When planning what to build at the annual tilting festival (ringriderfest) of Sønderborg back in 2007, we had multiple ideas and ended up building Alsion (Brickshelf gallery with pictures of the model), and I began planning the Castle of Sønderborg (Sønderborg Slot) shortly after. It was built (mostly) during the events of 2008 and 2009.

The model was build together with our member jespha and Ina and her boys, with help from a lot of other people visiting the events.

Here is the final result as it stood for about an hour before we had to pack it down.

Details Outside

The complete model has taken 4 builders about 2 weeks in total to build and it took me about a month to plan and fill orders. Needless to say, there are quite a few details, so let's go for a round.

There are 6 cannons at the real castle, but we had to stop somewhere. Notice the details such as the light post, fire hydrant and marked areas for the cannons.

The garbage container is hidden inside this small closure.

The tower ruin has a strange star shaped interior.

Trees and and gentle contour lines in the grass.

There are a lot of details in the walls, such as large gray stones, spears and bends.

Always catching Ina with a great expression :P

Notice the way the roof slopes inwards and how the non-straight angles force a jagged line up through the roof.

There are doors, blocked doors and windows in the most peculiar places.

A little bit of the beach.

Flags are raised at the entrance to celebrate the festival.

Anchors, benches, garbage bins, light posts, parking signs, stones and changes in the ground near the entrance.

A snotty door into the ticket sale

The changes in brightness of the walls are as in the real castle, although the LEGO bricks are quite a bit larger than what they should have been to be in scale.

Details Inside

If you are tall enough, you can peek inside and see these details.

Right behind the entrance there is an entrance to the basement. Notice how the 4½ stud wide windows have forced creative solutions everywhere. Jumpers are used between every second pair of windows in order to offset the difference.

This stairway tower bulges out a bit near the bottom.

A bird sculpture... in black. There are also large gray stones in the walls inside.

There are 8 sides on the small towers. They have a nice and simple structure compared to the rest of the castle.

This tower has a nice snotty clock.

While the last tower is nice and simple.

Planning

For the planning we took a lot of pictures, had a detailed floor plan

and a plan of the surroundings.

The coloring of the walls was found using my mosaic program (under

development). The frame was built during LeMans 2008.

The prototype for the windows uses 62 pieces and have tiles pointing both sidewards and upside down. The round roof was designed using a program I made for the purpose.

Building

The bricks were delivered to Ina's place. I rented a van and we were off to Sønderborg Ringriderfest 2008. A table was set up for the model in the tent.

The first day went by with me rebuilding the frame and everybody else building 200 windows, half of them mirrored. That's 12400 brick just for the windows!

The next day we began building the front section.

The second wing. Notice how the bricks are separated in different mixes.

It took 1½ day to complete a wing, so we were a bit behind schedule with the event only lasting 4 days.

I began preparing the last wing the last day. Here's how you can make the rounded shape.

This is how far we got during the first festival.

In order to finish before the exhibition at LEGO Fan Weekend 2008, we spent a week at Ina's place building the rest. Pictures were both on the laptop and PSP to speed things up.

Soon 3 sides were done.

Then 4, and on to the roof.

I sense a slight satisfaction from Ina late at night the last day of building.

Skærbæk 2008

The castle was finished for the event, and we built the surroundings at Sønderborg Ringriderfest 2009.

Here is how it appeared at Skærbæk 2008.

Next to Matija and his opera.

... and Jean-Marc.

Funny Stats

482897 bricks were ordered for this model. Some bricks didn't arrive and others were dropped or otherwise lost at the event, so I can't say exactly how many there are in the model.

The model measures 320x288 studs, or 92160 square studs and consists of 33 modules.

More than 300 pictures were used for reference, collected between 2007 and 2009.

See even more pictures in the Brickshelf Gallery!

Videos to appear later.

That is truly amazing. The smooth yard, the tile work, and cannons all make for a great castle

482897 bricks! That must have cost a fortune. Good Job

Wow! Just wow!

