Lego Custom Forestmen Castle

ganon578 · Post by **ganon578** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 4:11 pm

I've been on a Lego kick lately, and have always enjoyed the Forestmen sets from the late 1980's. I combined a couple of sets that I already owned, and took a peek at some instructions for sets that I didn't so I could get design elements I thought were neat into the set. It took me about 1-2 hours a night for about a week to get it to this point, but I'm still making minor changes. I used Brick Factory for sets I didn't own. This castle is basically a conglomeration of The Forestmen's Hideout (front right corner), the Camouflaged Outpost (left side), the Forestmen's River Fortress (entrance), and the Dungeon Masters Castle (back right corner), with my own additions and changes to get it all to work. Thoughts?

Thunderwave · Post by **Thunderwave** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 4:49 pm

That's pretty darn cool.

I've been looking at possibly making a custom LEGO build at some point. Been poking at some websites and I've got a few ideas on what to make. Problem is that they are all grand and need space, something that's at a premium at the moment. I figure my son can help me with pieces of it and we can make it a father/son bonding project.

ganon578 · Post by **ganon578** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 3:35 pm

Thanks!!!

Lego building is definitely a bonding moment. My daughter is WAY too young (9 months) for Legos right now, but I look forward to building with her some day. Space is a hot commodity for us right now too, but we're moving to a house soon with a basement, so that can be worked around. Right now my big problem is keeping the cat from stealing Lego pieces...

I'm planning another custom at the moment too. I need a black castle for my evil knights and war wizards. It'll probably be along the color schemes of the recent Knight's Kingdom bad guy sets (Vladek, scorpions, etc.) using black and red/dark red as a color palette. I'd like to go black and grey like the old Black Monarch stuff, but grey will be a useful color when I come around to building my castle for my good Knights...

Thunderwave · Post by **Thunderwave** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:13 pm

I understand the space totally. I'm living in a three bedroom townhouse with a basement, although most of my basement is taken over by craft space, sewing for my wife and leather for myself. If all goes well we'll have a house next year with 2-3 times the space we have now.

I've been working on rough designs in my head for a couple of mini-fig scaled starships. IF I do it right I should be able to use a modular design to make things a lot easier, both in terms of layouts and in making the modules. Mind you these ships have more in common with the Sluaco rather then, say, The Millennium Falcon. Big slabsided things rather then small, sleeker vessels.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:22 pm

I'm an awful person with toys, I'll sell basically anything, regardless of how I got it or how mad about it I was when I first got it, or how long I hunted for it. I'm probably one of the ultimate revolving door collectors. However, the one thing I will not sell is Lego, because one day I want my kids to play with it.

ganon578 · Post by **ganon578** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:50 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I'm an awful person with toys, I'll sell basically anything, regardless of how I got it or how mad about it I was when I first got it, or how long I hunted for it. I'm probably one of the ultimate revolving door collectors. However, the one thing I will not sell is Lego, because one day I want my kids to play with it.

I have only sold a few Lego Star Wars minifigs that I was uninterested with. Most just cannon fodder figures, I kept Luke & Vader from ROTJ and Anakin Skywalker from ROTS. Oh, and I kept Anakin and his podracer from Ep 1. Other than that and some Bionicle, I won't ever sell my other Lego sets (City, Castle, Pirate, etc.) because they're just too damn cool!

Transformers are a little different as I seem to buy everything in sight when new lines come out. Then I realize my mistake, become disenchanted with some of them and have massive sell offs. All it really does is give me fresh money to feed new toy addictions. And so the cycle repeats...

Slayer-Fan123 · Post by **Slayer-Fan123** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:15 pm

Great castle! I'm more into space myself though.

ganon578 · Post by **ganon578** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:57 pm

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Great castle! I'm more into space myself though.

Thanks! I like the space sets too, thought I just don't have as much stuff to work with as I do castle or city. I really liked the M:Tron and Blacktron sets from the late 80's early 90's. And I wish I had more sets from Ice Planet 2002. Those little orange chainsaws rocked!

Slayer-Fan123 · Post by **Slayer-Fan123** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 1:10 am

ganon578 wrote:Thanks! I like the space sets too, thought I just don't have as much stuff to work with as I do castle or city. I really liked the M:Tron and Blacktron sets from the late 80's early 90's. And I wish I had more sets from Ice Planet 2002. Those little orange chainsaws rocked!

THOSE CHAINSAWS!
I plan on getting some for my figs to battle with. They're like super weapons.

Post by **Warcry** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 7:12 pm

This is lovely.

You've really maximized the interior space. From the outside it looks like a tiny fort, but on the inside it's very spacious by Lego standards.

If I could offer a bit of advice, I think the blue roof tiles jump out at you a bit too much. Green or brown might blend in a bit better than that, maybe.

One thing I really like are how you've got the leaves growing out up the side of the building in this shot:

ganon578 wrote:

I've seen that done before and I always think it adds an extra dimension of realism to Forestmen builds...makes them look old and careworn, like you'd expect from a fort that was left alone while the forest grew back up around it.

ganon578 · Post by **ganon578** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:13 pm

Warcry wrote:This is lovely. You've really maximized the interior space. From the outside it looks like a tiny fort, but on the inside it's very spacious by Lego standards.

If I could offer a bit of advice, I think the blue roof tiles jump out at you a bit too much. Green or brown might blend in a bit better than that, maybe.

Thanks! I originally had green on there, and it just seemed too green. So I threw the blue in as an homage to the Forestmen's Hideout from long ago. I don't think I have enough brown pieces to make it work, plus I want to save them for a barbarian/viking fort that I plan on making. I've kicked around putting the green back on to see how it looks. Maybe I'll do so and post a photo.

I'm also thinking of putting a little river/stream trickling through the grass just outside the fort. That may look pretty cool...