101 replies to this topic

[ZCerberus]

Mr Tiber, on Feb 17 2007, 07:30 AM, said:

The bell doesn't looks to big at all! In fact, I like it a lot, this is a big ship so you'll need a big bell. Very creative of you Mr Z.

Cool beans.  I was a little disappointed with the bucket part though, I thought it would have a technic pin whole or something in the bottom of it, but alas, all it had was a stud receptor piece.  Anyhow, thanks!

[Mister Phes]

Norrington, on Feb 13 2007, 10:49 AM, said:

Of course he's incredible, he's Minnesotan you silly goose!

Minnesotan?  Never heard of that nationality before.   :-D
Yes, I know its a state in the USA...

Mr Tiber, on Feb 18 2007, 12:30 AM, said:

The bell doesn't looks to big at all! In fact, I like it a lot, this is a big ship so you'll need a big bell. Very creative of you Mr Z. I think the striped sailors are also a very creative choice...

This bell is a really original idea and I don't think I've seen one in a MOC before.  It could make a very good LEGO piece that would have a variety of uses.

Where did the bell originate from?

[Norrington]

ZCerberus, on Feb 13 2007, 04:47 PM, said:

I always feel strange, replaying to my own posts... anyhow...

Some more updates.  I added a mid section just so I could see how it would transition and if it would work...

Looks pretty good.  Unfortunately, when I resize the photos to fit on the board, they lose some details, so I am also posting thumbs of the bigger versions as well!

Highlights include, slightly changed rear end and one midsection.

DEAR LORD! That thing is AMAZING! And to think, no matter how hard I try, I can't manage to build something that big and make it look good! All I can build is a schooner, and it's unarmed! Though that might change. Anyways, back to the moc, I'm glad you took my suggestion for the stairs, it looks very good.

And Phes, a Minnesotan would be defined as a person from, well, presumably, Minnesota...

[ZCerberus]

Mister Phes, on Feb 17 2007, 01:21 PM, said:

It could make a very good LEGO piece that would have a variety of uses.

Where did the bell originate from?

It is a LEGO® piece... well it is a Fabuland bucket piece...



I first saw the piece used in Kurt's big gun thingy, and thought it would work out as a bell.

You can see the naval gun in the Landbased Index under the cannons sections...



Like I said, I thought it would maybe have a technic hole in it or something, but alas it didn't!

Norrington, on Feb 17 2007, 01:39 PM, said:

I'm glad you took my suggestion for the stairs, it looks very good.

I would have had some sort of railing anyways, but your suggestion made me make sure that it was nice and filled in.  I agree, I like it much better than the railing on the old ship at least.

Mister Phes, on Feb 17 2007, 01:21 PM, said:

Minnesotan?  Never heard of that nationality before.   :-D
Yes, I know its a state in the USA...

I think Phes was kidding about the nationality thing, but I would quibble with him to a certain degree that a 'nation' is only a group of people with some commonality or unity, it need not be a 'nation-state'.  There is a 'Jewish nation' or an 'Islamic nation' or a 'Christian nation' where the only common bound is religion, so in a real technical sense there is a 'nation of Minnesota', it is just not a 'nation-state'.

I think 'nationality' really goes off of nation-states though, so there is no Minnesotan nationality in that sense, but if you think of a nation in the 'group identity' sense, then in a way one of my nationalities is Minnesotan!

[Mister Phes]

No need to quibble because I agree completely!  However, I didn't write there was no Minnesotan nationality, I wrote I hadn't heard of one.   ;-)

ZCerberus, on Feb 18 2007, 08:38 AM, said:

It is a LEGO® piece... well it is a Fabuland bucket piece...

Fabuland certainly has a lot of interesting pieces to offer SYSTEM builders.

[ZCerberus]

Mister Phes, on Feb 17 2007, 04:13 PM, said:

Fabuland certainly has a lot of interesting pieces to offer SYSTEM builders.

Indeed!

But I think the bucket is actually a Belville bucket now that I think about it.  Your roof sections are Fubuland all the way though.

I also think Fabuland uses a larger, wider rowboat as well, and a couple different oars.  I don't have those, but I would imagine they could be a useful part to have since the LEGO longboats just aren't all that long!

Maybe we should start a topic for Fabuland and Belville elements that people have found useful in MOCs!

[ZCerberus]

I did some more work in the MLCAD.  The bow was my target, and it is now partially complete, but still a lot of work to go!

Here is the side shot



And the 3/4 shot.



There is enough clearance for the cannons to go straight a head or out to the side.  Flexible enough to be chasers, or an extra pair of guns in a broadside.

The whole ship once again is only getting its posts in 1600 x 1200 to do it justice!

Thumbnail...

[Norrington]

I think you should "Experiment" a little by making the figurehead into the Arbiter from HALO II... and if you don't really, please do a Ldraw version.

[ZCerberus]

Norrington, on Feb 20 2007, 05:06 PM, said:

I think you should "Experiment" a little by making the figurehead into the Arbiter from HALO II... and if you don't really, please do a Ldraw version.

