Bodi Posted November 20, 2021 (edited) Most of the ships I'm posting here have been posted in the Bobs subforum previously, but part of them became undisplayable since Mocpages shut down. So I thought it would be a good idea to provides some sort of summary. I started shipbuilding about ten years ago, in the beginning, I haven't a clue about how to make my mocs look right, then after some searches on Brickshelf and Mocpages, I found some plans, and it was a "Aha" to me. La Combattante was my first ship in the Bobs, it was built 4 years ago. Now looking at the picture, I can find a few problems with it. The most notable one is the stern, it's too large compared to the rest of the ship. Usually, it should be narrower than the waist of the hull. So I should have had a closer look of the real ship. Then comes a pair of two-deckers, I forgot their names, since they had been sunk or captured after one turn of MRCA, I had to find a new name for each of them. In brief, they are bigger variants of Captain Greenhair's frigate, using basically the same technique for the tumblehome. Here's my version of Silent Mary in its complete form, as you can see here, same technique was used for the tumblehome, it can effectively reproduce the inward tilt of the hull, nevertheless, it was inevitable to have the tumblehome divided in several sections, so I wondered if I can find a way to make it look more smooth. I got the occasion to try find an answer in my next ship. Oleon always needs more ships so why not build another frigate. In the meantime, I bought a few books on ship model building, which were very helpful. To achieve that smooth transition, hinge plates were used to create the curve, and hinge bricks were fixed on these plates to create the inward tilt. It looks indeed better imho, but there's a shortcoming, it works with smaller ships but not with larger ships. When I try to build a twodecker with this technique, the bricks are pressed against each other so tight that it becomes impossible to tilt them inward. After several tentatives with custom hulls, I started the building of a large two-decker. The hardest part was ofc the hull, luckily, I was aiming for a waterline model, much simpler than a full hull model. But even so, I started over two times, because the hulls weren't sturdy enough to support the weight added on them. The final version was of more conventional build, two layers of bricks to form the bottom, the hull was in two half and connected together on some sort of keel. Unfortunalte, I don't have any pic showing this, but there's a pic of another ship built with the same technique, hope you could understand what I'm saying. Photo showing the difference between custom hull and prefab ones. Once the hull completed, the rest was a piece of cake, but it still costed me nearly a year to finish it, with sails and rigging. 2019 was a rather unproductive year, I only a few smaller boats. Then in 2020, the general knock off has increased significantly my lego time, so I took the chance to build another two ships. Here and here. Followed by two frigates, of similar size but differ on certain details. As you can see on the pics. This one and that one. The reason why these ships were built with prefab hulls is my faction was going to war and I had to work out something fast, well relatively, 'cause tying knots is time consuming too. Here come some smaller boats. TLG used to give us narrower hulls, too bad we don't have them anymore in newer sets. Two boat built with these narrower hulls, a bomb ketch and a galleon. I've also tried to build hulls with plates, as we can see two examples here; The prefab shrouds can also be used to build smaller boats: Edited December 4, 2021 by Bodi Added a few pics Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cincinnati Posted November 20, 2021 My sincere congratulations, it is difficult to say which is the best...but maybe I prefer the fourth one you posted Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NOD Posted November 21, 2021 A lot of beautiful ships. I like all of them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kurigan Posted November 21, 2021 Interesting, but it would be better with a bit of explanation of each, or at least some links back to the original threads. Like, what's the chronology here? What did you learn along the way that inspired you to change this or that? This could really be a helpful thing for the community. Dave Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bodi Posted November 22, 2021 On 11/21/2021 at 4:13 AM, Cincinnati said: My sincere congratulations, it is difficult to say which is the best...but maybe I prefer the fourth one you posted On 11/21/2021 at 3:08 PM, NOD said: A lot of beautiful ships. I like all of them. Thanks guys, glad you like my boats. 16 hours ago, kurigan said: Interesting, but it would be better with a bit of explanation of each, or at least some links back to the original threads. Like, what's the chronology here? What did you learn along the way that inspired you to change this or that? This could really be a helpful thing for the community. Dave Why not...give me a few days, I'll get it done. Bodi (that's my real name too) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mister Phes Posted November 25, 2021 And what a fine record it is too! Very fine craftsmanship in the construction of these vessels. Now, we just need to get you a better photography setup... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bodi Posted November 25, 2021 10 hours ago, Mister Phes said: And what a fine record it is too! Very fine craftsmanship in the construction of these vessels. Now, we just need to get you a better photography setup... Thank you Mister Phes. And I know I'm not good at photography. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mister Phes Posted November 25, 2021 37 minutes ago, Bodi said: And I know I'm not good at photography. Your photography isn't that bad It's more... Your camera - lots of grainy low quality shots there Your lighting setup The background... so many different different backgrounds, but none neutral or "clean" as most distract from the MOC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bodi Posted November 27, 2021 On 11/25/2021 at 10:29 PM, Mister Phes said: It's more... Your camera - lots of grainy low quality shots there Your lighting setup The background... so many different different backgrounds, but none neutral or "clean" as most distract from the MOC Indeed, a white background and better lighting would help a lot. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mister Phes Posted December 1, 2021 On 11/27/2021 at 2:27 PM, Bodi said: Indeed, a white background and better lighting would help a lot. Well, it's just a recommendation - your ship building talents are excellent nonetheless! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Justsomebrix Posted December 6, 2021 You're such an inspiration when it comes to ship building, I'm currently working on my first two decker, some of these ships have really helped a lot. Even though I try to find my own style of course. Looking forward to the ships you'll bring us in the future Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bodi Posted December 7, 2021 4 hours ago, Justsomebrix said: You're such an inspiration when it comes to ship building, I'm currently working on my first two decker, some of these ships have really helped a lot. Even though I try to find my own style of course. Looking forward to the ships you'll bring us in the future Thanks for commenting. Looking forward to your twodecker too, I like tall ships! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites