Col. Whipstick

Very very authentic touch! The lack of colouring is refreshing and obviously the comparison to the model is immaculate. What is the classification of this ship, a Sloop? Is there a little story on the original, assuming that model was made from an existing Telesell. I can only assume by Mr. Tiber's presence on desk that we're dealing with a Dutch Privateer... Am working to solve the flag crisis and should have a satisfactory Dutch flag for you to add as soon as possible.

It's a great set and one I have yet to add to my collection despite my large number of Islander extras. Enchanted Island, aside from having so alluring a name was good value for money in that you only needed this one set and you had a good representation of the islanders both in the size of the set and the number of minifigs. The flipping rope bridge and the river give it a great rainforest retreat sort of feeling and one is inclined to think of this set as more inland than directly coastal for me. Whilst the Islanders were never seen in the same light or popularity as Pirates and Imperials they were an obvious and colourful addition that to me added a whole new depth to the Pirate system and one was now able to play a 3 or 4 way war adding a greater political element to the sets. Enchanted Island is probably the 3rd most appealing of the large land bases for me after Port Royal and Eldorado Fortress. Good review and glad to see the set recognised!

Well gentlemen yes, sorry for my lack of recent participation, particularly on the matter of the flags and maps which being as I started all that I should by all rights finish it. I've been experimenting the last couple days with using Adobe Illustrator as per Phessy's instructions but the results are mixed and a little disappointing. Whilst we get nice smooth edges on almost all the flags the 'Live Trace' function generally obliterates the finer details and patterns. Basically I'm stuck in a bit of a quandry as to where to go on this one. It would be ideal to be able to smooth just the outside edges of the ripple flags whilst keeping the strict bitmap construction of the details on the flag but I'm very limited in the way of graphic design. I'll have to post some comparative examples explaining the problem and see what people think. We will find a solution to this!

I love it! See what happens to you for your choice to become greedy, savage pirate scum! *points cane at all the pirate members of the forum* It may only be a small MOC Odderfisken but it's nice looking little atoll and the way they are clinging to the remnant debris of their ship is firstly a good show of their imminent plight and desperation and also a clever way to make an MOC out of only bits and pieces of pirate lego. Thumbs up!

I don't like giving criticism to your work Phessy, simply because if you didn't do it, I don't see who else would so I'm appreciative that you do what you so all this even exists. I think I share Imperial Scouts opinion that below the surface of the water is a little bit bland and I do kinda miss seeing the different scenes of the various fractions on the heading bar. I don't like giving any criticism though unless I can offer a solution and right now I can't. I don't know if it would at all be possible to have some sort of flash function maybe which shows different figs or scenes or something somewhere on the screen and that just runs without refreshing the page. Basically those are my first impressions but I'm just happy to see we have a forum that is actively maintained. *sweet*

Well I have to respect you for admitting to not using all real lego, probably the safe thing to do around here else everyone would want to keel-haul you. I must say Captain that I like the innovativeness of the flag and Denmark was in it's own way a colonial prescence given Iceland, Greenland and a few minor ports and bases on the Atlantic coast were there's at one point. It could have been fun if you'd invented a story about how the Danes founded Adelaide :-P Frankly if the Spanish got lost and left Mr. Phes downunder I don't see why the Danes couldn't too. But yes, I liked the coffin design and how you've made use of red imperials to symbolize the Danes as an alternative to Brits. I have done a batch of flag designs to fit lego white flags some time ago which others would fill you in on and I have to reformate but I'll have to get around to doing a Danish one I can see. All in all a good job and if I had to chose between using pure lego and seeing creativity, the creativity would win every time. Look forward to seeing more.

I honestly would never have expected monkeys to come out on top the way they have... Figured all of us a violent bunch of warmongering pirates and imperialists who'd rather see bits and pieces of minifigs getting chewed on by ravenous and vicious sharks or crocs. Whilst the monkey can hold a lot of weapons it's still a rather cute addition to the sets.

