Bugbot20082

I have enjoyed advent Callanders from city and Starwars in the past... but afterwards I always end up selling most of the figures and recycling most of the builds into my stock but not for this HP Callander! Apart from the 4 presents perhaps everything is going to have a new home in my displays ? I would advise Lego continues with this and puts in small builds and accessories which for example maybe were cut from official sets for budget etc, and keep mini beasts/vehicles to a minimum Ideas for Next year: Headmaster’s podium House Hourglasses Yule Ball table (similar to set) Owl post & Numbus 2000 broom Niffler on a pile of treasure Norbert the dragon (brick-built)

I agree it is a very nice selection of builds once all displayed together, and one of the best Christmas tree builds I can think of from an advent calendar. I agree however also the order could have been better: the trees should not have been back to back and maybe they could have started the tables and flags earlier in the days to spread them out more. Parhaps next year we will get the trio in their Hogsmeade outfits (Hermionie using a recolour of the new hair/hat combo from hidden side)

Yes it does look similar with the roof shapes, I hope lego will do an official set for winter next year :) So what did everyone think of the advent Callander? My favourite model has got to be the architect statue! Now I just need to modify the Great Hall to make a space for it

I had the same thoughts also about the Astronomy tower and I made a micro model to show how the layout of the set might look: I also did one for the other version of the room of requirement, in a different castle section with rooms more relevant to the events of the Order of the Phoenix movie: What do you guys think?

Like others have said I think the car and tree are in scale, but not the rest. There was a mini train polybag and the Dimensions game pack which are more in scale with microfigures and the castle I think. Maybe next year’s calendar could have some UCS-scale builds such as a bigger train (engine and carriage on different days), and the Ironbelly dragon to go with Diagon Alley, and a micro Knight bus!

That set is based off some specific sequential scenes covering only about 20 mins of the CoS movie. Making one castle section per movie seems to me like an arbitrary restriction to have. Some of the films have more scenes in the castle, which would merit more castle sets, while others spend more time out in the wider wizarding world, especially in the later movies. I don’t see why they would not eventually make a set with the chamber itself, it’s a big unique looking action-packed movie climax with lots of potential for play features and new figures such as Tom Riddle and Lockhart In my other thread I showed a concept for what it could look like integrated into a part of the castle:

Give it time :) I would expect she will appear in a ‘Chamber of Secrets’ castle section set with short legs. Older variations (medium legs) with casual clothes might appear in an updated set of the Burrow, and even a ‘Battle at the Ministry’ set based around the mysterious archway or the prophesy Room

Love the chameleon mould and I really like that the stripe pattern matches the original so you could pretend it’s the same chameleon hiding on the bed :D

Me too! There is still a lot of castle and rooms missing, I approximate another 4 big sections such as an ‘Astronomy Tower’ Set (70-100£) and 2+ medium sets (50-70£) to complete a screen-accurate castle.

I finally got the last spelling mistakes hopefully fixed in the thread I created for my ‘complete Hogwarts castle as sets’ concept. I have nothing new to add to it so will be leaving it alone for now Here is how the fully assembled (micro prototype) castle ended up:

So excited to finally be opening up the advent calendar ? I’m looking forward to finding homes for all the things around the bigger sets

The brown version of the bulldog we saw before is confirmed for the new city set Tuning Workshop 60258

Thanks you very much ? I’ve been sketching designs while on the train and at work at break time for weeks ? I’ll get any spelling mistakes fixed this evening.

I also propose a single small ‘Greenhouse’ set is made, of which multiples could be purchased. It could be based on the single class scene with the mandrakes, or include Slughorn and a ‘Felix’ Harry. Some images showing all of the sets combined together: This final image is my release schedule example, with the big sets dictating that there are potentially another 4 waves (years?) of sets possible with my concept design. If you made it this far well done and many thanks for indulging me ? These concepts are completely open-source so feel free to use them as inspiration for MOC’s etc

One more! This final ‘castle’ set concept includes several smaller random buildings which so far have been excluded all in one set together: the Boat house, Owlery (aka West Tower) and gatehouse (see Adwick castle). This set is called ‘The Battle of Hogwarts’, with the assorted buildings playing for battle ground for the big climatic war at the end of DHpt2. The Minifigure selection would prioritise characters who were present at the battle which may not be in any other sets such as Pius Thicknesse, or exclusive variations of characters such as Longbottom wearing his cardigan, with the sword in hand. McGonagall is included because of her scene animating the statues which would also appear in the set. A giant, built like the troll from the Girls' Bathroom set would also be included. The rooms inside the gatehouse are McGonagall’s office and classroom, and the structure could have some ‘exploding’ play functions.

