Prison Castle

Name of Model: Prison Castle

Created by: Castle Element (website in Japanese)

Found at: http://home.att.ne.jp/apple/hachi/ce_ga_le27a.htm

Details: I don't know if it's just me or not, but the text on this page is showing up as gibberish instead of Japanese text (is there more than one Japanese character set?) Anyway - this is another spectacular castle. The sculpted outside and towering walls are the most eye-catching, but there's some great detail here with minifigs posed as both guards and prisoners. The mix of trees is great too, although I can't help but feel jealous when I see those older trees that you can't buy anymore used in a great model. Closer inspection reveals careful use of mottled textures within the sculpted section to show undergrowth - and then there's the little "windows" near the top which are actually backwards studs-not-on-top 1x1 bricks. Then there's the chain-attached drawbridge, which opens directly to a prison gate. There's tons of great stuff inside, too - carefully placed ghosts and skeletons, full furnishings, detailed jail cells - and of course, plenty of hinges to allow for easy viewing of the inside. As if all of that wasn't enough, the model even features a punchline - the final photo is a pair of Wolfpack Renegades (for those of you who weren't LEGO Castle fans in the early 90s, they are villains that live in the wilderness but aren't Forestmen) - tools in hand - plotting a break-in to free some of their cohorts.