Shy Gal's Building Blog

This post is a review of the nanoblock Tower of Terror build. Tower of Terror is part of the nanoblock Disney attraction collection. Wondering what else is part of the Disney attraction collection? Click here for a list.

The Tokyo DisneySea version of the Tower of Terror is a hotel from New York in 1912. The building has a lot of details that has a lot of details from the time period. You can see a picture of the outside of the building here.

The build begins by laying the outline of the building on the large baseplate. The building goes up fairly easily in layers.

What makes this build time-consuming is all the windows. Throughout the entire build, there are a ton of bricks that have a 2-stud opening on the bottom and one stud on top. A 1×1 brick was added to the top to create windows on the sides of the brick. Keeping the sides of the building square was tricky.

Other than fighting to get the windows squared up, the build was really enjoyable.

Overall, I really enjoyed the build. It took longer than most builds for me to complete since I wanted to keep anything super square. I do feel like the final product does look a lot like the Tower of Terror it is based on.

Things I liked:

• The amount of detail in the build, including all the windows

Things I didn’t like:

• This is the first time I’ve gotten a nanoblock kit that was missing pieces

This post is a review of the nanoblock Tokyo Disney Resort Disneyland Castle Canister build. Disneyland Castle Canister is part of the nanoblock Disney Attraction collection. Wondering what else is part of the Disney Attraction collection? Click here for a list.

Disneyland Castle, or Cinderella Castle, is the castle in the center of Tokyo Disneyland. There have been several different builds for the castle over the years. This one is the smallest of the builds and comes in a canister instead of a box.

This nanoblock kit was one where the seal was broken. The bricks were still in their original baggies, so as long as I wasn’t missing a bag, I knew I would have all the bricks.

The instructions for this build were slightly different from most of the nanoblock builds I have done because they were in greyscale. You know which bricks to use because each color is labeled using mostly hiragana, so I could at least read the colors. Each step has one shade of grey for each color. This kit only has 4 colors, so each step was fairly easy to tell between shades of grey.

The build begins with lining up 2 brown 10×10 baseplates to create a rectangle. A layer of grey bricks is added to create the foundation of the castle. The next few layers go up in a straightforward manner, and 1×1 bricks are added to create various details.

Step 4 adds my favorite detail of the build. Bricks are added at an angle, which is unusual for a nanoblock build. These slanted bricks create the appearance of a curved wall around the castle.

The rest of the build is fairly straightforward. I needed to pay attention to what color to use and which shape 1×1 was needed. The various 1x1s create all the details.

Things I liked:

• Getting to practice my Japanese to read the colors
• I like how the curve at the front of the castle is created by putting bricks at an angle

Things I didn’t like:

• The base doesn’t lie flat. I think it’s because there are so few places the bases are pinned together

This post is a review of the nanoblock Disney Resort Line build. Disney Resort Line is part of the nanoblock Disney Attraction collection. Wondering what else is part of the Disney Attraction Collection? Click Here for a list.

Most of the Disney resorts have a monorail that connects the resorts to the actual park. This is a build of the monorail. I really like the detail of the Mickey ears windows.

This build has 2 major components. There is the Resort Line car and the track.

The track is a unique build because it is actually on its side. Building the track is very straightforward. In one of the steps, you add the bases so that you can stand the build on its feet.

The Resort Line car is broken up into the seating area and the base wings.

The seating area starts as a large grey base with ball joints on the ends. The ball joints made it hard for me to use my nanoblock pad, so by the 3rd layer, I was building in my hands instead of building on the table. As I built the layers, it was easy to push too hard and have the build fall apart. The build is straightforward as long as you are careful to make sure you grab the right colors.

The main cabin is off-white. It is clear when you are building which color to use. However, when the build is finished and is sitting on the track, the main cabin looks dirty, depending on the lighting. Sometimes it looks like a nice build; however, sometimes, it looks dirty and dingy. Maybe more variation between the white on the track and the off-white in the cabin would make it look better in any light.

The monorail has a pair of wings that come off the bottom that hold the monorail on the track. The 2 wings are the same build but mirrored. Overall, the build is straightforward, but it can be a little hard to see where the lines are to see which bricks need to be used when.

Things I liked:

• The 2-piece final build, since the monorail can move along the track
• The details of the Mickey windows

Things I didn’t like:

• The finished build looks dirty because of the use of cream bricks on the monorail and white on the tracks

This post is a review of the nanoblock Disneyland Castle build. Disneyland Castle is part of the nanoblock Disney Resort Attractions collection. Wondering what else is part of the Disney Resort Attractions Collection? Click Here for a list.

It seems fitting that my first nanoblock Disney review is one of the many kits for the castle. Every one of the Disney parks has a castle as a centerpiece.

This build is designed to look like the Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland. It matches the colors blue and yellow very nicely. I like the way that you can tell when looking at a picture of the castle how it translates to the build.

The build begins with a green base and adds a ring of grey bricks. I noticed right away that these bricks seemed to be tighter-fitting than normal bricks. This meant I had to push harder to place the bricks, but there was often a satisfying click when I finished putting the bricks in place.

The build adds a couple more layers of grey bricks and then adds a large flat base to create the bottom of the main portion of the castle.

The center portion of the castle is built in rings until the top of the main portion of the castle is reached. The turrets around the outside of the castle are also built using grey bricks in a way that mirrors the actual castle.

The final steps include adding all the central turrets that are capped in either blue or yellow.

Things I liked:

• How you can tell from the picture how it translates into the bricks
• The use of the clear bricks to create windows at the back of the castle

Things I didn’t like:

• Everything was very tight, so pushing the bricks into place

This post is a review of the nanoblock S.S. Columbia build. S.S. Columbia is part of the nanoblock Disney attraction collection. Wondering what else is part of the Disney attraction collection? Click Here for a list.

The  S.S. Columbia is a passenger ship reminiscent of the old passenger boats from the early 1900’s such as the Titanic.

The S.S. Columbia is a passenger ship that is at Tokyo DisneySea. There is a dining room on the ship. For more information, check out the Disney wiki page here.

This is the smaller build. There is also a deluxe edition that was released a couple of years ago. I will be writing a review for that build once I make that build.

I really like how the build looks like a sailing ship from the early 1900s. I also really appreciate the amount of detail that is in the smaller build.

The first layer of the build lay out neatly; however, it was almost too big for my pad. As I added more layers, it became too long to use my pad, so I built in my hands instead of layers on the pad.

The main build is very straightforward. It goes up in basic layers that change colors to create layers and stripes. Once you add the layers and close up the top, there is a very nice tan that creates the deck.

Once you add the decks, you add the upper decks. There are quite a few details in the windows. The final step is to add the masts and the steam release pillars.

Things I liked:

• The number of small details like windows and the colors for the layers

Things I didn’t like:

• Getting the masts lined up and straight was a bit tricky