The final big castle build is the other end of the Long Gallery, which overlooks the viaduct which connects to the Great Hall (not included). This section of castle became a dumping ground for all the remaining rooms/locations of the castle not covered yet that I could think of, mainly the Library and Ravenclaw Tower to complete each house’s common rooms. It also includes the charms classroom from PS. There is no ‘story’ to this set unfortunately, but has more of a Year 1-2 leaning so there could be the scary book harry finds in the restricted section. In this concept I have also included the Gryffindor common room; it is large and fully detailed with sofas and a fireplace, and the portrait of the Fat Lady. If the Gryffindor common room is in the Forbidden Corridor Set I showed earlier then the Charms classroom could go in this space instead. Minifigures wise it is similarly an ‘everything else’ set with a bunch of students not yet covered such as the Patil twins (school robes). It could include the PS/CoS version of Flitwick and the librarian who was seen sitting at the teacher table in a few shots. Having Ravenclaw Tower also justifies including the Ghost of the Grey Lady. As the weakest set so far this would probably be the last one released to finish off the theme in the current iteration.

The first of these two sets has the Bell Towers as it’s ‘front’. The story this set is based around is the conflict between Umbridge and Dumbledore’s Army in the Order of the Phoenix movie. I chose to call this set ‘The Room of Requirement’, as to be more meaningful than ‘Bell Towers’ etc. The interior spaces in the Bell Tower section itself includes Umbridge’s version of her office, and an entrance hall pretending to be the doorway to the Great Hall in the movie with all the Educational Decrees hung up around it. The shorter central section which connects behind it has two large spacious rooms: the DAtDA classroom (complete with several desks and the dragon skeleton), and the DA version of the Room of Requirement. I had an extra section of courtyard leftover when I made my divisions, so I decided to leave it in this set and put in the Hufflepuff Common room (based on concept art perhaps). Alternatively it could have the Slug Club, the Duelling club or something else and be it’s own individual set. Minifigures at minimum would include Umbridge, Harry, Ron, Luna, and Fred and George (shown flying their broomsticks letting off fireworks). Several patronus animals using existing moulds (e.g. the rabbit and dog) and robot Death Eaters are included. Hufflepuff members of the DA would also make sense. This list is assuming Hermione is in a CMF with an otter patronus.

Lastly we come to the huge Long Gallery, which looks like a long gothic cathedral with a tall central tower in the middle and twin bell towers at the rear. In the film it has the greenhouses on the side facing the lake and the courtyard on the other side. This was the most difficult section of castle to translate into the new ‘doll house’ modular system as it is such a large and irregular shape, and I wanted to preserve its outward film appearance as much as possible when viewed from most angles. In the end I decided to split the structure into four distinct modules as shown, with each section following the ‘doll-house’ convention individually. The modules were then paired up into two large castle sets. The modules may have multiple ways of connecting them together to produce different shapes besides the ‘true’ version I’m showing.

The courtyard has what is sometimes called the ‘Training grounds tower’ on its far corner, and if this is separated with symmetrical flanks of courtyard either side we get a shape which fits the template for a Chamber of Secrets set perfectly. This set is much like the original version 4730 (only missing the bathroom tower), and has all the same minifigures and accessories such as the sword, hat, diary etc. Fawkes the Phoenix should be a new animal mould, perhaps using the existing Legends of Chima wings to enable posing. The Statue head of Slytherin is integrated into the lower half of the corner tower, and there is an extra room above with details from the movie such as the writing on the walls. Detachable modules on the chamber ends could include the round entrance door and a collapsing rocks mechanism. The new Basilisk would be brick built again, but much larger (body is 4 studs wide) and more detailed than the snake from the Great hall set. To push it through the mouth of the statue the opening in the back doubles as a doorway on the castle exterior.

The larger remaining part of The Quad is called ‘The Forbidden Corridor’. The same height as the Girls' Bathroom but including about twice as much castle volume this set would be action-packed including every room of protection to the stone. It also includes some extra rooms such as Filch’s office and in this concept another section of the Hospital wing (alternatively the Gryffindor Common room would also be a good choice in the space shown). Minifigures would include the trio (all short legs), Quirrell (new face expressions), Filch, Mrs Norris and Neville Longbottom wearing his pyjamas. Madam Pomfrey would be included here if she is not in a CMF series. There would be two minifigure chess pieces and Fluffy the dog could be brick-built or moulded or a combination of the two. The Mirror appears again but could be a simpler version with a blank reflective pane. This set could also include a light brick to illuminate the Devil’s snare. When combined with the girl’s' bathroom all the ‘open’ sides are all facing inwards, leaving a clean castle exterior except perhaps where they connect to another set like the Great Hall. For playability/access to the interior this does mean I had to break my rule and have this model ‘open up’ with hinges or module separations. What remains to cover now is the large castle section sometimes called the Long Gallery, and the remaining perimeter of the courtyard which connects to the astronomy tower.

