Sunday, May 25, 2014

Castle Whitespire from The Magician King by Lev Grossman


I really enjoyed the books The Magicians and The Magician King by Lev Grossman. So when I decided to build a castle out of Legos for my son and his cousins to play with, I modeled it on the description of castle Whitespire. The coolest thing about the castle is that it is built with ancient dwarven clockwork, so the towers of the keep all rotate independently about once per day, powered by windmills. I only built one windmill (ridiculously inside the walls) and one rotating tower, but it's still fun to play with. Here's a video of it working:



There's a few houses inside the walls. I visited the Tower of London and guards are still living in the houses like this inside those walls. You can click on all these photos for a larger version.


This is a clock tree made by the Watcherwoman.


This is Penny. I told Daniel I needed a punk with no shirt and no hands, so he built this guy.


One of the kings standing on the wall.

A king and queen waving from the tower. The only good girl's crown I had was for Galadriel, so she has pointed ears.


I tried to make a ram's head for the chapel. I used little dinosaurs for the horns, it was the best I could think of.


Inside the chapel.


Some stained glass windows.


This is the square room in the square tower with four thrones. There used to be a map on the table, I don't know what happened to it. The kids have been playing with it. When I went to take these pictures, Batman was looming off one of the gargoyles on the tower.



A shot of the main gate and the overall layout. You can also see a lamppost that seems to have been carried over from Narnia.


Some of the villagers.