MOC Attack on Puerto Leon - WiP

[deckard9]

Hi Guys,

I am an occasional builder and first time pirate builder. I did some stuff on the forum with Star Wars, but recently I rediscovered my love for pirates. Since my son Leon is in a good age to start a serious build, we kicked the project of as a father and son project. We mostly tried to have fun and not to get hung up on details. Since I am not good in detailling and dynamic arrangements like some of you guys, we did a very straight and simple build. It turned out quite huge thou. We thought some of you might enjoy it, so here's the current status in pics...

Sorry for my bad english... I am not a native speaker.

 

It all started with the idea to build a ship of the line. We figured that a ship alone is lost, so we decided to add a harbour. But since a harbour alone is boring, we added another ship... extended the landscape and ended up with a MOC that is 216 by 144 studs big. roughly 1,72m x 1,15m

We lit almost every house and room with standard Lego LED lights, which was a bit of a pain. On 2-3 occasions we wanted to make a napoleonic era wall lamp, but it turned out a brick-mess. If some of you guys could point us to examples of good designs, that would be highly appreciated. Also the hull shape of the HMS Mermaid didn't turn out so well on the bow. Looks a bit crumpled.... and she is too straight on the afterdeck.

We ran out of bricks permanently so you will find bricks of the wrong color everywhere. We tried to make the best out of it and I think in many cases it even improved the build.

In general you will recognize a lot of ideas that we picked from this forum and others. Thanks to all of you and especially to Anders T from whom we borrowed the design of the dingys, the design of some cannons  and the mid section of the pirate ship. The Rigging of the pirate ship is still missing. Also some bits and pieces here and there need some fixing or wrong colors need to be swapped. And I need to fix the modular parts aka the build plates better together. Sometimes there are small gaps in between them.

Sorry for the crappy pics, but I have a hard time getting good pictures because of the size of it. I can't properly light it.  Since the MOC is a modular build on 25+ plates, I'll go in afterward, pick everything apart and photograph the details of each building seperately. I couldn't get good enough access to the watermill, to the warehouse office and to the hut of the fortune teller to make good pictures.

C&C welcome, especially links to build samples that could improve the build would be highly appreciated.

If you like to see more pictures of some detail, don't hesitate to ask.

I'll kick it of with the back story:

 

___________________________________________

Puerto Leon was a small spanish harbour that was overlooked by the empire when it took control of the island in 1705. This didn't happen unnoticed by the pirates of the region, who took control of the harbour instead and made it their base. For 35 years they plagued the surrounding seas, plundering and pillaging what ever came across their path.

It happened in 1740 that the empire had enough of that pirate scum and sent a 4th rate ship of the line - the HMS Mermaid - to take back control of Puerto Leon. They built a courthouse and a fortress and soon a fragile peace was established. The Mermaid remained in place.The actions to fight back the pirates overshot and the judges and Governors of the empire established a cruel regime that cemented their power through torture and punishment. Quite to often it hit the innocent.

Pirates wouldn't be pirates if the wouldn't fight back. For ten years they stayed in hiding until that glorious day, when they attacked to take back Puerto Leon.

We write the 21st of May 1751 - 9:43 am. This is the exact moment, when the first shots by the pirates are fired.

Let me give you a little guided tour through puerto Leon and show you what happened at that exact second:

First of all: Please meet Lord Geoffrey, Viscount Farnsborough and his fiancee Elvira. They set sail in England in Jan 1751 to visit their new estates in the carribean colonies, but got cast away on a remote island, when a hurricane sank their ship. Through the ingenuity of Lord Geoffrey and his iron will for survival, they managed to escape their island and make it all the way to Puerto Leon.

Sadly mere seconds after htis picture was taken, Lord Geoffrey and his beautiful fiancee were run over by the attacking pirate ship, which couldn't care less about their admirable survival story. They both drowned instantly.

 

And here are the pirates... a wild bunch that would rather die than leave their beloved harbour to the empire.

 

On the HMS Mermaid the crew celebrates the 10 year anniversary of the liberation of Puerto Leon. Their guards are down.

