Masked Mini

I had considered laying a plate on the centers instead of a brick. Not sure how that'll work as the gun deck wouldn't be able to continue past the centers I don't think. Are you building on the wide or narrow hulls? I don't see 4 guns fitting on a narrow center. Please do link your thread or album. I'm sure I'm not the only one who hasn't seen it before.

Jesus! That is one heck of a mark up for a box, paper instructions and a single brick..! We'll see how many actually move and at what price point. I mean the set was already priced at 10c/pcs. One should be able to bricklink the set itself for the original price, cheaper per brick but add shipping from a few stores to even it out.

Sorry about being unclear. The Teslapunk Warhammer Knight. It gives me just the right amount of grimdark tingles and the aesthetic isn't far off "real" castle. Nor Gunpowder era either come to look at the coat and legs a little closer, with breastplate and open face helm or a shako it would be a nice transition piece from Knights to Napoleonic (?).

Stag mounts for sure! My second thought last night was mounting my barbarians on stags for some truly wild cavalry.

You make some very good points here. While I don't agree with all of the listed bricks and your takes most of what you listed I actually seek out and want to use. I'm still waiting to lay my hands on mass quantities of the Pentagon tiles in grey for instance. Maybe I'm judging nexo knights more from the emotion rather than logic. And you're totally right regarding the, shall we say, highly polarized views regarding kingdoms 2. Legoland and even System era castle had set a very high bar, raised higher by nostalgia. Nexo even without scifi and neon colours would probably have gotten roasted pretty hard.

My non-AFOL wife came home with the patronus set last night. She's slowly coming around to the brickside! I looked her patronus over and I think we'll start seeing normal stags soon. Possibly even does since the antlers are a separate piece of soft rubbery plastic anchored in the head and could easily be replaced by a blank filler piece. I'm stoked about the possibilities of the mold!

To be honest I have no intention of building it at the moment. It is staying sealed and mint. I figure it'll appreciate in value over time as it is limited to 2500 copies. Long term I plan on trading it to support my classic castle/ pirate habit. I suppose if it turns out to be a poor investment, hopefully due to a Lego castle line saturating the market, I'll break the seals and giterdun. I mainly bought it to support the castle effort. Originally I thought this was sold through Lego and would come with castle minifigs and heraldry. I felt compelled to put my money where my mouth is and show Lego there is demand for castle sets. Since it sold out handily, I feel a bit bad for those who couldn't commit in time to secure a copy and actually want the set to build. But there was no way of knowing that when I pledged. If the instructions show up somewhere in a PDF I'll probably build a clone from bulk brick, as it appears to be a fun build.

Because kids/teenagers were eating them. A couple were fairly grievously injured (possibly killed) when the magnets started to push through their intestines and organs to connect internally. In particular I'm thinking of a magnet ball toy that used I believe neodymium magnets. So with litigation culture it's not impossible to use magnets in toys but at the least it's an extra risk that you'd need to convince the lawyers/ board to take. I fear that is why we will not see a revival of Magnet-Tron as a theme. Which sucks because it was pretty doggone awesome. On a separate note, I would be on board with a deco-futuristic theme. Especially that second picture, it has opportunities for reusing the molds for a castle line. Upping the reuse factor and crossover ability of a wanted theme should bring an increased ROI and make it more likely to pass the beancounters.

I bought a few for my daughter. Mostly the Macy ones (because Girl Hero / empowerment) and she liked Axl as well. Maybe I'm comparing apples to carrots but I was really disappointed that Elves was cancelled. Whereas Nexo cancellation only sucked because we never got the Tech Vampyres. Those were interesting looking and possibly quite useful. I bought Elves for my daughter, two nieces and myself. My non-AFOL wife bought some for herself even. There was a theme that was actually quite useful beyond it's immediate target audience. Space: I think I'd like to see Blacktron 1 make a comeback. Maybe an updated M-Tron but magnets in toys is problematic these days. Castle: Wolfpack..! Maybe even something along the lines of the CMF Archer, a blend of Forestmen and Wolfpack bandits versus Crusaders? Pirates I. I'd like some updated Guards that blend better with the old pattern than the last pirate wave. And a proper Spanish Armada.

I received mine last week (Texas). #675 if memory serves, give or take a couple.