I am not even sure what that would look like!  You don't like Mermaids?

Anyhow, this will be the last, or maybe second to last update in MLCAD before I get an opportunity to make the real thing out of LEGO®.

If you have any comments now would be the best time to give them, as after this, I will build and then store the ships again!


  

Here is the Arbiter with a few of my other MLCAD creations.  The ship is a fair amount longer than my harbor, and much taller than the Seinna...

[El Bucanero]

Mr Z, it's getting a very beautiful and powerful ship! I love the new stern and the mast platforms.
The bow chasers are also done very nice. I didn't know you could use techniques like you used for the gunports in MLCAD...
But what I wonder is: why are there green details at the bow? It doesn't really fit in the colour scheme, does it?

[Bonaparte]

Just incredible what you can do with MLCad.
The ship looks very good. Great amount of details. What percentage of the parts need to be ordered?
Do you keep in mind the pieces you own while making the design or do you use complete liberty?
Do you think it is a good idea to make a MLCAD pirate library in the future? A place where you can download a design you like to build, modify, study, ...

[ZCerberus]

Mr Tiber, on Feb 22 2007, 06:09 AM, said:

I didn't know you could use techniques like you used for the gunports in MLCAD...

If you are talking about the angled parts, at the bow, believe me, it was no picnic.  It can be very difficult to get things set at the right angle, so that whole assembled definitely needed to be its own submodel.

Mr Tiber, on Feb 22 2007, 06:09 AM, said:

But what I wonder is: why are there green details at the bow? It doesn't really fit in the colour scheme, does it?

Well I guess I thought Mermaids needed green tails!  Maybe it is unclear what exactly that thing on the front is... but it is supposed to be a mermaid tail that wraps around the bow, perhaps it is either unclear or just not very well designed.  I might withhold a final decision on it until I build it, because the green probably won't be as 'electric'.

[El Bucanero]

ZCerberus, on Feb 22 2007, 04:16 PM, said:

Well I guess I thought Mermaids needed green tails!  Maybe it is unclear what exactly that thing on the front is... but it is supposed to be a mermaid tail that wraps around the bow, perhaps it is either unclear or just not very well designed.  I might withhold a final decision on it until I build it, because the green probably won't be as 'electric'.

I don't think they really need green tails... Maybe red would fit better in the colour scheme.

Anyways, I thought the green details were supposed to represent headrails.

Have a nice day,

Mr Tiber

[ZCerberus]

bonaparte, on Feb 22 2007, 06:41 AM, said:

Great amount of details. What percentage of the parts need to be ordered?
Do you keep in mind the pieces you own while making the design or do you use complete liberty?

Well if I do a lot of designing in black, I often have the black pieces.  But some times I will know there is a special piece I need to incorporate or a piece I am unsure that I have.  As such I kind of buy the ones I know I will need and if they are black and non specialty I trust that I will have them.  If I don't have the pieces I thought I did, then I try to rework the design on the fly when I start building.  Perhaps my situation is unique in that I do not have the pieces at hand, so I am only guessing at what I will need.  I also have a LEGO® Imagination Center near by, at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.  They have 'pick-a-brick' there so sometimes a bunch of plates, bricks, slopes, or windows will be available.  It is kind of a crapshoot as to if they will have the right pieces in the right colors though.  Some times you strike gold.  I for example got about a dozen black windows, 80-100 Red inverted slopes, and about 50 2 x 2 dark gray flags there in one sitting, but upon other return trips, nothing worth buying!  

Either way, I probably will end up spending $200 or $250 in US dollars in various parts for the ship.  That isn't terrible considering the ship will have well over 2000 pieces in it, and I think I will have enough left overs for a final ship in the Royal Navy!!

bonaparte, on Feb 22 2007, 06:41 AM, said:

Do you think it is a good idea to make a MLCAD pirate library in the future? A place where you can download a design you like to build, modify, study, ...

This isn't a bad idea at all.  There aren't a huge amount of people who use MLCAD, but those of us who do or have might benefit from it.  I am not sure something as complex as the Arbiter II would be a good option as it has dozens of submodels, and some of the submodels are made of other submodels... it would probably be more daunting than useful.  Then again, there are enough submodels that you can work on sections of the ship quite comfortably.  

The ship you see is made of 8 submodels... Bow, Midsections 1-6, stern.  Each of those sections is made up of submodels... the stern for example is made up of several submodels... rudder (not pictured), windows, left and right sides of the cabin walls, and a quarter deck.  Likewise the quarterdeck is made of several submodels... the steering column, navigation table, compass stand, bell holder, swivel guns... so a library with the parts to a section of the ship could be useful!

Small things, things like the Phes's sentrybox are much more useful and will help develop the talents of our users! I would think!

[ZCerberus]

Mr Tiber, on Feb 22 2007, 09:24 AM, said:

I don't think they really need green tails... Maybe red would fit better in the colour scheme.

Anyways, I thought the green details were supposed to represent headrails.

