My First Ship

[Horatio]

Alright, hello all! I'm Horatio and this is my first time posting images of a Lego creation. My portfolio includes Hogwarts Castle, the RMS Titanic, the HMS Surprise, and various Star Wars vehicles, the best of which is a minifigure scale AT-AT. Now, I present my first blogged ship, the HMS Cucumber. She's named so because I had the HMS Pickle in mind when trying to name her, but she's a little bigger than the Pickle, and you know how cucumbers shrink during the pickling process, thus she is the Cucumber, because she's larger than the Pickle. She's a 12 gun ship (though as I type this she's going under an overhaul to become a 22 gun ship) with a crew of 35. Her sailing type is a brigatine.

Edited August 23, 2011 by Horatio

[Cpt. Tristan]

Pictures please???

[Horatio]

Pictures please???

They Should be coming today- I just have to work out a few glitches in my pictures.

[Weil]

I think you've done a good job with the hull and it looks nice at the side, I would try to make the cabin look a bit more connected to the hull from the back though and take out pieces to make it curve up sharply from the red to the windows, or just curve it round from the sides to make it thinner. It looks a bit too flat and wide for that hull to me but I'm no expert.

I'm also a little confused, you call this your first ship but then list the RMS Titanic and the HMS Surprise as part of your portfolio?

[Cpt. Tristan]

I'm also a little confused, you call this your first ship but then list the RMS Titanic and the HMS Surprise as part of your portfolio?

That confuses me as well. Anyway I think that it is over crewed, IDK how a ship that size could support that many people (food supplies, tasks, place to sleep). I don't even think they could all fit on the deck . You should also add some sails and maybe make the yellow area look a bit nicer? I agree with Weil though that you did a good job on the hull .

[Horatio]

Alright, I have some more pictures. But first, in regards to the title, I originally said "My First Blogged Ship," but I didn't like it, so I changed it and I was going to explain how I've built other ships before, but I had some trouble with the pictures, so I forgot. It is the first ship that I'm posting, though. As to the crew, she has 16 gun ports, and therefore would be considered a Sloop-of-War, with a crew of 90 to 125. However, the amount of Guns she has is 22, making her a sixth rate Post-ship, with a crew of 140-160. Even if she were a 6 gun ship, her crew would need to be about 25, so if anything there should be too few aboard. I've also attached some more pictures of the crew.

First are the Officers- There's the Captain, 1st Lt., 2nd and 3rd Lt., sailing master, 3 midshipmen, Purser, Surgeon, Surgeon's mate, and cook.

With the Marines there's a Marine Captain, Lt., 5 privates (yes, they are holding star wars guns- I don't have muskets, and I was being lazy), and a drummer.

Here are the 14 ratings (I lost one somehow).

Here, I have the 3 types of cannons that I used. on the left is a 6 pounder carronade, then the middle is a 12 pounder carronade, and on the right is a 12 pounder gun. I don't have much pirate lego, so I had to build my own cannons. the 12 pounder gun was tricky, but I was able to wedge the barrel into the carriage.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66707129@N07/6074178282/in/photostream/

[Captain Green Hair]

Looks like a decent ship, I like the brickbuild hull!

I'd like to see some more clear pictures before I give any constructive feedback.

[Admiral Croissant]

This seems to be a beautiful ship, but I would have liked better pictures.

The shape looks fine and I also like the colourscheme. The minifigs look realistic as well.

If you want to improve it, you could attach the top spanker sail yard to just below the crow's nest, like here:

And you could place the crow's nest of the foremast a bit higher so you don't get a very small fore-course.

Outside of that I really like this ship. Great job

[Horatio]

Unfortunately, my camera is really bad, so I'm sorry for the poor quality pictures.

And since those last pictures, I have decided to make some changes. I used to have a habit of making ships look too long, but with this one, it looked a little short. So I added 12 studs in the middle, which also allowed for 2 more gun ports on each side. Then I realized that the cannon count made her now a post ship rather than a sloop of war. Since post ships are essentially Frigates without an orlop (which I do not have), I decided to add a mizzenmast. I also added another gangway on the quarterdeck, a head, a skylight, more appropriate gangways to the main deck, and a nicer bell. This is probably the last upgrade that I can do though (she's gone through 3 so far), because if she's any longer, I would need to increase the height and width, which if I had to do, I might as well build a new ship. But she is now a Post Ship- one that a Captain can be proud to command. (NOTE: some of the spars are not in their final spots, and the ratlines need to be replaced- also, I'm going to add sails soon.

Again, sorry about the poor quality.

[kurigan]

I like your ship. Your hull is ambitious to say the least, and where as I won’t lie and say there isn’t room for improvement, your model is very inclusive and detailed. It shows knowledge of ship design and a reverence to historic precedence. Thank you for that. I can’t say I was a fan of her as a brig, but I’m glad my chance to draft a reply was delayed until you stretched her out and made her, as you so accurately put it, a post ship. Now I can only offer high praise, for what it’s worth. Thanks for sharing her.

[The Blue Brick]

I love how you have a brick built hull than a regular one. Anyways, great moc.

[Horatio]

Alright, I've done some fine tuning on the stern of the HMS Cucumber. I've tried to make it more smooth, by using some hinges I stole from my Milenium Falcon. I also found my rowboat, and until I put in the breastwork on deck, I put in railings.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=482502

Also, I can't figure out how to put images on my post- I tried doing it through Brickshelf, but it doesn't seem to work.

Just now, I've gone through my general Lego bucket- with all the random pieces I don't really need right now- and I found a nice amount of red, yellow, black, and brown bricks, which I intend to use to upgrade the HMS Cucumber into a true Frigate. I've also bettered my cannons, and I've made the stern a little more accurate, such as putting the windows at an angle.

So tomorrow, I'm going to post some new pictures, showing the construction progress.

Edited August 29, 2011 by Horatio