[MOC] Eldorado expanded - Updated Pictures

[dilligan]

Here is my attempt at expanding 10320 Eldorado Fortress.

Back story:

As a kid, I got all the first wave pirate sets except the ships and the orginal Eldorado Fortress (6276) was probaby my favourite set at that time. A few years after I got back into the hobby, 21322 POBB came out and I think it remains my favourite set of all time. After builidng POBB I felt that it needed a companion Eldorado Fortress  type set to compliment it and I built by own digital version and submitted it to Ideas not realising that they wouldn't accept any more pirates sets (oops). Then came the news that there was a new version of Eldorado Fortress coming out, so was very keen to get my hands on it.

I really liked the new version of Eldorado, especially the addition of the ship. I feel like they could have done some things differently, but thats been discussed previously when the set came out and I'll leave that alone.

Idea:

Once complete, I found that the set felt quite small and started thinking about how I would expand it to make it larger. I wanted to keep with the modular style of 10320 and not change the existing modules, but unfortunately not all the modules worked with my design and I had to make a few changes.  I liked the front and gun turret and thought I'd start by mirroring that. I wanted a more substantial buiding on the right hand side and also a permanent dock for larger ships, I also wanted to replicate the dungeon of the original set but make it accessible by a set of stone steps and gate from inside the fortress and a working (albeit not as smoothly as i'd like) portcullis to the outside. Ideally i wanted it to be larger to fit a rowboat but it was going to be too big. I also needed to complete the back of the office as well. For parts, I decided the best way to get the right parts was to get a second copy and limit myself to those parts. For the ship I was considering making two and changing their sizes a bit so they were different, but then I decided to make one large ship and use some of the left over sails on one of the row boats. The other row boat I made into a pirate version of the harbour sentry (6245). I ended up finding a copy of the set on ebay that someone had only half built and decided not to complete so I got it for a good price. I have added some extra parts but they could easily be removed with out changing the set. The extras are some white legs with black boots for the the soldiers with shako hats. The soldiers with the tricorn hats are my navy and still have all white legs. I also added some of the recent BAM and CM pirate minifigs as well as a couple from the vending machine (21358) and added some animals on board the ship. This expansion has taken almost a year off and on. I started with a big burst then slowly started running into road blocks and leave it for weeks at a time while I thought about how to proceed. I still have quite a few parts left over but not sure what else I would add to it. Happy to hear ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by dilligan
Updated the pictures

[Slegengr]

I'm really liking what I see here, but the images are quite small.  It looks like you are using Flickr for image hosting.  Could you share a link to the Flickr album?

There also should be some way to embed larger images with links to Flickr, but I do not remember how off the top of my head.  I used to share pictures from Flickr with BBCode, but I think that is obsolete at this point after more recent site updates.

[dilligan]

6 hours ago, Slegengr said:

I'm really liking what I see here, but the images are quite small.  It looks like you are using Flickr for image hosting.  Could you share a link to the Flickr album?

There also should be some way to embed larger images with links to Flickr, but I do not remember how off the top of my head.  I used to share pictures from Flickr with BBCode, but I think that is obsolete at this point after more recent site updates.

Thanks for letting me know. I'm a bit new to using flickr. I think I I've updated the pictures to be higher resolution. (Photo's aren't great though)

[Slegengr]

14 hours ago, dilligan said:

Thanks for letting me know. I'm a bit new to using flickr. I think I I've updated the pictures to be higher resolution. (Photo's aren't great though)

Yes, much better!  The picture quality is good enough, for sure.
You kept the styling quite accurate in your expansion on the set and it makes for a cohesive fortress that is much larger than the original.

The modularity would make it easier to move this set around, but I am curious if it works to make nice rearrangements for a long front wall with open back like the original set?  I would like to see this if it works.

Extending the merchant ship to add a second mast is a great idea and worked out well.  Since it is an expansion of the original, most of the design details are taken directly from the original set, but it is nice to see this built and would make for extra play potential with the set.  I like the addition of all the animals being transported. (I never thought to try the wool on a goat before!)

The only thing I do not like is the white/tan roof on the bell tower.  It seems iconic to me for Imperial buildings to have red tiled roofs, so I think that could look better.  Of course, these are matters of opinion!

I think it would be nice if you added an extended wharf with piers for docking the ship similar in concept to set 6277 Imperial Trading Post.  I like how the middle floor of the remade Eldorado Fortress could be used as a pier in the stretched layout, but that pier build would be too tall for the merchant ship, as it was intended to fit with the ship from Pirates of Barracuda Bay.