Perfectionist

The size sure is very impressive, but I can already count 22 guns on the lower gundeck; on each side! If you give just a tiny bit of attention to historical accuracy you should reduce this to 16 at most. After all the gun count is one of the most important characteristic of a ship of the line. Building a 1st rate with 44 guns on each deck is about as accurate as building one with 4 masts if you know what I mean. Personally I found 3-wide gunports the most accurate, the Lego cannons are a bit too short for minifigure scale (but come pretty close to carronades). How are you planning to ensure structural integrity? After all this is one of the toughest challenges for minifigure scale ships. Any ideas concerning modularity? Still, it's great to see one more minifigure scale ship in the works, this is the eye candy pretty much everybody on this forum is looking for. I'm very much looking forward to updates. Keep it up!

Interesting concept; the spring bricks are some of my favorite parts. I can however not imagine how this would fit into a ship since it takes so much space and ship's decks are usually very thin, even in minifigure scale it wouldn't fit. Besides the Captain Greenhair frigate you mentioned doesn't typically have guns on the gundeck since it isn't modular. The best real use I can see here is indeed for a fort gun battery of some kind, there are almost no building limitations and even if you just fit 3 or 4 guns it can look great.

Obviously much better than the official set, but what dedicated MOC isn't? Maybe you can buy another topsail of bricklink since your foremast is lacking one. The same applys for the foremast rigging. As for serious improvements: some modularity would be nice, maybe a removable topdeck like the Imperial Flagship? I also think the gundeck places the cannons a bit too low. The stern is looking very good. As others have mentioned already: What a great way to introduce yourself!

A nice little vessel you have there! A bit too edgy for my taste, but the choice of colors is very appealing. Fairly close to the official sets in terms of design and size.

Wonderful MOC of a wonderful airplane. The amount of detail is astonishing as usual and it's just as accurate as it can be. I can't really find a definitive flaw here, it's perfect in it's way. Personally I never liked studs showing up and I don't like it here either, but it's your style of building and it has something very unique to it. The switch to brick build canopys is an interesting decision; after all Lego designers make new parts they need as well! On the other hand it's even more impressive when you manage with the bricks available.

Guerriere is also finished now, I only need to take decent pictures, resize and possibly edit them, upload them etc... Meanwhile I'd like to give you a sneak peek of the new sails I'll introduce with Guerriere and which will also be added to Achille around Christmas time! I haven't seen anyone else doing the ropes, so I think it might be worth showing. Finishing Guerriere wasn't easy because she is also smaller than Achille (5mids) and uses some very similar techniques, yet every new ship should be a step forward. That's why I made those new sails.

Well I admit I'm a little spoiled by all those insane landscaping MOCs , but on a closer look your little port may not have the techniques, but it has atmosphere and style! It really does remind one very much of the "classic" Pirates lineup and hence fits here better than almost any other creation.

I have seen this magnificent building for a while now; it really does stand out! The wooden structure is excellent as are the windows and roof. My only thought here is that maybe dark brown would have been a little more accurate for those wooden bemas since they always seem to be so dark on the real things... but it's also looking great in reddish brown!

Yeah, you really should as that is the single biggest problem. 7 stud spacing works best in terms of general proportions. Also take into account that you'll need an uneven number if you want the (3-wide) gunports to be nicely offset from each other. 5 studs would usually be too short, while 9 definetely is too much. 7 appears to be perfect since it fits within the 1 stud= 1 foot scale. When you manage to fix the tumblehome too, she should be fine. We can argue about all those minor details later. On this picture it look pretty nice already! I'm looking forward to the next update!

