Advise needed

[DonRamon1981]

Hi all.

This question is for the experienced MOC Builders. As I am 38 having a bunch of 80s Bricks, I don't want to buy too much additional bricks.

My son badly wants his and mine favourite ship, build not bigger than the Flagship... it's the famous HMS Victory. The difficulty is like in my Renegade Caravel Moc to build a playable ship, that a 5-6 year old can play too.

So most of the big MOC are way too big, I need to make the model smaller. I already know that I will make one hull part more than he Barracuda, and not higher or bigger than the Flagship.

So one canon row and one or maximum two floors by the cabin is enough for the model.

I don't want to destroy my Flagship, it has not the right colours anyway, the BSB have exactly the black and yellow coloured type of pieces that I need.

As my son don't have any emotional relations to the BSB, it's far away from being his favourite ship. So I am the only one at home to be hurt when the BSB will be changed - a clear sign that my second favourite ship behind the Flagship is just because it was the first big one Lego released during my time, I was 8 when Lego released the pirate theme in 1989.

My question for help is if you have any suggestions how I still can make the back and the complicated front in a way the ship doesn't become too big...

Thanks for your help. When I will be doing it there will be a MOC Thread of course

Edited August 16, 2019 by DonRamon1981

[Cousarmy0001]

Which flagship are you talking about?  There's the small one from the 90s, and the bigger one from around 2010.

If you're wanting to design something along the lines of HMS Victory for you to build together, that will also be playable, you're going to need something fairly big, as HMS Victory is quite large.  I would suggest looking at the 2010 flagship for inspiration if that's not the one you're talking about above.  You can find them here:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions/search?initialsearch=10210#?text=10210

That ship had a lot of good details, but was also playable, with removable decks on two levels.  If you're looking to design something that looks good and is playable, that would be a good place to start.

[DonRamon1981]

If you was reading a bit carefully, you would recognized that I was talking about four middle hull pieces, so that counts the 1992 Flagship out ;-)

Of course I meant the one from 2010, but I won't use any parts from that one for the HMS Victory. It shouldn't be bigger than that so I will make less cannon decks and a cabin with less floors. That's what the difficulty is.

The 1992 Flagship is too small for that project.

I was thinking, like mentioned above, rebuilding the Barracuda into the Victory by adding a middle hull part / have more than one left here, and using most of the bricks for that. It's just how can I make it close to the original one without buying too much additional stones... 

 

[DonRamon1981]

I put the Flagship on my couch... It's so damn big. So even a little bit smaller would be real nice, but not bigger!

[Bregir]

1 hour ago, DonRamon1981 said:

It's just how can I make it close to the original one without buying too much additional stones... 

To me the question is what constitutes "close to the original one"?

If I understand you correctly, you would like a playable ship your son can relate to as the Victory? To me that would mean:

• Large (size like the flagship)
• Many guns (Maybe a closed gundeck like the flagship as well as guns on deck)
• Nelson checkers (the colours of the victory with black and yellow, if I remember correctly)

Technically, the easiest would probably be to replicate the imperial flagship and then adjust it with different colours and maybe some extra guns. But it all hinges on what you and your son expects :)

[DonRamon1981]

Hm it's a nice idea but I have to change the look outside and totally the build up front and back. 

It's a different kind of ship and the back and front almost levelled.

And yeah it is black and yellow so a lot of parts of my BSB would be useful

The most important question is... whereto get the sails from especially the back sail

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

If you want a ship to match the descriptions you listed, than I'd go with Bregir's suggestion. If you're worried about the cost then just note The Imperial Flagship itself is really expensive, but this is mainly due to a few pieces such as the reddish brown masts. By having a different color you'd be able to condense the cost a lot (just try to avoid buying the black pearl hull pieces). Personally, I think that even though you want it to be smaller, it'd be doing the HMS Victory justice if you had at least two decks. I don't think making it big has any downsides to a child (when I was a child I always dreamed of having a big ship). I'd recommend starting from the Imperial flagship with a new color scheme, then double deck it with modular supports, then just adjust the back to make it look correct. For the sails just use thick paper or even just pickup cloth at your local crafts store. This way you don't have to destroy your beautiful Imperial Flagship, you don't have to touch your BSB or it's sails, and you don't to worry about having expensive sails on a ship which can be stained or ruined.

