94 gun, somewhat-to-scale ship of the line. LDD MOC.

[Roller]

Hello, first time poster and first LDD project here. I will be building exclusively in LDD as i find it a relaxing and cheap pass-time as oposed to other expensive habits and hobbies of mine, in case any one wonders. Been lurking through the forum a bit and decided to get in on what seems to be a very nice social network!

Anyways, the project! This really was not supposed to be what it is today. I always, even as a child thought all the Lego ships a tad puny and, well, more boat-like than ship-ish. I stumbled over LDD a year or so back and imediately decided to right this wrong. But before i tackled the task of building up a full blown man-o-war i wanted to play around with the program and see if i remembered the bricks all right. I started out mid-hull and decided to build a frigate with two artillery decks and make my self a nice simple little 28-gunner or there abouts. Well, i guess i had a little too much fun because all of a sudden my fiances morning alarm went of upstairs and i desperately needed to go to the bathroom and dispose of two jugs worth of coffee. I sat back and realized i had definately allready gone overboard (pun not intended). at that point my little dingy rated in at about 80 guns. So i guess im building a ship of the line any way is what im saying. By the time i am writing this she holds 94 guns and consists of 4000-ish bricks.

The pictures below are taken a few sit-downs later at a mindnumbing amount of hours, and i must say i am quite pleased with her so far, if i may say so my self. It is a shame though, it did not go as planned, because i really do like to follow through on my projects, wich effectively means i will have to build not only another warship, but also a frigate.

There are naturally a ton of proportional adjustments to make still. In fact i do not think there is a single brick i have not moved around less than three times at this point, so if anything looks weird to you, it might be fixed by my next update, or maybe not. Please let me know what you think.

P.S. This thing looks SPECTACULAR when exploded in view-mode!

[Captain Braunsfeld]

Impressive project. Keep going!

[Cousarmy0001]

I'm a wee bit confused, is the tan part supposed to go inside the red part? Or is the tan part a really really big living area?

[Roller]

Impressive project. Keep going!

Thank you, i will!

I'm a wee bit confused, is the tan part supposed to go inside the red part? Or is the tan part a really really big living area?

Yes the picture is a bit confusing i can see that now. The aft tan part of the ship is what would house the mess and captains quarters, decadent and ornate as inspired by northern european flagships of the mid-to-late 18th century. I wanted to incorporate as much detail and/or shape as possible on my learning run so the style seemed fitting. A few more shots here may clarify how it all looks.

[Cousarmy0001]

That's an awful lot of space dedicated to crew areas, though. Even if you're looking at ships like the Vasa, it's rather extensive, particularly given the relative lack of space dedicated to such spaces in ships of that period. For a ship like that, you'd want to cut off the crew areas at about the 4th or 5th window from the aft end. If you're after the more common perception of a 1st rate, such as HMS Victory, you'll want to cut off the windows after the 2nd or 3rd window from the aft. What you have here looks terrific, and I think your proportions are good, but if you're looking for historic accuracy, there is way too much space here dedicated to the crew that could be used to haul guns. Additionally, most 1st Rates had three gun decks, as opposed to two. If I were you, and I wanted something close to historically accurate, I'd keep the length of the ship, but reduce the amount of space dedicated to crew comfort.

If you're going the fantasy route, though, then it's a very good design. I could easily imagine something like this cruising around in Treasure Planet or any number of fantasy environments, and with the amount of space you have there, you could come up with some awesome interiors for dining areas, lounges, and such.

On the less negative note, I think you've picked an interesting color scheme, though dark red pieces can be a bit hard to find. You might want to look into adding some stripes along the gun decks as well. The reds along with the black/tan look pretty nice, IMO.

As you said, you're doing a lot of playing, and as one who has spent many a late night playing in LDD, I can certainly sympathize with rearranging every brick 3-4 times. What'll really get you is when you do that, and then just delete it all and start from scratch because you're not happy with it. Don't be surprised if you wind up completely redoing this whole thing 3-4 times before you're finished. I've done that with just about every single thing I've ever designed, and even the same with pretty much everything I've built. The number of adjustments increase exponentially with the size of the project, as well. My flagship has been mostly scrapped and rebuilt twice since I first "laid the keel" so to speak, with at least three times that many designs happening in LDD.