I'm sorry, but you're missing my point: with 9 stud spacing between the gunports and 14 on each side it will become too long; in fact your hull would be about 200 studs at the waterline which is way too much! The Santissima was 201 feet at the gundeck; so yeah with 9 stud spacing you'll be building a 3rd rate as long as the Santissima! 46 studs sounds good to me - if it's at the very widest part of the ship! 40ish at the forecastle should be fine too, although it looks like 44 to me at the moment. I wouldn't base her so much on British ships, they were very different in a lot of ways. Especially the bow and stern would look much different, but the tumblehome and all curves would be much different too! Generally British ships were smaller and more curved, they had 28 guns on the upper gundeck whereas the French had 30 and 18 on the topdeck compared to 16. This is a British ship the HMS Bellona: This is a French model, build to the plans of Jean Boudriot : Also note the bow: You should see that the headrails are curved very low. Also there are gunports next to the doors for chaser guns! The headrails are so low so the guns could fire. The French traditionally included gunports for bow chasers on their 2-deckers from the 17th century onwards. The reason is that they had to face Barbary Corsairs and their Xebecs which could easily outmaneuver a lone ships of the line. You can actually find a proof of this in the book "The Ship" from Björn Landström, page 167 (in the German version ) Admiral Croissant should have it! So on a French ship the headrails would curve much lower and the deck between them would be far wider than on a British one. Nope, they had 2x14=28! If you don't believe me, click here! Sorry, but that is incorrect. HMS Anson which was build as a 64gun 3rd rate in 1781 had a freeboard of less than 5ft. When she was cut down to a frigate (razéed)it was reported to be 6ft 4in. Source: "Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars" by Robert Gardiner. Also in the book "The Ship" it is mentioned that some First Rates had a freeboard of just 1,2m (page 166)! It was indeed very common practice for battlefleets to wait for calm winds before engaging! Facing frigates in rough seas, the low gunports could become a serious drawback! The "Bucentaure" is a "ghost ship" in history, i.e. there is almost no reliable information on it, no plans, nothing. She was in service only from 1804-1805 since she didn't survive Trafalgar and - due to the blockade spend most of her lifetime in port. There is just one painting of her, but the painter is unknown and it's black and white. If you refer to this painting, you should know that the painter, Aguste Mayer, was born in 1805 and has probably never seen a ship of that period. He most likely made that colourscheme up from his fantasy. I apologize for that! I don't mean to teach you or win a debate, but instead just share some of the knowledge I aquired. Like I said, if this is getting too much into detail, just ignore my words. I can also stop with all these references if you don't wish so much historical accuracy! After all this is just a Lego and not a model building forum; although I visited the latter quite often recently. Just tell me if you wish different feedback! I wish you much sucess completing her - as accurate as you wish. Cheers! -Perfectionist

Sorry that I'm saying this so late, but I'm afraid your masts are way too high... the distance from the waterline to the top should about equal to the waterline lenght for most of the old sailing ships! Since you're not really building a historic model it's maybe not terribly relevant, but I wanted you to know! Happy building!

Ahoy, Captain, I've already seen you posting Friday night but wanted to gice a more detailed reply! As you know I've seen her in real life a few weeks ago and I think you know what I think of her - and since you only made her longer that hasn't changed. It's not so much criticism about the look or the techniques your using (she does look great! ), but rather about scale. She's simply far too big to be accurate! At minifigure scale even the "Ocean" or the "Santissima Trinidad" would be smaller than your ship and they were the biggest ships of their era. I'm basing "Superbe" on the measurements of the Téméraire class (the real "Superbe" was of that class too!) which was 172 French feet long and 44 feet and 6 inches wide. I made that 172 studs long and 44 studs wide which is 1:42 and hence minifig scale. Since almost all of the French 3rd rates during the napoleonic wars were built to that design your ship should have virtually the same measurements, if you want it to be accurate! Alternatively you could make her an 80 gun ship, those were larger and a bit more powerful with 186 feet lenght at the gundeck and 46 feet width. I also tried your technique a bit; it also works with a narrower hull! On that pic its 42 studs, but you could even bend it to 30! Another note about the lenght: you already have 9 gunports on the lower gundeck, so if that's 40% you'd end up with 20 on each side which is more than any ship of the line ever had ... a French 74 would have 14 on each side of the lower and 15 on the upper gundeck, a 80 gun ship 15 and 16. Personally I consider 7 stud spacing betweem the gunports most accurate, you seem to have 9 - again that's too big. Also take into account the freeboard of your ship, i.e. the distancefrom the waterline to the lower gunports on a ship of the line it would be not much more than 5 feet which is the height of a minifig or less. Another issue is the tumblehome. Consider that you should loose at least 10% of the deck width from the lower to the upper gundeck, French ships had less tumblehom than British ones, but yours is clearly not enough, again that makes the topdeck far too wide. What I also just noticed is that while a yellow-on-black colourscheme would have been accurate for a Napoleonic French ship of the line, it would definitely not feature the "Nelson checker", that means the gunports would be yellow, not black on the outside! Also the masts would have their natural wood look (reddish brown or tan) instead of yellow! Only the British painted their masts, and they did that too distinguish their ships from the sometimes yellow painted Frenchmen! Of course I'm a little bit crazy with my nitpicking here and I guess pretty much everybody else didn't notice any of that. So if you continue building her like that she still will be one of the best creations on the web! However I researched these things extensively for "Superbe" (which was already planned to be a 3rd rate when "Fourageux" was still a 4th rate), so I guess you're geting my point? Anyway it's great to see that you're still working on her and she does get better with every rebuild - but she's still far from perfection.