I could get on board with that theme. Because so long as it doesn't rely hugely on pre-fab parts it would be a huge parts kit theme for Space, Pirate, Adventure and possibly City builders. Even if the theme itself doesn't find a ton of fans I could see it being commercially successful. Part of the Nexo issue for me was that I didn't see much use for the pieces in classic castle and the color scheme/ part selection was just off enough to not strike me as useable for neo-classic space. Retro-futuristic feudal space theme could be hilariously awesome! I'm calling bronze diving bell helmets and ballista rocket launchers!

If this gets made, I'm def. in for a set. If it doesn't, I already picked up the baseplate and will build my own... with blackjack and brickers. God knows I have enough spare hulls laying about.. I do really hope that it gets made and sees enough sales volume as that is probably the only metric that will convince Lego to revisit Pirates.

Speaking only for the Dallas and Austin, TX stores and OKC, OK store, I frequently buy just torsos or a mix of legs and torsos. Over the past two years there has never been an issue, not even a raised eyebrow, so long as I didn't exceed the 15 pcs count. My best haul was just a month ago 15 torsos, mix of Shakespeare torsos and mime torsos with swapped arms (yellow or short sleeve white/yellow) for pirate crew. I hadn't seen either in awhile and thought they'd finally sold through the stock so I went a little ham. I will need to keep an eye out for those Castle Shields, but if I see them I will definitely try to score 15 in a box. Not that I resell on bricklink, but at ~3$ ea currently that's a no brainer. Even if you can only get 1 per fig you almost break even. edit: My main reason for buying only Torsos and legs is cost per brick, 3.33$/fig or .66$ per pcs. Torsos are frequently a lot more expensive on bricks and pieces and printed legs often are too. Whereas heads and hair fall more or less neatly into the .66$ or less range. Accessories vary wildly but unless I need a particular one *cough shield* I'll find them elsewhere for my army building.

Much better with black top parts. I'm thinking 5 gun ports, 4 studs in between for this attempt. Red bricks standing in for the midships boarding ladder. Rough up of a white gundeck stripe with gun ports and boarding ladder. I must say I think I want to try a Blue stripe again. The white is just too much what with the hull. Future projects. Although I misremembered, only the Pearl and the brown hull are quint centered, the others are only at 4 at the moment.

/brofist Post away mate! I figure the worst that'll happen is that I get my ego bruised a bit. The best that'll happen is that 5 or 10 years down the road someone else will mention our names in the same breath as Sebeus or Greenhair or one of the other Titans as you put it. Nothing to lose, everything to gain! And if that isn't what a pirate (forum) is all about then I don't want to be (in) one. You make a great point about the taper! I'll try to work it in, not out on the next iteration.

Thank You for the detailed reply Dave! I did indeed have a hull for the Time traveler ship waiting to be turned into another clipper. I split that and the spare Armada hull and have to say I like it so much I'll be swapping the first Armada hull to white/black as well. Pictures will be forth coming tonight. I've kept busy sorting ~20 gal of bulk bricks (and buying more bulk because who turns down a glass of water when drowning?) You made a good point regarding gun spacing, I spent more time trying to figure out the stud math and how to cram them in than whether or not I should. Never did notice how the spacing changes from 2 to 3 studs between wall sections until you said something. Now the spacing between the very center is a little funky due to the ladder between the ports. I don't see that aesthetic changing unless I go to min 4 studs between ports. Currently there are 9 guns per side, I will try 6 next and see how that works out. I was calling her a cutter in my mind but thought size and mast wise she'd be a schooner like SES. So it was worse than you thought but you got me dead to rights. What I would like to achieve for these two hulls are ships that are sleek, fast, (smaller) guns galore (compared to lego standard). Smuggler interceptors. I'm not up on real life ship classes, especially as they apparently blend/evolve into one another over time. That said, I am contemplating your advice on removing the top deck, exposing the gun deck, possibly leaving the current top deck in the stern and striking the cabin. I'm trying to do all the things, all at the same time because I'm excited to start building. It's okay to save stuff like the cabin builds for when I work on the four wide hull ships I have laid up. Fixing the cap rail is easy enough. I had to go through some extra steps to level it (trying to connect the individual walls), so less work makes for a better looking result. Since I'm already publicly showing my ignorance... what does "CGH" stand for? 1) My man! You are going to love what I got planned... These stretched Armada hulls are my training wheels. Practice, practice, practice. I have a stretched Black Pearl hull, a old brown, a red/brown and a Dolphin cruiser all with 5 centers ready to roll. Things will get big before too long. ISO hinges... all the hinges! I may need to try to make the click hinges work to see these projects through. I've already been hoarding tank tread for making 3x3 masts. 2) The stern needs a lot. I was mainly trying to figure out scale/ overall shape. Someone else pointed out it's sloping the wrong way. You make a good point though, I'll knock off a few of the Lego ones to get more of a feel for how to freehand them. Also I like your advice to dig down, probably a bit easier on the wider hulls since I do lose quite a bit of interior space creating the tumblehome. I still need to read through all your links, thank you for those! 3) Second person to recommend smaller windows... luckily I found a fair amount of windows while sorting my bulk. I'll need to document the varieties I have to work with. Thank you for taking the time to write out your help and guidance!