Next I looked at the section of castle called The Quad: this is perhaps the most overlooked part of the castle with few shots in the movies having a proper look at it. This is because it is hidden in between the lakeside ‘front’ of the castle on one side and the Clock Tower on the other which are much more visually interesting and memorable. To the casual eye this is just ‘random’ background castle. As a standalone structure it is still not very visually interesting with no obvious front or back, and gets more messy when you consider that the staircase tower which is already in another set is one of its corners. The amount of castle is also too large to be one single set, so I decided to break it up into two sets. All the issues described above guided me to the conclusion that these two castle sets would be titled after their interior, not exterior. The first one is called ‘The Girl’s Bathroom’. This is basically an update of the two old sets 4735 and 4712 combined together, and is likewise based mainly on the Polyjuice Potion sequence from the Chamber of Secrets. I chose a section of the Quad with a tower at the right side as to best replicate the shape of the bathroom as seen in the film. Minifigures included are: Moaning Myrtle the ghost (medium legs), the main trio, Draco and Crabbe and Goyle (all short legs). Hermione would have a cat face on the reverse of her head. Also included is Percy Weasley (medium legs) who in the film Harry and Ron encounter before Draco finds them. A side build included is the troll from the first film, which also has a scene in one of the bathrooms, it would be brick-built similar I imagine to the Mr Freeze mech from the LEGO Batman movie set. Having the bathroom on top of the Slytherin Common room perfectly accommodates the play function of a slide underneath the sink for the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Another play feature could be ‘transforming’ Ron and Harry via the bathroom stalls which could include a mechanism like some previous Batcave sets have done for example.

Thanks :) Yours are great too! Your Rita Skeeter especially makes me excited for an official one :D

Now for my concepts for future sets! At the top of everyone’s list is the Astronomy Tower. This building was only added into the Hogwarts architecture in the HBP movie, replacing the holding tower from POA and a smaller simpler looking tower which was on the corner of the courtyard. It is the tallest tower of the castle and is definitely memorable enough to merit a set of its own. The ‘Story’ this set tells is from the HBP movie: Draco’s mission to let the Death Eaters into the castle, ending with the climax at the top of the tower. This dictated the choice of rooms inside: the top floor is the astronomy room itself, featuring the balcony and some astronomy apparatus etc, and the ground floor contains the ‘Room of Hidden things’ with the vanishing cabinet inside. The ground floor includes some sections of the courtyard either side of the tower as to provide stability to the model; they do not detach. This also enables all of this space to be one large open room filled with all the details/play features you can imagine to replay many of the scenes that happen here from all of the movies. The tower is tall enough to have another room in the middle, and I have chosen the Divination classroom as this felt appropriate. The set itself does not necessarily need Trelawney however as she was in HPCMF1. The tower could be made taller with another room inside the neck however I felt this would make it too big compared to the other buildings. Minifigures would include the important named characters from the Astronomy Tower scene, and a few extra students added depending on budget. For example I have included Blaise because his most memorable scene is in the Room of Hidden things (DHP2).

Hi everyone I have finally got round to putting up my Hogwarts castle sets concepts that I showed a preview of earlier. It’s a lot of words at the beginning I’m afraid (a bit of an essay actually, sorry), so be warned, you will be reading the thought train of a young engineer having fun solving a puzzle. I’m submitting it in chunks, hope you enjoy seeing the new set ideas when they get added. :) Cheers

The Whomping Willow (75953). This set was unusual in that it included a large random looking castle section, but the set is named after one of its smaller side builds which was the focus of the ‘story’ of the set. This story then dictated the interior of the castle sections; Snape’s office and classroom etc. The short and irregular castle sections look like those seen in the background of the whomping willow scenes (CoS movie, filmed at Adwick castle), which would locate them beyond the long gallery and the greenhouses. The Clock Tower (75948). This set is named after another distinct Hogwarts architectural landmark, but could also have been called ‘The Yule Ball’, as this is the main event you play. It includes the most variety of random rooms from the films of any set yet, but maintains a focus on the GoF movie. Arguably only the Hospital wing is close to the correct location. A small version of Dumbledore’s office is included in a small tower which can connect to the side of the clock tower. The office was not included in the Great Hall set, which is where I would have put it (Dumbledore’s office is supposed to be in the triple turret tower sticking out of the top of the marble staircase tower). In the films the Clock Tower connects to the rear of The Quad behind the marble staircase tower via an overpass on its top floor, which is missing from this set as the back is open. For my final combined castle layout I have chosen to move the office tower module to a convenient random corner elsewhere (on the courtyard), and leave the Clock Tower left standing alone (an overpass could be MOC’d).