A LEGO fan that came out of his dark ages around 2005 after spending a few decades enjoying computer gaming.

 

I built a few city sets, train sets, and a couple MOCs centered around cities hoping a friend from High School would join me in building a bustling city MOC.

 

In late 2012 after attending Brickworld Chicago and getting motivation to venture into Castle building I decided to make an attempt at building a castle that could come apart as awesomely as the Campbell Brothers castles did at the 2012 Brickworld show. Stopping at the LEGO store and remembering how awesome the World of Lights was at Brickworld I decided to build the castle out of clear plates as both the 1x2 and 1x1 were available on the wall and could be overlapped. The first version of HOPE CASTLE taught me that plates were different than bricks and couldn't afford the seamless disassembly without massive molds. Eventually I decided on a way to build what I thought would be a clover like shape and compact enough to be able to be stackable. It took 2 attempts to come out with the shape and configuration that lives on in "Memorial Tower" within the HOPE CASTLE complex.

 

HOPE CASTLE was built initially to help honor then remember a young LEGO lover Taylor Easterberg and his brave battle with Burkitt's Lymphoma. During the construction between July 2012 and June 2013 Taylor passed away and the small keep became a memorial for him. Eventually he would have a level that exists today with his name built into it.

 

During reconstruction and addition of castle walls from July 2013 to June 2014 the castle was built to also honor my sister (Keely Yaeger-Decker) in her battle with Breast Cancer. It also was there to honor the ongoing battle from Justin Miller and his battle with Neuroblastoma which came to an end in January 2014. My sister passed away in February 2014 before the newer version was shown at Brickworld Chicago. This year at Chicago I had a screen behind castle showing images of Taylor, Justin, and Keely showing the inspirations behind this castle. There were 3 levels in the keep this year with cancer ribbons inside in the respective colors of the cancers each one fought.

 