Sure. I'm not hugely stocked on Windows. So I might have to ldd the cabin to play with Windows, trim and color, then order what I need. Were you thinking of a particular style? I have some of the old 2*2 and 2*6 windows with glass and a ton of the 2*3 round top. I could also build windows from the old fences with diamond pattern, tall or short. You got me percolating ideas, thank you.

Ahoy! This is my first attempt at building a non LEGO created ship. I'm loosely following Capt. Greenhairs tutorial frigate build from 2009. Unlike the frigate build I am starting with the narrow hull and two center sections. I ultimately plan on having two of these ships for my Blue coats. This is a trial run before I start on the four frigates I have keel-laid. Please let me know if I'm reinventing the wheel! I literally have never freebuilt a tumblehome or sterncastle before so I'm sure there's stuff I could be doing for a cleaner aesthetic. *snipped a bunch of huge pictures* I'm still figuring out the bow and the sterncastle will need color swapping, i'm thinking largely white. Aaand I really need to get a better camera and lightning. Pardon the crappy pictures this once.

Why would it tax the secondary market? These kits will be made with bricks sourced from Lego not the secondary market.

Thank you for the encouragement! I'll need to finish out the room with some more furniture, probably a minifig scale bed with play feature and a desk.

According to Wikipedia: "USS Pampanito, a Balao-class submarine from World War II, now a museum ship and memorial in San Francisco, played the part of the USS Stingray." That might make the movie a decent source of references, especially of the interior. I recall good views of the engine room, torpedo room, captain's quarters and to a lesser extent the bridge.

I'd start by deciding whether to make a model of the Sub or a Diorama of the interior rooms. Then decide on scale, are we going micro/midi/model builder or minifig scale interiors for example. Google up a solid batch of good pictures of what you are trying to replicate. Then fire up stud.io and start by trying to replicate the most distinctive shapes/features of the ship or room. You might find that certain features can only be built with certain bricks which may force a scale for the rest. The movie "Down Periscope" prominently features a Baleo-class Sub (according to a line in the film anyway, I never bothered to fact check it).

The wheel was probably built by using the old triangular ball hitch plates, sandwhiched between the two technic discs. Add a 1x4 plate across the back end of the hitch plate and friction lock the balls in place. It'd be real fragile and prone to losing its alignment. I could be wrong, bit hard to see. Hah! looks like I was wrong.

First time posting one of my creations, apologies if this is not the right forum. Credit where it's due: Furniture was heavily inspired by brickbuilt.org furniture tutorials and google. The sliding mechanism was adapted from someone's assault gunship MOC I had saved. It's been reworked extensively but without the original builder I never would have gotten this done. https://imgur.com/a/Oz6st First we need to build a couple piece of furniture, 2x6x7 and 2x8x6. The only real important dimension here is the 4x8 plate the right piece is covering. The nitty gritty of the technique. The bookcase runs on a pair of axles feeding through a pair of technic bricks in the back wall. They will protrude into the next room when the bookcase is pushed back. By pushing them the bookcase can be returned to it's starting place. Fairly self explanatory, bit of SNOT work to attach the 6x8 plate to the back of the wardrobe. The 6x8 plate attaches to the two brackets in the channels. These brackets are half the magic trick. 1x4 tile, 1x4 plate, bracket and 1x1 plates. This is the difficult bit. Using 1x4 L-shaped tiles and lots of jumper plates we build a pair of channels. The 1x2 plate with clip hinge helps to keep the door on the rails, without it gets caught and refuses to slide. The 1x5 brick acts as my slide stop. A different angle. Everything is built onto a 2x8 plate , jumpers give a half stud offset and provide half the channel. More jumpers return us to standard studs to set up the second channel, and yet more jumpers to repeat the previous channel. Followed by more jumpers to bring us back to standard studs so we can attach to the wall. Until it's connected to the wall the whole assembly is pretty fragile. My apologies about the picture quality. I'm not much of a photographer to begin with and my cellphone camera wasn't helping much.