BardDandelion

These are brilliant! Usage of these legs is extremely clever.

Love the blue rocks. It so cartoonish but fits LEGO underwater world so good. Great job. ;)

@YellowFrog Thank you! Glad that you like my build. Went for square base because these arch bricks were easy to get. Water surface may get tricky in freeform base, probably could make something with SNOT technique but in such case would need different curved slopes (used this kind of technique in my "Welcome to the jungle!" build), but this time wanted to try something else. ;) @miken_mocs Thanks! Decided to go for bright colors because I find them fitting Far East theme. These are also cheaper and easier to get. Studs are present on water surface because it was easier to get parts with studs. Tiles tend to be expensive. :D

Large Category: Escape from the Imperial Trading Post by A_Goodman The Merchant vessel Margaret Hamilton by Elephant Knight Steve's Hand Emporium by Bingowaldorf Small Category: The King’s Merchant by Marooned Marin Steve's Boat by MyFirstMOC-Hun The Child - Steve's childhood by MyFirstMOC-Hun Steve Arrives at the Enchanted Island by Horation

It's definitely better for stability of the whole diorama but costs significantly more.

Exta layers of bricks and tiles (as @Yperio_Bricks presented from their collab) not only enables connecting BP with technic pins but also helps with stress effects. In 2020 My LUG made viking collab diorama with big portion of the sea, we used BP + plate + tile to make water. BPs were connected with overlapping 1x2 tiles (the whole sea was made with 1x2 tiles). My part of the sea was ~6BPs. To make connections between BPs stronger I have added rocks in some of the corners. Due to stress the BP were wrapping around at the edges. Perhaps more irregular placement of the tiles could help with that. When they are lined up the stress effects of each part (and each line) add up.

@scarovich Thank you very much! Glad that you enjoy my build. ;)

@SevenDeadlyStreamers No problem. I would vote for it. :D If you got to the production stage, will you provide me one copy? :P

This would be a goldmine or money printing machine for LEGO. Don't get why they do not make these type of sets. They spam HP sets and LotR is owned by same rights owner (Warner, or rather Discovery at the moment) so getting along shouldn't be the issue here. People are hungry for LotR minifigs and would buy loads of these battlepacks.

Even cooler would be Adventurers series based on pirates theme - sunken wreck, retro sumbarines, fighting sharks and giant squid, Islanders temple filled with traps. These would make great sets.

@Horation @SevenDeadlyStreamers In general, yes. I also prefer prints over stickers. Although, stickers are easier to remove (sometimes parts with sticker/prints are common and signicifantly cheaper on BL than "naked" version), they could be applied to different part (to another color or completely different shape). Stickers sheet also get handy when you want to get some "custom" sticker. Some people just cut parts of the sticker sheets to get shapes they need, not only from the stickers themself but also from the white background or the color border around the sticker.

In that set there was also Mae Jemison printed tile. This one should also work as ship name. Maybe would be easier to get that one on BL? ;)

@Marooned Marin I would say that first version (reddish brown minifigs, custom sail) works better as an update of pirates theme, it has much more "realistic" vibe. Usage of classic yellow minifigs and colorfull printed sail brings us closer to set-like territory. I would say that you should go for the style you prefer. If it's more realistic approach - custom sail and PotC figs. If it's more set-like approach - yellow minifigs and classic, printed sail. Or maybe you could go all the way and make two versions of the build - not only Islanders with their boat but also with pirates (light nougat parts) and some other details in the build? Sorry for late reply. :|

@Andy-Roo I didn't mean only taking photos of the ship. If you want to build Pirate diorama you basically need 8 baseplates of water around 1 baseplate island. If you want to have bigger islands, the number of water baseplates gets even crazier. Same applies to ships - if you want natural looking diorama of Carribean Sea, you don't want it to be crowded. It actually applies to all type of dioramas - deserts, prairies, plains. Whenever you need free space.

Maybe I got something wrong, thought there are two prizes to get in each of these upper tiers. And in both only one is claimed. Anyway, I'm fine with 25 set. :) Now, let's go back to commenting. :D