Not quite! I believe the "crown" which is the bend part is in both cases made of 3mm hose which was bend and cut and black cones; however the shank is made differently and my stock is SNOT, but that also makes it larger. There's also a 3mm hose going all thw way through the shank for better integrity. You can see a close-up of my anchor dsign here: Late reply, but I hope it's helping someone.

Great find, thanks for sharing! It looks quit einteresting to me, clearly resembling a 16th century ship and with a very puristic rigging (or maybe he was just lazy ). I do like the colourscheme howerver there ar many things seriously wrong with the stern: it sides don't slope which makes it too wide at the top and there are not even windows!

That looks fairly good for a first of any kind! I especially like the beach with the white tiles. Maybe you should make the terrain slope upwards a bit?

Thanks for this review! While I would never buy any recent set at the moment (especially not licensed!) I think the parts introduced here as well as the new minifig torsos will be really great for some MOCs; I am really fond of that bucket. I guess I'll get it of Bricklink some day.

Looks really impressive on the pics, but I can't really see what these should be good for other than catching dust. I had a brief look through the instructions and it seems really tricky to put together correctly.

I've always been very fond of Tintin and especially the ship "La Licorne" has inspired me aesthetically. I really like the "ligne claire" drwing style; would be quite interesting to see how that transforms into CGI. A wreckage MOC would really be a great idea here!

While I don't like so much that you simply copied the design of your first Galleon, I must say I am still amazed by the galleon design you created and the colourscheme on your second ship is quite different from the first. So far these are the most beautiful and accurate Lego galleons on prefabs I have seen and I am still a little unsure how you turned from a landscaper into such a good shipbuilder so fast! What I really like is that you kept the hull in old brown, also the jumperplates. That keeps her lines very clean and so far I haven't seen anyone else (except me) doing this. The lanterns are also looking really nice and quite a creative design. You have also made very good use of the limited choice of pearl gold for the ornaments. However I do have a few minor points of critic here: I think the lines on the sails are too few and too bright, (the sails could be darker generally), the ratlines are too thin and the use of prefab masts is always a "no" for me since they are neither stable nor good looking Maybe it's personal taste, but I am also not so fond of the red and blue checker pattern on reddish brown. How in the world do you manage to pump out so many MOCs in such little time? I mean it's already extremely impressive with your landscaping, but in general shipbuilding should take more time. I'm currently finishing Guerrière and just making the sails took me almost a week (well, there's 31 of them ). I would really appreciate if you could share your secret about building at this pace without compromising your build quality. Actually I think this stern design is already really nicely done, or do you mean that you'll move away from the old style prefabs? I have a book "Spanish Galleon 1530-1690" and the ship on the cover (the Nuestra Senora de Atocha) reminds me extremely much of your ships, especially the stern. It was build in 1622 though. Anyway I'm always glad to see some variation in design solutions, so I'm looking forward to your new stern. It's always a pleasure seeing a MOC from you, thanks for sharing!

Cerberus sounds good to me! The story is quite interesting and well written too; you're putting in a lot of effort here! Although I'm more in love with the more ornamental 18th century designs, it's great to see someone doing a 19th century frigate with the clean white on black colors. Overall you captured the appearance of such a vessel really well, that's also why so many people are congratulating you on her! However there's still something to be improved : The stern should be a bit narrower, so that the including the galleries the stern is not much wider than the widest part of the hull (which should be pretty close to the bow). Take a look at this model of USS Constitution to see what I mean I'm also a bit worried about the bow technique, it looks fine in LDD but I doubt you'll get it to hold in place in real bricks, maybe for a photo or two but they will alway bend inwards when you touch them! Even though you're only planning on doing them in LDD, transforming the construction into real bricks would be great! That also allows for some illegal...err I mean awesome techniques Promising start, keep it up!

I really like the wooden colourscheme! As the Black Pearl it seems accurate to me, only the bow could use some more work as I spot a disturbing lack of detail there. Thanks for sharing and keep us updated!

That's an interesting roof technique on the first one! The red-black half timbered work looks nice too! I'd say finish 1 and 2 and combine them one way or another, but scrap the ship as you didn't want to finish it anyway and it's not that good either!

Very good floor technique, seen that a couple of times now. Maybe there is a little too much tan on that building, but I'm not quite sure. The custom pistol land musket both look amazing! I also have to say that your minifigs are really nicely put together! Great torsos and faces! Fleshies are used to great effect on this forum lately! Now as a motive, hunting Redcoats comes in very handy!

Congratulations, especially to Z, who has been contributing to this forum for such a long time!