It's an impressive build, if not historically accurate. I'm interested to see where it goes from here. I'm particularly interested in seeing what you come up with for the bow, as that's one of the most difficult parts to get right in a brick built hull. I like the look of your crew area, despite my criticisms, and if you can come up with something that looks that nice for the back, I'm sure you'll come up with something good for the front.

[Roller]

That's an awful lot of space dedicated to crew areas, though. Even if you're looking at ships like the Vasa, it's rather extensive, particularly given the relative lack of space dedicated to such spaces in ships of that period. For a ship like that, you'd want to cut off the crew areas at about the 4th or 5th window from the aft end. If you're after the more common perception of a 1st rate, such as HMS Victory, you'll want to cut off the windows after the 2nd or 3rd window from the aft. What you have here looks terrific, and I think your proportions are good, but if you're looking for historic accuracy, there is way too much space here dedicated to the crew that could be used to haul guns. Additionally, most 1st Rates had three gun decks, as opposed to two. If I were you, and I wanted something close to historically accurate, I'd keep the length of the ship, but reduce the amount of space dedicated to crew comfort.

If you're going the fantasy route, though, then it's a very good design. I could easily imagine something like this cruising around in Treasure Planet or any number of fantasy environments, and with the amount of space you have there, you could come up with some awesome interiors for dining areas, lounges, and such.

On the less negative note, I think you've picked an interesting color scheme, though dark red pieces can be a bit hard to find. You might want to look into adding some stripes along the gun decks as well. The reds along with the black/tan look pretty nice, IMO.

As you said, you're doing a lot of playing, and as one who has spent many a late night playing in LDD, I can certainly sympathize with rearranging every brick 3-4 times. What'll really get you is when you do that, and then just delete it all and start from scratch because you're not happy with it. Don't be surprised if you wind up completely redoing this whole thing 3-4 times before you're finished. I've done that with just about every single thing I've ever designed, and even the same with pretty much everything I've built. The number of adjustments increase exponentially with the size of the project, as well. My flagship has been mostly scrapped and rebuilt twice since I first "laid the keel" so to speak, with at least three times that many designs happening in LDD.

It's an impressive build, if not historically accurate. I'm interested to see where it goes from here. I'm particularly interested in seeing what you come up with for the bow, as that's one of the most difficult parts to get right in a brick built hull. I like the look of your crew area, despite my criticisms, and if you can come up with something that looks that nice for the back, I'm sure you'll come up with something good for the front.

Thank you for you input and kind words! No, historical acuracy was not the goal with this one and probably will not be with future projects either, i wanted to make something artistically interpreted with a touch of credibility. I don't cope well with the shackles of reality so that just seem to be the way i build or draw or create pretty much anything, wether i mean to or not. I would have made three artillery decks from the get go if i would have known from the start i would wind up making it so big, this was really supposed to be in the 30 gun range when i first set out to build it. Stripes on the red have occured to me as well, i have experimented a bit with it but not decided if it looks too busy or not.

Another decision that remains is wether to change the color of the now tan upper deck, i find it looks weird and way too light. Black or brown perhaps?

Hoping to brew a pot and have a seat tonight and start to outline the bow because now that you said it i am very curious as to how i can make that look. But first and foremost ill need to wrap up the stern so we dont have a lot of unfinnished sections. Also a bunch of rigging still to be done wich is a pain in the ***, what with ropes not being flexable in LDD for some reason.

[Cousarmy0001]

All of my ships have had light tan decks. While dark tan or brown would probably be ok, it might be a little too dark given the colors of the rest of the ship. I would definitely rule out black, if I were you. For the interior of your ship, you may want to put in a checkered floor using 2x2 plates or tiles, as that will give the interior a lot of class. I've also "tiled" the decks on my ships to make it look like planking, I personally think that adds a whole lot to a Lego ship's appearance, though it detracts from playability.

After looking again, you may be right on the striping making it look too busy, since you've already got the red and dark red on the upper gun deck. If I were you, and wanted to work one in anyway, I would make the parts below the upper gun ports that are currently black, red, but leave the pieces on either side of the ports black, and make the parts in between the ports black as well, making your ship red with a black stripe. A white stripe might be too garish and might look busy, like you said, but I think a dark stripe like black might work. A tan stripe may also work, and on that note, you can probably leave the tan gun deck the way it is, without striping. The tan itself looks enough like a stripe, IMO, to fit the bill. So you may be fine as you are.

I apologize, by the way, if my previous comment sounded harsh or overly critical. I didn't mean it that way, and spent a great deal of time trying to make it not sound that way. This is an impressive project, especially for a first build. I am truly interested to see where this goes.