Some are busy working:

Few crewmembers see what is coming...

all the guns are unmanned:

Only one guard is on duty, but coincidently on the wrong end of the ship

The citizens of Puerto Leon react differently. While some are in shock, others stay calm. This angler has angled under the pirate reign, he is angling under the empire. He will angle in the future.

The harbour master checks his logs

The pirates knew at which moment to attack: The soldiers in the castle are upgrading their artillery

(The fortress is a very rough build with little detail)

And this pirate, who is led into the courthouse to being sentenced, knows already that he will be sailing the seas soon again...

The old Dutchman who is running the windmill behind the fortress couldn't care less about the attack. He's chopping palm trees in his endless fight to keep the wings of his mill free from the jungle

On the beach behind the mill some pirates use the  diversion, that the attack creates, to dig up a treasure that they had hidden the night before the empire had taken Puerto Leon

Just across the bay the daughter of the governor arrives for the festivities

At the quay the attack is still unnoticed:

At the market people mind their own business

But signs of the imperial reign of terror can be seen everywhere:

The screams of the innocent locked in the cage drive the workers in the neighbouring warehouse crazy. Its not even possble to think of working. They just stand around all day and try to ignore the screams... (  :))   sorry didn't yet have time to pose them and give them something to do...)

 

The Judges in the Courthouse consider those screams the well deserved fruit of their work.

A young man stands in front of the court. He has stolen a ring to present it to his fiancee

She hurries to support him and plea for his pardon

the people on the balcony have different reasons to be there. Some stick with the empire. some side with the pirates

If one is sentenced to jail or worse, his fate is gruesome. He has to pass through the door behind the judges and is led down several floors into the dungeons.

 

Once you are down here, chance are, you will never see the light of day again...

Some are led to the next cave to the torture chamber

The water in the cave is the end of a little creek that seperates the fortress from the rest of the harbour. Dead bodies are usually disposed in the water and left to drift outside with the tide...

Right above the torture chamber is the house of the governor:

Here you can see the locked gate at the exit of the creek:

The baker is used to see dead bodies float past his bakery

So... where did all the pirates hide then during the reign of the british empire?

Let me show you the direction...

coming from the fortress you pass the Courthouse.

You come to a fork. The left alley leads past the warehouse down t the harbour masters office and in the end the light house.

(btw: the flame is LED lit)

But that's not the one you take. You make a right just behind the court house. You walk a bit up the hill and pass the alley between the treasure masters office and the water mill (which is motorized)

Don't get your feet wet when you walk across that little bridge.

leave the hut of the fortune teller on the left (the glass bowl is lit).....

.....and walk up the hill to the cliff.

We'll meet at the sword fish tavern, which is THE place to be if you are a pirate:

Its no place for the faint hearted. (Sorry, still missing some heads. Waiting for a bricklink order, I'll replace the pics, when its finished)

 

But today business is going slow (because all the pirates are on the ship). So the host doesn't even mind that his brother in law again passed out in the wine cellar.

But as you can see, the real secret of the sword fish tavern lies behind the trapdoor that is hidden in the passage to the wine cellar. A ladder leads down into a pirate cave, where the pirates hid most of their treasures before the empire seized the town.

There is an exit to the sea, but with the ship of the line in the harbour, it would have been too risky to save the treasure...  (the fire in the cave is LED lit)

 

 

On the other end of the town, they have other problems.

This is Jeff... He has a really bad day

He used to collect little fish at the beach and bring them home. One day he found that little critter, of a kind he had never seen. That little thing would grow like crazy. But he never thought that it would end like this:

(I know...  that kraken is a bit crappy and its not integrated that well into the house. The dynamik of the rupture of the house is not good either... But hey... it was fun building it....) maybe I'll go back and fix it....

Bad pic from the wrong side:

 

This concludes our little tour through that fateful moment in the history of Puerto Leon...

Let me end with some wider shots for a better overview:

Hope you enjoyed it!

best,

 

Marcus

 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by deckard9

[deraven]

Wow.  The whole thing is very impressive... not sure where to start!  The canon fire caught my eye early on and is nicely done.  I think my favorite detail overall, though, is probably those tattered bits of sail on the raft!  

[blackdeathgr]

GREAT MOC with tons of details! I am also glad that you and your boy built it together! 

[Roadmonkeytj]

You said you only build occasionally..... Thats an impressive brick collection.   Its awesome that you got to build this with your boy ... There is a ton of detail in this and the story is fantastic.  I like all the detail elements such as lighting and the trapdoors and cut away buildings.

[deckard9]

Thank you for the kind words! Yes, I am just an occasional builder. probably 1 build per year. But usually bigger projects.

My family is collecting lego since he early 50ies. And I tend to complete the collection through bricklink. Now its going to the next generation.

I think my boy did a great job. He build the big tree and rock underneath (next to the tavern) all by himself and a lot more. And we spent hours building next to each other, sitting on bar stools in front of the brick shelf - like birds on a wire. My wife and my daughter already started making jokes.

After posting the pics, I feel more and more unsatisfied with the reults thou. I like the court house and the ships. Also the warehouse, but for the rest, I think we could have done better....Does this just happen to me?... or is that a known phenomenon? Some sort of "builders cold turkey", when the end is in sight....?

 

[Sebeus I]

That is one awesome layout! And a very interesting building style for the ships. Keep up the good work!

[Legostone]

11 minutes ago, deckard9 said:

Does this just happen to me?... or is that a known phenomenon?

Haha, no, that happens to everyone. I've built my many ships, and every time I finish one I'm less happy how some of the older ones turned out... 

 

As to your build - it looks great! Especially the Ship of the line (there are so few of them - glad you finished this one, and its looking great!), but the other stuff also looks great! The Lighthouse could use some more work though - maybe some technique from this thread? Fantastic roofs on the buildings too, those mixed up, not completely connected tiles look great 

[deckard9]

Thanks Legostone for the link. Yes, the Lighthouse could use some more tlc... I'll look into that.

Regarding the Ship of the line: originally I wanted to build a third rater. But that would have been to huge for my build-space. So I opted for the 4th rater and even that one is approx 15% smaller than it should be. Still 1,35m long by 1,15m high thou.

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by deckard9

[Tezclatipoca]

Excellent Layout !

And the ships are very well done ! The 4th Rate is quite impressive !

Great Job ! Congrats !

[deckard9]

Hi Faladrin, thank you!

I took most of the landscape apart yesterday thou...      I figured that it didn't feel like a village because the houses were to randomly spread out ofer the landscape. I am rebuilding it with a more traditional village layout - more roads, blocks of houses. Also I want to get away from the rectangular arrangement of the houses. I am thinking of adding a dock in a 60 degree angle and so on....  stay tuned... 

[LM71Blackbird]

This is incredible! So much awesomely cool details and features everywhere! All-around fantastic and beautiful lay-out!

[Robin_IV]

I really love your MOC.

Especially the Court house!

You have put so much detail and love in it. And it's really amazing which brick collection you have!

Would it be possible to send me detailed pictures from the dinghies on your ship? I want to get inspirated for my own ones. :)

Edited March 13, 2018 by Robin_IV

[thomassio]

Wow this is amazing!

[sander1992]

Like thomassio said, this is amazing. 

 

[deckard9]

Thank you all!

Robin, here are some pics of the dinghy. based on Anders Ts design:

[Robin_IV]

21 hours ago, deckard9 said:

Robin, here are some pics of the dinghy. based on Anders Ts design:

Thanks!! I love it really. It will inspirate my own boats much!!

[Anders T]

This moc blows me away. It is over the top entertaining.

Cannons blazing, city in turmoil, wonderful build all over. Sure, there are details that could be different…

On 5/3/2018 at 8:23 PM, deckard9 said:

After posting the pics, I feel more and more unsatisfied with the reults thou. I like the court house and the ships. Also the warehouse, but for the rest, I think we could have done better....Does this just happen to me?... or is that a known phenomenon? Some sort of "builders cold turkey", when the end is in sight....?

This is the case for me to (every time).

Thanks for the reference. I may steal something back.

[iammac]

Tomfoolery!

What a story there in progress! This one goes down in the nominations for the best dad award. 

And maybe it was just the shear size of this creation, but I didn't notice any out-of-place colored bricks.

 

MAC