Ah, well Maybe I will try it out in red when I build it.  I most likely have more red pieces than green pieces anyway, I just thought for it to actually look like a tail, it would need to be green.

[Bonaparte]

bonaparte, on Feb 22 2007, 01:41 PM, said:

Do you think it is a good idea to make a MLCAD pirate library in the future? A place where you can download a design you like to build, modify, study, ...

ZCerberus, on Feb 22 2007, 04:35 PM, said:

This isn't a bad idea at all.  There aren't a huge amount of people who use MLCAD, but those of us who do or have might benefit from it.  I am not sure something as complex as the Arbiter II would be a good option as it has dozens of submodels, and some of the submodels are made of other submodels... it would probably be more daunting than useful.  Then again, there are enough submodels that you can work on sections of the ship quite comfortably.  

The ship you see is made of 8 submodels... Bow, Midsections 1-6, stern.  Each of those sections is made up of submodels... the stern for example is made up of several submodels... rudder (not pictured), windows, left and right sides of the cabin walls, and a quarter deck.  Likewise the quarterdeck is made of several submodels... the steering column, navigation table, compass stand, bell holder, swivel guns... so a library with the parts to a section of the ship could be useful!

Small things, things like the Phes's sentrybox are much more useful and will help develop the talents of our users! I would think!

Well, this "mlcad-pirate-library" would be a very nice future project. It will be another nice addition to the pirate forum.
I noticed that the mlcad design of the stockade is only 57K, so it won't be very difficult to find a space to store some designs.

[Darthking623]

This ship is great one point in my view though is that you should kind of tilt the sides slightly that would make it a lot more realistic *y*

[El Bucanero]

Darthking623, on Feb 22 2007, 07:11 PM, said:

This ship is great one point in my view though is that you should kind of tilt the sides slightly that would make it a lot more realistic *y*

You mean so I would get the tumblehome effect?

[Bonaparte]

Mr Tiber, on Feb 22 2007, 07:38 PM, said:

You mean so I would get the tumblehome effect?

I notice this "effect" already on some ships, but never realized there was an name for it.
How did you learn about this Mr. Tiber? Or is it part of your job as pirate-moderator to know stuff like this :)?

[ZCerberus]

Darthking623, on Feb 22 2007, 12:11 PM, said:

This ship is great one point in my view though is that you should kind of tilt the sides slightly that would make it a lot more realistic *y*

I agree, the upper deck should tilt in, instead of out... the only problem is that the ship might be too narrow for a ship of her size... hmm... I am getting an idea...  maybe tomorrow I night (I am booked solid until then) I can show something a little different!

[El Bucanero]

bonaparte, on Feb 22 2007, 08:24 PM, said:

I notice this "effect" already on some ships, but never realized there was an name for it.
How did you learn about this Mr. Tiber?

I learned it from the pirate forum! And from several books (like SHIP!), I just did some research because I wanted to know the terms... Some terms I don't even know in Dutch, like tumblehome... tuimelhuis misschien? :S

bonaparte, on Feb 22 2007, 08:24 PM, said:

Or is it part of your job as pirate-moderator to know stuff like this :)?

Not really, but it would be very convenient to know where people are talking about as a pirate mod! ;-)

[Mister Phes]

SkaForHire, on Dec 31 2006, 06:18 PM, said:

I am glad someone else does stories too... now phes can yell at other people for long posts! :)

There's nothing wrong with long posts, I just like to make users aware that there's are certain ways of laying them out so as not to deter other users from reading them.    It can be a bit daunting when faced with a huge block of solid text and because of it some users won't participate in the thread.

That's just my recommendation which I mention to be helpful (no yelling at all), but ultimately up to the user to decide how they set their thread up.  I just don't want to see them go to the hard effort of writing a long story and then nobody reads it.  

But things are getting better because we have more literary users than we did six month ago.

[Berry Syedow]

ZCerberus, 'tis been a while since I last commented on your ship (I'm beginning to think that I didn't...).  I think it's coming along swimmingly so far!  The use of the many different slopes creates a beautiful piece of work!  The red/black/grey color scheme is a favorite of mine, too.

I don't think I ever commented on your "English Trading Post", either, so I'll just say that I think it's awesome!  Going off to bed, arrr...

[ZCerberus]

Berry Syedow, on Feb 23 2007, 12:05 AM, said:

ZCerberus, 'tis been a while since I last commented on your ship (I'm beginning to think that I didn't...).  I think it's coming along swimmingly so far!  The use of the many different slopes creates a beautiful piece of work!  The red/black/grey color scheme is a favorite of mine, too.

I don't think I ever commented on your "English Trading Post", either, so I'll just say that I think it's awesome!  Going off to bed, arrr...

Hey thanks Berry.  You certainly do manage to travel all parts of the forum!

I hope that it will be unique amongst the ships here and will be one that will inspire users and give them some good ideas on how to build cool ships of their own!

[ZCerberus]

This topic has now been split!

To see the final result, check it out here, by clicking the thumbnail!!