LEGO® and castles have a long history, as one of the original core themes, castles have a large fanbase that’s still as avid today as it was back in the 70s. Just as the Castle theme has evolved over time, MOC builders have also branched out to bring brick-built castles into different styles. One of such style is microscale. Although a smaller scale of building, they can offer uniquely detailed creations without needing thousands of bricks. Jeff Friesen is one builder who is rather skilled when it comes to microscale buildings. No Starch Press have collected together some of Jeff’s creations in another Microscale-focused LEGO title. So let’s take a closer look at The LEGO Castle Book: Build Your Own Mini Medieval World
Product Description
Filled with stunning photos, step-by-step instructions, and creative ideas for customisation, The LEGO Castle Book shows you how to build six mini castles complete with moats, drawbridges, gatehouses, and more! Travel through the history of castle architecture and learn how to build basic castle components like walls, towers, gates, and keeps.
Whether your goal is to add realistic details like crenellations, turrets, and parapets to your designs or to create a believable medieval setting, you’ll find endless inspiration in The LEGO Castle Book.
- Book Title: The LEGO Castle Book: Build Your Own Mini Medieval World
- Publisher: No Starch Press
- Pages: 190
- RRP: £20.99
- ISBN: 9781718500167
- Availability: Selected Book Retailer & Online
The Book
The book is split into a various different chapters, the majority of which feature instructions to build a series of different mini castles. These give you the elements you’ll need to build them and visual steps of how to build them. The first half of the book is just as intersting. Here you’ll find simple techniques to create miniature sections of architecture, focused towards medieval styles, useful elements to use when building in a smaller scale and an informative spread about real medieval building. This gives the book a nice robust feel, it’s not just an array of building instructions, it’s also quite informative.
Microscale is an interesting style of building, not only it is on a much smaller scale, it also uses elements in different ways. This is highlighted across the book. I’ve always been impressed by how MOC builders see certain elements in a different ways to how they were originally created to be used. A Minifigure hair piece becomes a tree, a Technic gear can become a intricate roof spire, it’s things like these which are dotted throughout the book. There are instructons included to build one of 6 different style of Microscale Castle – Sleeping Dragon, Land’s End, River Gate, Winter Palace, Eight Arches and Mountain Kingdom. The book gives you a visual instructional guide to build them. Beginning with the elements you would need to create them, complete with elements numbers which makes them much easier to source from Bricklink or to see if you already own them using Brickset.
Overall
One of the best things about Microscale building it seeing how elements are used. This book does a great job of highlighting this, what I also like is how the book adds an educational twist with a information about sections of castles, how they were built and what they were used for. Jeff’s builds are beautifully presented not only in the images of complete creations but also for the instructions. No Starch Press continue to offer unique takes on LEGO fandom, not only allowing fan builders to share their skills but also allowing budding builders to expand their LEGO knowledge.
The LEGO Castle Book is published by No Starch Press and is available now from Amazon and WHSmith, plus in digital form from No Starch Press. This book was provided by the publisher for purposes of review, the thoughts expressed within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of No Starch Press or the LEGO Group.