The website blockwarts.org went live on Harry Potter’s birthday 31 July supplementing  the existing Facebook page. To have a photo to celebrate the event, I put together a quick MOC (My Own Creation) showing Harry’s 11th birthday in the shed on the rock island.

‘Found the perfect place!’ he said. ‘Come on! Everyone out!’

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernom was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out to sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

The MOC showed the moment where Hagrid had just found the birthday cake from one of his deep pockets (he may have been sitting on) and is about to hand over the Hogwarts acceptance letter to Harry.

‘…Harry’, said the giant, turning his back to the Dursleys, ‘a very happy birthday to yeah. Got summat fer yeh here – I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right’.

From inside his pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.

I’ve been meaning to post more photo’s of the MOC, as the photo taken was ill lit and a few details were missing from areas leaving me to focus on a minor part of the MOC.

Just the next day, the new Harry Potter LEGO sets hit the shelves here and I went to buy Aragog’s Lair to check it out. Look here for my review of this nice little set.

This set had one of the new candlelight pieces along with a new flame element too (it also had a spare flame). Of the other new sets, Hogwarts Great Hall (set 75954) comes with four of these candles and Hogwarts Whomping Willow (set 97553) comes with three. Look out for a review of the latter in the next couple of days.

The new candle and flame looks much better on the birthday cake of the now completed MOC.

Was it all dark before this?

Compared with the existing flame pieces, the new candle flame is a big improvement. Well, its not solving world hunger, but in LEGO terms at least it’s an improvement filling a gap in what previously were available. For a small flame/fire, two options existed: the dragon flame (often also referred to as the seaweed piece) and the plume. The former is most suitable for a well lit touch, the other is a smaller flame, but always in a windy location, which can be hard to explain if inside a room (but good for a hand held torch in a cave).

The following photo’s show a comparison on a small candelabra.

As I get hold of more and more of the new candle flames, I’ll replace most of the older flame pieces I have on my castle. As shown below, it can be used in many settings, not just using the candlelight piece it comes with in the recent series of sets.

Till next time – build the magic!