Fright Knights: Witch's Windship Mods

[Mr Maniac]

While I realize everyone's understandably excited about the new Lion Knight's Castle (myself included), I felt like this was a good time to start unveiling a project I've been working on for the past few months. Because as nice as Black Falcons, Lion Knights, and Forestmen are, for me the Fright Knights are one of the coolest factions around, with their gothic imagery and downright spooky-looking dragons, complete with black bodies and fire-orange wings.

In any case, I hoovered up most of the sets from this subtheme back in 2019, and found them...wanting. But hey, the beauty of LEGO is making fixes as needed, right? So I began with a set I actually did a review of around that time, probably because it was one of those sets that was rather representative of the Fright Knights subtheme, for better or for worse. In any case, take a gander at the new-ish Witch's Windship!

 

Below I have some more angles on this odd beauty for those interested. As much as I adore @The Librarian's take on this strange medieval flying craft, I've played too many rounds of LEGO Racers to feel comfortable making drastic changes to the basic silhouette. So yeah, I just updated the halberds from dark grey to dark bluish gray and changed the clips too, from gray to black. Actually, out of all the changes to the Fright Knights sets, this one was probably the easiest, since all I needed to do was scrub any yellow or light gray out of this set and replace it with black or red.

For those interested here's a photo of the interior of the basket. Probably one of the biggest disappointments of the original set was how, despite all of the available space, the only place for Willa to stand was on a measly 2x6 red plate. So I turned that design decision into a newt (it got better) and instead added two 3x6 wedge plates in red which helped. And of course adding two modified bricks with clips in the back for Willa's wand and broomstick means she'll have her hands free for steering. Because safety always comes first, especially when you're driving a dragon-powered airship.

Despite getting this set MISB, those modified plates with the clips holding the wings were frequently coming off, so I ended up covering them with some of those handy curved slopes in red. Oddly enough the slopes only came into play during my second pass of mods to this set, and it's all the stronger for it. (The dust on the wing, however, was not part of the plan, but oh well.)

Speaking of second passes, the addition of these two tail (lantern) lights were also not in my initial round of mods to this set. At first it was just that red hook, which does have a purpose, but after increasing the height of the basket candles, I felt like this set needed more zaniness. So in a nod to the original set, I threw them in. As for the trans-red cones that sat on the rear of this windship, worry not, as I added one to the crystal ball of this set and the other one to my own version of that little bat-wing flyer that shows up in 6087 Witch's Magic Manor (more to come on that).

So there you have it! Admittedly these are minor, easy mods, but hopefully this works as a nice preview of what else I've got in store. Seeing how this is one of those 'iconic' sets that tells you what a subtheme's all about, I was quite pleased at my execution here, keeping the stuff I liked while jettisoning the rest, and fortifying some other parts. If you want to see more photos, check out my Bricksafe folder, though you're not missing much.

Thanks for reading, and now I'll give Willa and her two pets, Nox the cat and Ignatius the dragon a chance to say see ya next time. Happy Haunting!

Edited June 27, 2022 by Mr Maniac

[Aanchir]

Definitely some charming updates! The candles and lanterns definitely suit the spooky vibe. And the slight simplifications to the color scheme don't hurt the model one bit, either.

On a side note, does this set remind anybody else of the stories of Baba Yaga flying around in a mortar or cauldron?

[SirBlake]

This is fun. The candles and lanterns do a lot to add some detail to this one. 

[Mr Maniac]

Sorry I missed these comments earlier, but definitely glad some readers were able to stop by! And you're definitely right about those candle and lantern parts @Aanchir and @SirBlake. They do go a long way towards improving the original model. Definitely easier to add these in as opposed to trying to build lanterns out of taps and plates. No wonder I ended up sprinkling them in almost every one of these sets.

On 6/22/2022 at 9:40 PM, Aanchir said:

On a side note, does this set remind anybody else of the stories of Baba Yaga flying around in a mortar or cauldron?

This is such a good point, and not one I immediately thought of, but now I can't get it out of my head. Funny too, since my first impression of Willa (thanks to an astute comment on the old Steve's LEGO Blog) was closer to the contemporary read on Morgan Le Fay, as an enchantress/sorceress/witch who successfully brought about the downfall of a royal kingdom (which sort of fits given how often Royal Knights minifigures ended up as prisoners in Fright Knight sets)!

But the design of this windship definitely brings to mind a (supersized) Baba Yaga vehicle. Well said!

[Triceron]

I remember seeing this when I was a kid and thinking how weird it was, like an upside down hot air balloon.  But now seeing like this, I can see how it looks kinda like a cauldron.

[Mr Maniac]

9 minutes ago, Triceron said:

I remember seeing this when I was a kid and thinking how weird it was, like an upside down hot air balloon.  But now seeing like this, I can see how it looks kinda like a cauldron.

I'll admit I didn't see the cauldron at first either @Triceron, and I was an adult when I bought this one! But that might be down to, like you said, wrapping your head around the weirdness of this set to see what they're going for.

Either way, I'm guessing if LEGO did this now, they'd probably use a larger number of smaller, curved pieces to make a more rounded basket reminiscent of an actual cauldron. I can only imagine they'd find a way to add in handles using some of those macaroni bricks! 

[MontyMatte]

Cute dragon balloon.

Well done. Especially how beautifully unobtrusive newer parts are used, like the candle and the cat. Great.

[Triceron]

17 hours ago, Mr Maniac said:

I'll admit I didn't see the cauldron at first either @Triceron, and I was an adult when I bought this one! But that might be down to, like you said, wrapping your head around the weirdness of this set to see what they're going for.

Either way, I'm guessing if LEGO did this now, they'd probably use a larger number of smaller, curved pieces to make a more rounded basket reminiscent of an actual cauldron. I can only imagine they'd find a way to add in handles using some of those macaroni bricks! 

I imagine they could use something similar to this piece.

They use this as a 'bucket' for some other Lego line sets, but the black version only comes from Bionicle.  It'd be a bit smaller than the current platform the Windship uses though.

[Mr Maniac]

Oh hey, I've never even seen this part before! Great find, and definitely agree with you there. This is the ideal cauldron shape you'd want to go for (although I've become rather fond now of doing a completely brick-built solution with newer pieces, sort of like what the new Forest Hideout achieves).

On 6/28/2022 at 7:25 AM, MontyMatte said:

Cute dragon balloon.

Well done. Especially how beautifully unobtrusive newer parts are used, like the candle and the cat. Great.

Thanks @MontyMatte! That unobtrusiveness with the use of newer pieces was definitely what I was going for with my first round of mods and the rest of the Fright Knights line in particular. But eventually I decided to chuck it because there's just so many more parts and colors to choose from!

[MontyMatte]

On 6/30/2022 at 4:25 AM, Mr Maniac said:

Oh hey, I've never even seen this part before! Great find, and definitely agree with you there. This is the ideal cauldron shape you'd want to go for (although I've become rather fond now of doing a completely brick-built solution with newer pieces, sort of like what the new Forest Hideout achieves).

Thanks @MontyMatte! That unobtrusiveness with the use of newer pieces was definitely what I was going for with my first round of mods and the rest of the Fright Knights line in particular. But eventually I decided to chuck it because there's just so many more parts and colors to choose from! 

Good decision imo