[DonRamon1981]

29 minutes ago, The Neighborhood Merchant said:

If you want a ship to match the descriptions you listed, than I'd go with Bregir's suggestion. If you're worried about the cost then just note The Imperial Flagship itself is really expensive, but this is mainly due to a few pieces such as the reddish brown masts. By having a different color you'd be able to condense the cost a lot (just try to avoid buying the black pearl hull pieces). Personally, I think that even though you want it to be smaller, it'd be doing the HMS Victory justice if you had at least two decks. I don't think making it big has any downsides to a child (when I was a child I always dreamed of having a big ship). I'd recommend starting from the Imperial flagship with a new color scheme, then double deck it with modular supports, then just adjust the back to make it look correct. For the sails just use thick paper or even just pickup cloth at your local crafts store. This way you don't have to destroy your beautiful Imperial Flagship, you don't have to touch your BSB or it's sails, and you don't to worry about having expensive sails on a ship which can be stained or ruined.

 That's really a good way to start doing that. Keeping both ships too. Thx

[DonRamon1981]

Made my first raw version of the HMS Victory using parts of my Caribbean Clipper 2019 and the Black Seas Barracuda. Will be hard for me because I own that one for about 30 years already.

But to be honest. My son doesn't like any old ship. He lives both bounties, the Flagship and our new Renegade Caravel as he loves the new lego parts more.

So we old guys have to realize, the old classic pirates are special but because of us, our time... all kids the friends of my son doesn't like the old ones at all.

So as my son didn't let me use any of the newer ships (the Imperial Flagship 2010 does have the perfect coloured hull for that...) I decided to use my Barracuda for that project. I will post a picture later, as it is by 10% now. Yes it is a fully build ship but for real just with the parts from that two ships. So there needs to be a lot of work done and a lot of parts have to be bought....

[DonRamon1981]

Here is a picture of the first step I did. It's very raw as a lot of things have to be exchanged or build different. The sails will be custom and the mast, red flag parts over the cannons, will be removed with the correct colour.... the back and front will be build totally different. 

But so far I have a raw plan now what kind of parts I do need. Please don't judge this raw version as it is just my start to see what parts I have to buy.

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

Already looking good! I'm looking forward to see the final version.  

Edited August 22, 2019 by The Neighborhood Merchant

[DonRamon1981]

Thank you. Did not really expected that. I really needed like 30mins for that one. But I already see I have to ankle the whole side, building back and front really different and buying a lot of parts like new Windows, black flags, and stuff. Appreciate and really thx. 

[Darnok]

Nice work so far, looking forward to how it will look when finished.

[DonRamon1981]

I will change a lot, as this project is for long term, I still want to make it a playable set for my son. And as yellow and black really looks bad in my opinion in Lego. I studied more and more pictures of the original, and in fact the colour is more wooden, like tan, instead of really being yellow... I think I will adjust it a bit and make it a little bit different. I just don't like the colours how it looks on a lego ship. 

[Tezclatipoca]

If I understand well your project :

1) I would recommand to go to a mix of the BSB with the 2010 Flagship. Perhaps something near a Brig of war.

2) Try to stay with the hull plan of the flagship with the colour scheme of the BSB and if I were you, I would go for the cabin and the rear of a modernised BSB (with golden accents for example) but would keep the front of the flagship as it seems esier and more solid for a child to play with.

3) Check out other builds for inspiration :

Perhaps this youtube extract would inspire you : 

Or this old MOC from one of our builders :

 

I hope it helps ! Happy building !

[DonRamon1981]

Hm also a nice idea.

It's a long term project so maybe I try both as raw builds and see what happens

[DonRamon1981]

I am changing my plans.. it rather changing the colour scheme. As it was done in black and yellow already a hundred times, I will change the colour scheme to black and tan.  I ordered some ran parts for the self made masts like in my Caravel. So as I wanna do it as a playable set for my son it can't be really bigger than the Flagship from 2010 as it is still my son's favourite ship but very fragile to play for a 6 year old.

As the real Victory got a yellow type tan rather than strictly tell that should work too. I replace the yellow elements on the back with pearl gold I will have to buy too, but as this project is a long term I got time. Like i said I will already have everything for the masts the next days, I will see how this will progress later into the ship. 

P.S. i don't like the black and yellow type in the Lego Ship as it reminds me too much of my Black Seas Barracuda.. miss that so have to buy a very beautiful and playable ship out of it.