Captain Dee

The pass over Majestic Gulch is now open, completing the size requirement for licensing. I wish to donate my shares to either the Crown or the settlement (King's Harbour.)

The Cocovia Wagonway was established to connect the settlements of King's Harbour on the western coast with Quinnsville on the eastern shores. Sir Dee had contracted to build a section that passed by the Majestic Gardens in King's Harbour, and it was finally complete. Construction required building up above the rocks of a rough gulch, and a rather decorated facade consisting of columns, arches, and fencing was chosen to reflect the overall aesthetic of the gardens. Various flowers were planted along the front, and a row of trees, bushes, and flowering plants were planted between the rails. Sir Dee insisted on having 2 sets of rails for improved traffic flow, to accommodate vehicles traveling each direction simultaneously or to allow faster vehicles a chance to pass via occasional switches. In the following photos we see a carpenter leading a load of logs and a load of bricks, plus the multi-carriage "Cocovia Express" making it's maiden run into King's Harbour. (For better views of the Cocovia Express, the vehicles have been swapped to the opposite tracks for the remaining photos. This was planned from the start since the main build isn't really viewable from the back.) The Coinsmith and Chief Naval Strategist (whom we met a few months ago) ride in the first of the Cocovia Express carriages, controlled by none other than the Coachman (who stashed his pistols away for this trial run): In the middle carriage rides the Croissant Baker (facing the rear) and her two daughters, the Cakemaker and Confectioner. It appears they're busy concocting a culinary creation of some sort: Sir Dee and a certain Capitalist ride the third and final carriage. It appears they're having quite the discussion: A group of deer make their way through the flowers in the central opening. Sir Dee was so engrossed in the conversation that he didn't notice them; had he been aware of their presence he would have shouted for the coachman to stop so that he could, shall we say, "conduct a thorough scientific examination of the ballistic properties of his musket." Fortunately for the deer no venison was harvested: A couple pics of the rails without carriages: Gold is good, but my new favorite accent color is "Medium Dark Flash." Close-up of the loads of logs and bricks (and a mischievous squirrel). Love those log-end printed round tiles: And finally, three detail shots of the Cocovia Express. They're lightly modified versions of the carriage from 41146 Cinderella's Enchanted Evening: Game notes: this build brings the Cocovia Wagonway collab to 10k+ studs (finally... apologies for the delay...) It will be collectively licensed as a Royal Commerce property. General notes: well, this is my first foray into Lego rails/railroads. I thought about building custom rails and wheels but finally decided to buy some standard parts. @Brickwolf, you scurvy dog, look what you made me do! Seriously, this was a really cool idea for a collab. I knew from the start that the palm trees would be distracting once the carriages were in place, but they simply had to be there. Just because. Thanks for viewing. Comments and questions welcome.

Something about the numbers didn't look quite right... the ETTC build by @Ayrlego should be 2304, not 2034. Simple typo from the build post.

I haven't posted the full topic yet but here is my contribution: passing by the Majestic Gardens, covering 3076 studs.

Fantastic as always. Beautiful design in dark red, and lots of good details in the structure and landscape. As taverns go this is one of the best. And good collection of characters too.

Some pirates like fancy clothing... he must've got it from a victim, or captured a ship loaded with pretty dresses. Or maybe the owner done stoled his outfit while he was drunk, and left her dress for him... So many possibilities!

Ok, time to fess up. What's he smuggling under that hoop skirt? That expression is perfect...

I have noticed significant variation in color in numerous sets bought new off the store shelf. Some of the most obvious variations were light bluish grey (for example, all the 1x2s in a set were a completely different tone than some of the other size bricks in the "same" color) and also medium dark flesh, which has been all over the place with my sizeable collection of 4x4 round plates with 2x2 center hole. I don't think they'll ever make everything perfectly consistent, but as long as it's not too noticeable I can live with it.

Neat little vignette, and excellent design for the ballista. It's a very convincing arrangement. The use of the horns is perfect.

Beautifully done! Very nice design and excellent presentation. It's also deceptively large. Microscale can be done extremely well with proper effort, as this castle shows. Good work.

So 10210 IFS won... just what I predicted when this started in October. This poll format works great for CMFs, since each item in the poll is just a variation of a common design and therefore every item theoretically has an equal chance of winning. In this particular poll, polybags, small- and midsize sets have absolutely no chance of winning. Obviously this was going to come down to ships and maybe a big land-based build. That does fit the title ("greatest") but it seems pointless to even poll the majority of the sets across any theme. The big ones are going to win.

Neat concept. The bottle and stand are beautiful, but that "ship" is making my eyes hurt. I appreciate the creativity of the overall design, but the blunt bow and cartoonish gunports are just ugly. Frankly I'd like it a lot better without the cannons and gunport clips, and the sails surely could've been more realistically formed, even at that scale. I'll probably buy it, but I'd have to modify or replace that ship. Still, neat concept.

