One of the oldest and most prestigious LEGO contests is the annual Colossal Castle Contest (also referred to as CCC amongst LEGO fans) run by Classic-Castle.com. Each year hundreds of competitors from around the globe build entries in a variety of LEGO Castle related building challenges that sets the bar high and change from year to year. Read on for details! 🙂
The Colossal Castle Contest started back in 2003 and is held in November and December of each year. Winners are announced in late January or early February. Prizes often include new and classic LEGO Castle sets, custom LEGO minifigures, custom LEGO animals, and custom LEGO weapons. But what it really brings to the winners is fame and prestige within the LEGO community. Being a winner of CCC is a serious position! Also, besides winners in each category, the title of Master Builder is awarded to the person who does best across all contest categories.
Even if you have no plans of participating in this LEGO contest, I highly recommend that you follow it. Especially if you are a LEGO Castle fan. From all LEGO contests I’m aware of, this one consistently has the most breathtaking LEGO creations. And not just one or two, but a whole array of them. I don’t envy the judges as they have to decide between so many incredible entries each year! If you want to be inspired, this is the place to go! See previous years’ entries here: LEGO Colossal Castle Contest Events
This year is the 10th annual Colossal Castle Contest (also referred to as CCCX) challenges participants in fourteen LEGO Castle related categories. Contestants can enter up to two entries per category, and can enter as many categories as they want. If you are up to the challenge and would like to enter (yes, there is still time; the deadline is December 31st), you can check out the rules here: LEGO Colossal Castle Contest Rules
Here I would like to show you some of the entries – submitted so far this year – to give you a taste for what is possible in LEGO Castle. You can also find all of the entries here: LEGO CCCX Entries
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Medieval Life: Build a small civilian building focusing on medieval life. Ideas include shops, farms, wells and barns.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – An Ill Advised Journey: Will your medieval travelers safely navigate their journey through unknown lands? Ideas include attacks by highwaymen, encountering a wild animal, caught in a storm, and rowing through river rapids.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Trade & Tolls: Build a scene depicting regulation of medieval trade on land or water. Ideas include a toll bridge, river fortress, or city gate.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Forest Life: Depict a scene from medieval forest life. Ideas include a deer hunt, highway robbery, lumberjacks felling trees, or forestmen setting up their campsite.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Winter Scene: Build a medieval scene set in the winter. Ideas include a Christmas celebration, ice fishing, Vikings sailing past icebergs, or other cold settings.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Classic Set Reimagined: Recreate a classic castle set using current pieces, colors, and building techniques.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Miscellaneous: Does your castle creation not fit in one of our categories? Then enter it here! This category does not have a baseplate size limitation. Remember that you are still limited to three photographs, even for large creations.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Tudor Castle: Build a small castle that incorporates stone walls and timber frame structures. Each castle should include frame structures such as courtyard buildings or hoardings.
➡ LEGO Castle Contest – Castle: Each castle should contain a gate tower, side towers, a courtyard and interior buildings. Details such as landscaping, a moat, drawbridge, and a portcullis are encouraged. The minimum size of a castle should be 32×32 studs. There is not a maximum size limit in this category but keep in mind that you can only enter 3 photographs.
What do you think? Are you inspired to enter the LEGO Colossal Castle Contest? Or planning to follow the contest’s progress this year? Which one is your favorite entry so far? (Remember; there are a lot more at the contest entry page!) Share your thoughts and discuss below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
- Tips for Winning a LEGO Contest!
- Guide to Building a LEGO Castle Village
- LEGO Fairy Forest – Enchanted & Magical…
- How to Make Beautiful LEGO Trees
- LEGO Building Technique: Forced Perspective
- LEGO Building Technique: LEGO Water
I’ve actually already entered three catagories, and I just finished another one, so that makes four… 😀 And there have been some awesome entires!
You did??? Go girl! 😀
Thanks! 😀
I was looking through the previous entries, and I saw that the creator of the fairy forest MOC won an award last year.
Creators, really. I interviewed them, talking about the Faerie Forest, if you were interested: http://mosaicbricks.blogspot.com/2012/11/interview-with-sean-and-steph-mayo.html
Katie, thanks for sharing that! 😀
Katie, such a wonderful interview! Very inspiring! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Yeah, it is an amazing LEGO creation! 🙂
Can you do it on Lego Digital Designer?
Good question! I’m not sure though. You would have to read thru the rules. Probably Geneva can answer you since she already entered. 😉
Yes you can. In fact, it looks like the fourth to last one on the post is LDD. 😀
(I didn’t use LDD, though… actually, most of my entries were MOCs I had already built – though within the time period of course! – for other reasons.)
i saw your Entrie for Realistic Castle Figure Gid617
😀 How was it? (Not as good as Mark of Falworth’s by a long shot!) Yeah, I had a tough time building a custom figure without any custom pieces… 😆
i liked it!
Good! 😀 😉
I am going to ask my dad if i can have a flicker acount soi can enter 😀
You don’t just need a Flickr account, you need a Classic-Castle ID too. As far as your question below, I’m not sure why it has the (s), (maybe two users can team up?) but you have to put your ID/screen name/username/whatever in to be able to enter. 😉
Whoops
Acount so i can enter
What does this mean Classic-Castle Userid(s)
Thats just the username of you Classic castle forum name, Assuming you have registered for it 😀
Put in your username to signify you have an account.
These look so great!
I just dont think I have enough pieces…yet. I would need to make a big order from pickabrick. MMV will come anyday now though so that should help a little. Not that I will enter this year. But I do REALLY LIKE lego Medieval stuff.
I don’t think there is a minimum size in any of the catagories (except maybe Medieval Achitecture Detail, where the max is 16×16 and that may be the minimum too, for all I know), so you could do something pretty small. Of course, the smaller your creation is, the less impressive it will be when compared with the others, but you could still enter. 😉
Also, there is a Realistic Castle Figure and a Fantasy Castle Figure catagories, where (naturally) you only have to build a minifigure, so that shouldn’t be too hard even if you have a small brick collection. (You could try something big anyways, especially if you’re getting the MMV – I never got that, but just by looking at it, it seems to have a lot of very useful pieces! I consider my collection small – and maybe you’d wonder what I would think is big – but I can still build a fairly big creation if I use several different colors! 😀 )
I know what you mean about using several different colors 🙂 Thanks for replying, I will consider entering. And I got the MMV and built it. It does have more pieces then I thought it would.
this is just 2 awesome!