Cousarmy0001

So almost exactly four years later! I have FINALLY completed another MOC ship, and it's this one. This build was a tremendous pain in the rear. As far as playability goes, this set is about a -3/10. Pretty much everything is unstable. The masts fall over on their own (I need to put rods in them, but even then they'll be in several sections. Maybe someday I'll add some rigging to see if that stabilized it), the hull is flexible, and the decks have to either sit higher than I'd like, or the hull shape goes to crap. It's not exactly 100% complete, but the six parts I still need that I somehow mis-ordered are minor enough for me to post this. In all honesty, in person it doesn't look nearly as impressive as I'd imagined, either. It's definitely one for looking at, rather than playing with. Complaining about my own work aside, I've finally cleared away all of the loose parts that were waiting for me to get the last of the pieces, and the ship is done, adding one more to my merchant fleet. So without further ado, ladies, gentlemen, and redcoats, I give you the as of yet unnamed, HM Bark Endeavor copy!

Ooooo. This looks great! I particularly like the ornate breastplates. Nicely done!

This and the harbor patrol boat were the first pirate sets I ever got! Thank you for making this. It takes me back.

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.

Why, thank you, kind sir!

Hey, You'll have an easier time looking at my ships by checking out my flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/57097594@N08/page1 Just ignore the pictures of me and my kids :-)

I figured the circles were for decorative purposes. Perhaps not entirely historically accurate, but nothing wrong with them. Perhaps the ship's owner is wealthy and likes to show off? If I were to improve on it, I might step the circles down a plate or two in the center, like your colored chequers higher on the hull does. Other than that, I would cut the space between the chequers and the circles. This might cause problems with the door to the captain's cabin, so a simple(ish) fix may be to change the door so it opens inward, and then change it so there is a quarter deck on the aft of the ship, a brick level or two higher than the main deck, which would run the rest of the way forward This would lower most of the hull while allowing your captain's cabin to remain unchanged. For the record, I like your chequer pattern. I've done a similar thing on almost all of my ships, I think it looks really good.

I'm kinda meh on the hull itself (it looks [to me] like the main deck needs to be a couple of bricks lower), but your interiors are on point! Lots of small details and clever addons that really give it character and make it a nice build. Well done!

My large ship (which uses the CGH method minus the bottom layer of 2x4s) is on the larger hulls, but they're still 8 studs long, just as the smaller hulls are. Unfortunately, I'm on the other side of the country from my ships right now, so I can't really provide fresh pictures, but here's a picture of the LDD file for one of my smaller ships. The gun ports are dummies on this ship, but it demonstrates what I mean by having the ports lower in the hull, below the top of the hull pieces. On reviewing my larger ship, they're not below the top of the hull pieces (they're flush with it), but again, that ship has five center pieces. I really think if you continue with your current build, the final product is going to be too tall. I'd recommend either cutting the guns until they'll fit on just the center sections, or adding a center section and lowering what you have into the gap. It's your ship, of course, so do with her as you like.

Looking at my large ship in the light of day, I realized I skipped the initial layer of 2x4s with her as well. It's linked in my signature, though that's the 14 gun version. I've since added a hull section with four guns, and tiled the whole thing. If you like, I can post some pictures to show what I'm talking about.

I'd like to echo Kurigan on the number of guns. The smaller number certainly looks nicer- and you'd need at least two studs between each port to fit cannons anyway. In all of my ships, I have 3-4 studs between each port, unless they're not a dedicated man of war. I would suggest trying to make the hull lower, if possible. This may necessitate cutting her to 8 guns instead of 10, but I think it would make the ship look more balanced, unless you're going to add hull sections. I love the CGH method, but I find it's extremely difficult to work into vessels that aren't very long. I've got three ships that I'm proud of, but only one of them has tumblehome at all (with the CGH method), and it's 5 sections long. The other two ships have one and two center sections respectively. In both I played with a few tumblehome methods during the design phase, and gave up for both because it's too difficult to work in for such a small ship. In CGH's tutorial, he says to put a layer of 2x4s on top of the center sections before building out for the effect, but if you're building a shorter ship, it may look disproportionately tall. If you're going to stick to the CGH method here, I would advise modifying it by eliminating the 2x4s so that your gun deck (and by extension your hull) sits lower. Otherwise she looks like she'll roll over. With two center pieces, you should still be able to comfortably fit 8 guns into her, maybe still 10 if you cut it to three studs, and get a little creative. It is possible to have a captain's cabin while making your hull lower. You'll just need to have the lower part of it formed by the stern piece. I have three ships I've done this with that use the old style hull, and all of them have pretty decent cabins. With a ship this short, I would recommend having the side windows actually sitting on the hull section, or with a plate or two beneath them at the most. In all honesty, though, if you're going to build a smaller ship using prefab hulls, the new style are much better for it.

Much better! Thank you, kind sir!

The link you gave goes to a file icon :-(

Any update on an LDD for the ship itself? I've had a hand on it, and I've mostly gotten the lower hull (I think), but I haven't really been able to figure out a transition to the deck and tumblehome.

I'm kinda meh on the additional mast, but I definitely like the upgraded sails in general. The original plan seemed a bit light.