Ooh, another CMF series! (And here I thought I'd killed it... ) Great collection of minifigs, and equally good job with the quotes and descriptions. You went all-out there, and it makes a difference. Lots of good designs to pick from. I like them all, really. (Well, maybe not King Philip... in his "Mount Tambora Limited Edition" pajamas! Where did that attire come from, btw? ) The priest is neat, the blacksmith is a very appropriate design with gloves and heavy apron and a burly overall appearance, the coachman is fantastic, and so on. I believe the infantryman has undermisoverestimated the "accuracy" of his musket, but at least he's dressed sharply. I really like the smuggler, raider, and highwayman. All three really look the part. And I'm glad to see a few ladies in the group. All three look nice. Where's the milkmaid outfit come from? With so many series done now, it's cool to still see fresh new designs and ideas. Good work. I'd buy 'em!

Cool overlay, despite the issues with Mercator projections (which are only accurate at the Equator). I assumed both maps were at the same scale based on the comparison of Serentia and Algeria. And I didn't realize how far the islands are from the mother countries. Getting to them would require very long voyages. I am curious as to how the USA actually compares to the big black BoBS landmass. Without knowing the type of BoBS map it's difficult to say exactly how they compare. The islands' climate descriptions could give some clues about latitudes, but that's a lot to dig through. And finally: BoBS is a fictitious world. What's to say that it's the same size as the real Earth anyway? Even if it is there's still a huge amount of unmapped, unexplored territory regardless of the extent of map distortion.

Well... if that's what you want... that's up to you... As a member of Corrington who was not involved in any way, shape, or form, I find it disheartening. I'm sorry to see it come to that too, but then you won't be reading this, so...

Beautiful build. The varying vegetation and terrain look great and the deer turned out nicely, regardless of who designed them. You did really well depicting the transition from wooded creek to open plains, and it definitely looks like a North American scene. The fallen tree with dead leaves is nice and the wild pig hiding in the brush is realistic. Good work all around.

Fantastic! I love it. Very good design, and nicely detailed considering the smallish scale. So much more specific than that generic Creator jet from 2-3 years ago. Military jets often fly over my dad's farm (practice flights, or mission training or something...) and to this day I'll drop what I'm doing and run look for them whenever I hear them coming/feel the ground shaking. At least twice I've been driving a tractor and they'd sneak up from straight behind, really low altitude, high subsonic speed, and when they cross over there's this heart-stopping explosion of sound... I bet they're laughing when they do it. Good work. Now build us a Tomcat, Falcon, Hornet, Raptor, and... and... did I miss any?

Beautiful! Very creative at that scale. The pavilion is nice and the flowers look really good, especially the way you built the lime green circles.

Hmm, neat idea. For seating on furniture I like to use the plain old curved slope bricks as seen below, lower left. Nothing fancy, but it works, minus the printing. They've definitely made leaps and strides with overall minifig designs, like the leg printing and fabrics and stuff (and CMFs in particular). Maybe they'll update the ol' slope eventually. But as Aanchir said, few of them are released yearly, so... I'm not getting my hopes up!

Interesting discussion. I have several hundred of the printed slope dress minifigs, mostly Castle, Pirates, and select CMFs: ...and as much as I like them, some valid points have certainly been raised regarding that 2x2x2 slope. You nailed it with this analysis. Regarding height, I much prefer the bodily proportions of slope-dress minifigs over minifigs on standard legs, but that only really works in an all-ladies scene like the one above; include minifigs with legs and it certainly looks odd. High heels doesn't explain it, either - the average woman wearing heels isn't noticeably taller than the average man. I can live without hinged hips, but the stud connection is just too fragile, period. Attach one firmly to a base, bump the torso, and she snaps in half. That's a weak design. I don't really mind the overall dress design, but a slightly smoother profile would be nice. I love that new design, and got every copy from TRU when that CMF series was out. It's a good height, has that solid connection, is curvaceous - but I think it's too period-specific to see widespread use. A less-specific style in that height with those pins would be a big improvement for the standard dress piece. Exactly. Printed shorts/skirts, fabric, and tutus don't really address the issue here, despite being nice designs. Neat idea for a brick-built dress design. I might try it. And you're right about not being able to solve all the issues easily. Hinging any form of a slope would allow them to bend forward but not really sit down unless the slope was on the front, which would look odd... Yes to a shorter slope with pegs. And side and back printing would be great!

Neat courtroom scene and good collection of characters. It's laid out really well and I like the colors. Do my eyes deceive me or is the base dark green? And is the lawyer's wig standard in that tan color? As for the story...

This sheer turned out beautifully, and you certainly captured the look of the real thing. The main structure may be pretty simple but the crane itself is a very impressive design. I like that cutaway interior for practical reasons: it saves bricks and provides a great view of the interior, while looking more interesting as well. And the mechanical elements are nice too. Somehow the green of the smaller building kinda clashes to me, and the ground could perhaps use a little more texture, and the crew looks a little bit modern, but the schooner and assortment of guns look great. Overall good work - and deceptively large at that! This is a realistic approach to building up that dockyard.

Beautiful gunboat. I don't remember if I commented on the original (landing scene) but this adaptation looks great. The hull technique is very good and looks lovely in white. Is it really that much bigger? I'm still seeing class 1. It seems much smaller than the second of the 2 photo links from the gunboat topic, which is what I envision being a class 2. But good work regardless of classification.

Welcome to Eurobricks! Very nice classic-type fort. It looks like a fun play piece, especially with all the cannons . The detailed BURPs make a nice base and the towers look neat in the two-color design. Overall it looks like it would pair well with the classic sets. Good work.

What the... What a mess, yes. Ouch. Strong words. For the record, I have no idea what's going on.