The Imperial Spirit

[Dreamweb]

As planned, it's time for the first thread concerning one of the MOCs from this site. They were all made by a guy who calls himself Tom.

You can see pictures of The Imperial Spirit here.

First I'd like to say that it's always nice when there's a story behind a MOC - it's better than just showing some pictures. It shows that the builder has imagination and wants to give life to his creations. They are not just anonymous models thanks to it.

There's one thing that can be seen at the first glimpse which I first found disturbing. Four masts? Until recently I was completely sure that 3 is the maximum number of masts a ship needs. They are called fore mast, main mast (the tallest) and mizzen mast. A ship can have only one mast and in that case it's the main mast, it can have two masts - fore mast and main mast or main mast and mizzen mast, depending on which one is taller. But FOUR?

Then I checked Wikipedia and this is what I found:

Jigger-mast - the fourth mast, although ships with four or more masts were uncommon, or the aft most mast where it is smallest on vessels of less than four masts.

So I was wrong, it is possible to have a ship with 4 masts, although as said here such ships were rare.

But that doesn't change the fact that four masts are too many for a ship of this length. They are too close to each other and I think this ship would do nicely with just 3 masts.

And this is what I don't like about this ship - it looks like its creator wanted to make it as big and complex as possible and just didn't know where to stop. Apart from these 4 masts that almost touch each other this impression is also made by the long unrealistic looking overhang in the bow part. Look at the fore mast, it's located almost before the actual ship begins :) The sterncastle is too high and makes the ship look tippable. As I said - the creator of this ship went too far in making this ship look big and detailed. The overall shape suffers because of it. I also think it has too many colours.

But there are also things I like - especially all these decorations. I regret that my own ships were always more utilitarian and because of it the aesthetics suffered - they were never as decorated as this one here. I especially like the use of these white arches (found also on Red Beard Runner) - I always imagined they represented whale's bones which were known to be used to decorate ships in the old days.

[Mister Phes]

What a brilliant response this thread has got, especially after Mr Dreamweb went to all the trouble of educating us on masts.

Ok, to stimulate interest here's a picture of the darn ship...

Backstory:

"This Pirate Ship was never meant to be a Pirate Ship! It was built for the Imperial Guards to defend against the Pirates. But it was captured shortly after it was launched and has been in pirate hands ever since! It has served as an embarrassment to the Imperial Army ever since as well!"

Now discuss, or else! :^D

[Evil Willy]

Ahh sorry I must have missed this thread...Yes 4 masts is alot..What I would have done is keep 4 masts but have the last one have an aft sail...I find the ship is slightly big and seems tipable.. And the color scheme looks nice but I am not so sure we would see a ship like that actually sailing the sea! But ehh its LEGO..Thanks for all the hard work Dreamweb! Good ship overall (Duh)

[snefroe]

hm...

first, there are many, many, many ships with more than three masts! the three mast concept is just the classic, well known design, but several designs have 4-7 masts. But they look a lot different from this particular design and most are 18-20th century...

second, i don't really like this ship:

1) too many colors: red-black-white-black-red-blue-black-white-black-blue-white-black-white-black-white-blue-white: waaaaaaaaaaay too many colors for me, colors you normally didn't see on these types of ships in those days... there's also no brown, even tho ships like these were made from wood...

2) the problem with the four masts and the bow is because the hull is too short to handle four masts. that's why he had to move the first mast to a position on the bow...

3) i like the fact that he's adding details, but wether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on where you put them... if you take the baracuda for instance, you'll see most of the castle and the bow is highly detailed, but the rest is rather modest. In this case, i'd say not enough details on the castle and bow and too much in between...

[Dreamweb]

Too many colours - that's true, however the lack of brown isn't something I consider a fault - there were several original Lego ships in the Pirates line which didn't have brown either. The creator just chose to use Red Beard Runner's red hull and that's OK with me.

[Evil Willy]

Well I just think its really too much of everything... And this is my opinion but I think hes right that not enough brown sucks...Brown just looks good.

[Mister Phes]

Has anybody heard that saying "Less is more"? It would appear this MOC is suffering from overkill.

[Dreamweb]

Each time I see a ship this big I wonder if one can see the stern cabin's interior and actually play in there, or gain access to guns on lower deck and so on - the more areas of the ship are actually available for playing the better. These pictures don't answer my question so I'm not completely satisfied with them, and also one would think that if such pictures aren't shown, this means there are no such features.

[Mister Phes]

Is there a way of contacting the creator? I'm too lazy to look on the website so someone else can do it! :biggrin:

[Mister Phes]

Mr Dreamweb, dontcha wish MOC builders would get more intelligent with pictures of their MOCs they take?

[Dreamweb]

Well maybe the fact is that some of them don't want us to see too much, just the overall look, and keep all the secret details of their creations to themselves. This seems strange to me as I try to show as much as I can while publishing my MOCs and try to take close pictures of everything that I think is worth noticing. But maybe this is what they prefer.

[snefroe]

Well maybe the fact is that some of them don't want us to see too much, just the overall look, and keep all the secret details of their creations to themselves. This seems strange to me as I try to show as much as I can while publishing my MOCs and try to take close pictures of everything that I think is worth noticing. But maybe this is what they prefer.

well some people prefer only to show the over all pic because they're not interested in details of interiors, perhaps that doesn't even exist. many display mocs in legoland don't have interiors either... to me, building a big ship like this would be the oppurtunity to add details but that's just me...

[Mister Phes]

But one can still wonder if there is anything interesting behind those windows!

[Dreamweb]

That's exactly my point. And I'd be really disappointed if I found out that there's nothing but some empty space behind them, where you can't even put a minifig because it can't be reached in any way. And that's unfortunately my first thought when I look at the pictures and don't see the cabin's interior shown on any of them.

[Mister Phes]

Dammit it appears the place where the images for this MOC were being hosted have been removed. The hosting account can't have been renewed or something. Don't suppose anybody knows whether the creator has a Brick Shelf folder or seen a Brick Shelf folder with these images in it?

[El Bucanero]

I never saw a Brickshelf gallery about this... unfortunatly, but I do remember how it looked, a fine ship to me, how much cannons for this ship? I didn't remember that...