texture to the dwelling. The goat cart and the trap are excellent as well! Love seeing your stuff!