HOPE CASTLE saw an expansion of the footprint in 2015 with the castle getting a town, taller keep and taller walls. This year the castle got its first compliment of Ice Bear soldiers to guard the castle thanks to a bowling strike pot win in early 2015. There was a screen inside the castle walls showing pictures again this year. The castle had a bunch of the RGB Lifelites units inside the castle for light up during world of lights. At this point I think I figured out that my Main MOC would be HOPE CASTLE and it would get changes each year for Brickworld Chicago to keep it fresh and fun to look at.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2016 Brickworld saw and even taller keep, a Barn built in memory of a fellow COWLUG/DENLUG AFOL Jim West who had passed away in October 2015 from a Heart attack. The castle was put on MILS this year with recessed parts for the walls and buildings to be set into. It also had a Party Rocker LIVE behind castle with a mountain on top to provide a DISCO feel to the world of lights. This year I had transitioned to LED rolls of lights for a much brighter HOPE CASTLE during world of lights.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2017 saw a larger clover construction in the middle of the castle and the original keep was moved onto the the Party Rocker Live with a new base. The Ice Bear army got bigger along with some elves dragons flying overhead. The whole MOC was moved to the floor for it's first appearance down low with more to see. I might have however forgot the roof sections to the new clover however. The castle also got a moat this year also with a MILS increase from 50" deep to 60" deep. The castle this year only had a textured look in the new clover keep as the rest of the castle area was all clear plates only.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2018 saw a recoloring of the walls to a textured look with 1x2 and 1x1 trans brown plates. I also added trans purple panels on the insides of the walls to conserve plates to make room for taller walls and more clovers. The original keep was placed on top of the MILS this year. Moat still is only on 3 sides. This would prove to be the FIRST year of a collaboration between myself and Michael Frederick where he brought Santa and his troops for a visit or attempted invasion. Monitor in the background played a video of the people who had battle cancer and inspired elements of this castle. Sadly in October 2017 Trevor Kling (son of a bowling friend) passed away from Brain cancer and his initials were added to a clover roof section. Initials of Taylor, Justin, Keely, and Jim were also added to Roof sections.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2019 saw names moved into the walls of the clover sections and the Moat was changed to go around the whole castle. It saw a height increase on one side of the castle which changed some of the MILS on that side of castle. There was a trench built in front of the town along with a couple new Igloos and some Ice Trees. Michael increased his sieging techniques with a full orc army, siege tower and working trebuchets. This was the first year that we introduced Rainbow Portals but didn't work the way intended.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2020 with Virtual shows due to the pandemic saw a transition where the "Clover of HOPE" was inside the castle and "Memorial Tower" was in the town. The Tower would have names of those that had lost their battle with cancer whereas the Clover would have people battling or successfully battle cancer. Rainbow portals, trench, trees, and igloos still part of display with my own enemy armies doing the invading. A week for what would have been Brickworld Chicago 2020 my co-host from Friday Night Bricks Turner Howell passed away from an Epileptic episode. He would get a memorial clover in a future version of the castle.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2021 only saw a show in October for Brickworld Milwaukee. To my word I created a clover in memorial tower for Turner. I also added a clover in Clover of Hope for Maggie, a young girl from the Green Bay area that was a cancer survivor. They had seen parts of the castle at the Bay Beach show and emailed me, in which I asked if Maggie wanted the first clover in the Clover of HOPE. Michael did a huge siege of HOPE castle at Milwaukee which was probably the largest to date.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2022 would showcase the largest collaboration I had organized up to that point. I rebuilt HOPE CASTLE into a smaller castle based on a castle in Scotland to make a better size for collaboration. The name for our collaboration was "Bridges to Paradise Island" and was underneath a canopy with blacklights on the upper bars so everything that was UV reactive would glow. Chop brought his Pyroclastic castle with LAVA bridge, Jordan provided a revamped orc base in which Michael Frederick provided a SERPENT bridge from the base to the island. I subsequently built the PARADISE island due to someone backing out of collaboration. My HOPE Castle had an Iceberg bridge to the island and Jefferson provided his Kraken with an update to the scales under the arms by myself.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2023 showcased another collaboration between myself, Chop and Michael Frederick. I didn't bring the walls of HOPE Castle for this show and instead had the Clover of HOPE, Memorial Tower and a new "Roaring Roller Disco" for an intended cease fire. Chop contributed his Eagle Spire and Lion temple. Michael contributed the Bear garden at the center of the collab. I also built a grey castle the "Pendragon Fortress" for an enemy to reside in.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2024 showcased the Memorial Tower split into multiple smaller towers 4 levels tall each with an entrance level at the bottom. The Clover of Hope had a raised top level along with leaves added for Mariann Asanuma, and Chris "B4C" for current cancer battles and Sally Yaeger for her Successful battle of Breast Cancer. The Roller Disco got rebuilt with a 3 tiered Musician area and a center section of Disco with Skate Rental, Bathrooms, Kitchen and office. All of this was put at a lower table height with a piece of particle board above it with a battle area above everything. Michael Frederick contributed 2 old castles and his armies on the back table with the Ice Bears on the particle board above the sunken HOPE Castle complex. This collaboration was to have more people but life happened and a couple people couldn't make it to Chicago this year.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2025 moved the castle back to normal table height. Showcased the castle from the previous year with clover levels all the same height, memorial tower back to one tower, Disco center section shortened for viewing of upper deck of the instrument area. The whole complex was textured making it only able to be shown in one configuration if complete. Water was on one side of the layout that could merge with Ralph's Croc area. Ralph's Croc area was at Brickslopes Colorado 2025 and planned to be at Nebraska Brick Days 2026. Rainbow portals were instrumental this year in linking the HOPE CASTLE complex with Reed's wide radius train corner, and other numerous layouts across the convention hall at Brickworld Chicago.

 

WIDE RADIUS CURVE for 2025. I volunteered to build a wide radius curve for the Train layouts for WISLUG. I decided on a winter curve as I was familiar with building a winter landscape with the HOPE CASTLE MOC. It had Iced water with fishing holes for the Ice Bears to do some fishing. There is a castle complex with part of Pendragon Fortress surviving to provide the Keep of the castle. The walls currently have the Rainbow portals as part of the walls and visible from both sides. Hopefully for 2026 I can put the rainbow portals inside the castle walls and have only the tops of the Rainbows visible from public side of walls.

 

HOPE CASTLE for 2026 will be complete for Nebraska Brick days in Omaha in April. For Brickworld Chicago most likely only elements of the complex with make it to show next to the wide radius train curve unless plans change.