[Roller]

All of my ships have had light tan decks. While dark tan or brown would probably be ok, it might be a little too dark given the colors of the rest of the ship. I would definitely rule out black, if I were you. For the interior of your ship, you may want to put in a checkered floor using 2x2 plates or tiles, as that will give the interior a lot of class. I've also "tiled" the decks on my ships to make it look like planking, I personally think that adds a whole lot to a Lego ship's appearance, though it detracts from playability.

After looking again, you may be right on the striping making it look too busy, since you've already got the red and dark red on the upper gun deck. If I were you, and wanted to work one in anyway, I would make the parts below the upper gun ports that are currently black, red, but leave the pieces on either side of the ports black, and make the parts in between the ports black as well, making your ship red with a black stripe. A white stripe might be too garish and might look busy, like you said, but I think a dark stripe like black might work. A tan stripe may also work, and on that note, you can probably leave the tan gun deck the way it is, without striping. The tan itself looks enough like a stripe, IMO, to fit the bill. So you may be fine as you are.

I apologize, by the way, if my previous comment sounded harsh or overly critical. I didn't mean it that way, and spent a great deal of time trying to make it not sound that way. This is an impressive project, especially for a first build. I am truly interested to see where this goes.

Don't you worry, i was not offended at all. I apreciate criticism of all kinds. I took it more like a constructive sincereness than harshness, wich i believe is the best kind of criticism. It shows that you mean what you say and say what you mean!

As for a single horizontal stripe, i think you are on to something there! I went and did some quick tries right away and one thing im pretty sure of is i think i'll paint those middle pieces black like you said, i need to replace them with something more proper looking anyway so that will be a nice little therapeutic job for me. As for stripes horizontal is definately the way to go, and definately black. Both vertical and tan looks really busy and out of place and i do not want to ad a fifth color to the scheme for pretty much the same reason. Or do i?..

[Cousarmy0001]

I meant it in the way that you have it at the far right of your top picture there (only making the parts below the guns the same shade of red as the part below them) but I kinda like making the whole thing black, essentially making a dark red stripe down the length of the hull. The tan doesn't look as good as I thought it would, IMO.

You definitely want horizontal stripes, though. Vertical would look really out of place, and silly. It would almost look like dazzle camouflage if you did that :-)

[Roller]

I meant it in the way that you have it at the far right of your top picture there (only making the parts below the guns the same shade of red as the part below them) but I kinda like making the whole thing black, essentially making a dark red stripe down the length of the hull. The tan doesn't look as good as I thought it would, IMO.

You definitely want horizontal stripes, though. Vertical would look really out of place, and silly. It would almost look like dazzle camouflage if you did that :-)

Yes i forgot to make that one variation, i'll check that next sitting. I also decided on tiling the decks as you tipped earlier.

[Admiral Bejaune]

No offense but is this suppose to be a fantasy style ship or a historically accurate ship? If it is suppose to be a historically accurate ship then I would say you need to do more research on the subject. It looks more like a steampunk airship to me than a ship of the line.

[Roller]

No offense but is this suppose to be a fantasy style ship or a historically accurate ship? If it is suppose to be a historically accurate ship then I would say you need to do more research on the subject. It looks more like a steampunk airship to me than a ship of the line.

None taken. You are not the first to wonder, as we discussed above, it is not supposed to be historically accurate, but rather inspired by. Things like the dual-instead-of-triple gun decks are more a product of me getting ahead of my self as i was originally intending to make a much smaller vessel, like in the 30-gun range, but creative joy got the upper hand and she grew lenghtwise. First and foremost though, this is a forerunner to more serious projects as this is my first time building in LDD and my first experience with Legos since i was a preteen a little more than 10 years ago. A way to get to know the program and the bricks if you will. I started with the much simpler mid section and then started to build on the overly spectacular quarters/cabin to teach my self to build shape, i just really want to play with this build so i won't have to learn my lessons on something i pour my soul into is what i'm trying to say. I call it a ship of the line as i simply do not know hat else to call it, sheer size of it and armanament is what makes me classsify it the way i do, even though i admit it really has evolved more schooner-like by means of hull shape.

As far as research goes, i can not claim to be an expert on the age of sail and have in fact been looking for good reading on the subject since before i started Legoing, so i will greatly apreciate any tips on good literature or websites!