This truly is an incredible accomplishment. Thanks for sharing it so thoroughly! I appreciate the way you pointed out all the cool details. I really like the technique you used for the beach and rocky slopes in other areas.

This is really impressive! What a big building, but you've still managed to put in beautiful details. The colors look very good. The scenery is also very well done. I would love to see that in person sometime. Are you planning to brake it down in the future?

Huuuuge and magnificent work! A real beauty, BRAVO!

Lasse, you (and the crew you worked with) never cease to amaze me!

I love this, it is so great i don't even have words to do it justice....

From the original pictures i can see all the odd closed doors and windows you mentioned, i might have to visit the castle on my next trip to Denmark as it looks like my kind of place.

I hope this gets a spot in a permanent exhibition and that it will never be destroyed.

Only minor nitpick from me is that you should have waited untill the Prince Willim is finished, it would look awesome moored of on the cast.

Thanks for sharing!

This blew my mind and made my day at the same time.

The scale of this is icredible not to mention the amount of 1 by 2 plates. I love the round towers.

Reaper052 :skull:

I enjoyed seeing this model at Legoworld in Copenhagen in February 2009, but also having a quick look at the building process, when you worked at the similar large Koldinghus castle, inside the very same castle.

Lego is getting big publicity value from your models, only having to supply the bricks.

I know Ina together with others also did the 6:1 scaled Creator House (4954, Model Town House), and I've enjoyed having a closer look at that impressive work.

Keep up the good work, I hope to have the time and oppertunity some day, to join you in a similar crazy project.

Front

Really a great performance

Your whole post gives a good overview of all the techniques and also tools you used to create this huge lego creation

looking at all the bags with lego made me dizzy, luckily the end result did not.

applause

Thanks for the comments guys. I expect the video to be done by Saturday.

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482897 bricks! That must have cost a fortune. Good Job

I don't know the price, but I'm glad it was paid for before the financial crisis!

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Are you planning to brake it down in the future?

It has been boxed up in modules, see OP.

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From the original pictures i can see all the odd closed doors and windows you mentioned, i might have to visit the castle on my next trip to Denmark as it looks like my kind of place.

I hope this gets a spot in a permanent exhibition and that it will never be destroyed.

I hope it gets displayed in real castle, so people can relate to all the details. That way you can bring you little ship to the castle and accomplish it all at once.

I enjoyed seeing this model at Legoworld in Copenhagen in February 2009, but also having a quick look at the building process, when you worked at the similar large Koldinghus castle, inside the very same castle.

Lego is getting big publicity value from your models, only having to supply the bricks.

I know Ina together with others also did the 6:1 scaled Creator House (4954, Model Town House), and I've enjoyed having a closer look at that impressive work.

Keep up the good work, I hope to have the time and oppertunity some day, to join you in a similar crazy project.

Koldinghus has apparently been taken apart and given to a kindergarten

I hope this model has a better fate, but with Alsion being packed away in a basement, I don't want to keep my hopes too high.

I was not involved in the 6:1 project, but there's often new projects going on, and I'm sure we can get to build something crazy together if you remember to tell LEGO that you are willing to help

This is amazing. The scale this is built at and the amount of bricks I hope that someday I see this in person and that some day I have the time/skill/money to attempt a project at this scale.

MOCs like this baffle me! I'm looking at these photos with my mouth open!!

Very impressive. Truly a masterpeice.

May i ask who pays for this? Does Lego front the bill or is the cost split between the memebers?

OK< that is INSANE. Who on earth has that kind of money to buy bags and bags of specific lego pieces!!!??!?!?!

It's is purely spectacular I muct say but dang. Don't you guys have jobs? hehe.

For these cannons, I'd recommend using this type of brick for the butt end of the barrel:

Here's an example of one cannon from the MOC Cannon Index to show what i'm talking about:

This is what I call good presentation of the creation!

Monster work of art!