Sorry I've been M.I.A for a little while, can see you've put huge amount of work into all this Mr. Phes and Co. I think the HTML format is good because it's a bit more exciting and will have more pull to get people to visit more often, a plain e-mail, whilst quicker and easier doesn't help us keep a healthy number of recruits for the forum. PDF takes quite some time though perhaps it would be good to store a history of the bulletins/newsletters on the site in PDF so people could access and download at leisure anything they feel they've missed out on - especially useful for newer folk. I voted for newsletters/bulletins to be as and when they are felt appropriate, although monthly would be nice and good for the same reasons I have suggested HTML but we all have lives outside the forum and demanding ones at that so I think it's only fair to the folk involved that they not be under any pressure. I must say what a fantastic job I'm seeing here... *y*

Is anyone else having trouble viewing the image?

The blues are easier to get hold of than reds in my experience, hence why people seem to have particularly large numbers of blues.

Great find... We should all know Treasure Island, it's like the bible for this forum. On that note why aren't there more Treasure Island MOC's. I'll go one step further... If Lego were going to make a new line for Pirates aside from POTC, Treasure Island would be an ideal choice, especially for children because of Jim Hawkins etc. Treasure Island theme on! *y*

Wasn't there issues about Brickshelf closing down? Good thing Phred has backed up those flags at any rate.

Absolutely... The monkeys can be trained to attack your enemy which is the Pirates from my standpoint. I have a funny feeling I've seen some box art somewhere that actually shows the monkey armed with a cutlass attacking some men but I can't be certain and I'm not sure which set it was... Has anyone else seen this? That swordfish is a bit of an enigma, I think it came along in the sets of the Aquaraiders, same as the octopus which is a shame as they'd both have been nice additions to the Pirates theme. Thanks for the very graphic illustration of what I was describing! X-D

I've already got told off for going too far off topic by that very cross Dutchman only yesterday. :-D Perhaps you should start a thread on the Islander's Hiva origin. Personally I've never considered the Pirate theme entirely dependent on the Carribean, pirates, European Empires, ships, trade routes spanned pretty much the entire world beyond that pond between the Americas.

Yes Tordenskjold I did mean that you should post your stats here in this forum because Mr. Phes will be taking data from here for the table when he sorts it out. If you think your ship is a frigate then it's a frigate, to be honest I'm no ship expert so I won't be the one arguing with you if it isn't. I would say measure the width of your ship on the hull... that's a good question I hadn't thought about it but please try use cm's. I can see the American and British members giving us inches! 8-|

I did give him the measurements before entering into my 'duel of witt' with El Cid... X-D Sorry about all that. :-D

lol... I wish I could see a South Africa sunset right now but I'll have to settle for that murky grey half-light over Oxfordshire. X-D I'll delay my French maps and put them after the Dutch, British etc so your's get full attention and we don't flood the forum.

I hope you're not suggesting that the quick example I put up is the actual table? I thought I made it clear enough that this thread is just for getting data off everyone and that's just there to show what we'd like to accomplish, Phes will be involved in the format and presentation of the official table.

For those that would rather say Sao than San here are the Portuguese maps... Again the maps are divided between an early and later imperial period and the flags aim to make this distinction - the more blue Queen Maria flag being the later period around the 19th century. Whilst starting at roughly the same time as the Spanish Empire as the two cultures have so often been joined at the hip Portuguese imperialism in the New World was largely hindered by Spain's early success, resources and political dominance however Portugal comes into it's own when it comes to Africa and the east. The Portuguese are every bit as accomplished as the Spanish in navigation considering people like Vasco Da Gama discovering the route to the east. As seen in the maps Portugal concentrated on having numerous trading posts and ports on the way from Europe to the Orient and owing to Portugal's alliance with Britain she was protected from sharing the same fate as Spain when Napolean invaded the Iberian peninsula. For this reason Portugal retained control of her colonies a lot longer than Spain but Portugal's colonial legacy continues to be underated. For more information on the Portugese empire, visit: The Portuguese Empire

I don't think 'Ramirez was it?' would be happy with you stealing his thunder... (inside joke about the quickening X-D )

Well that's again assuming it's all the Carribean and those Islanders (where the crocs first appeared) look mighty polynesian to me and although I'm no zoologist but isn't it crocodiles in the South Pacific? Are you sure your girlfriend appreciates you calling her a monkey? X-D

So is the idea of a 500 year old Spaniard typing in perfect English on the Internet... :-P