SteamSewnEmpire

Nice. Did I do one of these? I cannot honestly remember. If you need any assistance, let me know.

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...it's not direct-to-video? Oi. I can see it all now...

Looks mechanically okay to me. The only issue I foresee is that by placing the motor so close to the wheels, it now basically supplants any detailing you might have there (or necessary space between the frame and the boiler). This low center of gravity will probably make any engine more stable, but it might not look as good overall.

Tongue-in-cheek reference to whatever police base comes next.

I really miss those pieces - the ones used on ships like the Renegade Runner. They really provided a strong starting point for smaller ships like brigs, without going the full 16w option. Sadly, because of the color swap (another decision I will never fully understand), these pieces have lost a great deal of their utility (unless you pinch your nose and ignore the color clash). While I get that one of the reasons that Lego walked away from the mid sized hulls is because they simultaneously dumped Pirates the first time, it's not like they stopped making ships. In fact, if anything, the current large hull pieces are dramatically overused across various themes, resulting in a kind of unfortunate homogeneity to a multitude of sets. I dunno. Part of me just hates blowing 5-600 pieces on a lower hull that should by all rights cost just 3 or 4 (and look better doing it, too). But I also wish so much that Lego would stop teasing castle and pirate fans and just commit again (couldn't they afford to take a year off Police? Maybe? You know, hold off on the Sky Commander's Mountain Sheriff's Refuge of Solitude for a fiscal year?).

Free mahi mahi, too.

Meh. Just drop explosives over the side. It's the pirate way!

I think they did that on an episode of Community.

I didn't see the original post, heh. And I wasn't trying to be snarky - was just wondering if it was, like, dioramas owning other dioramas somehow.

Why is Diaorama's possessive?

Sometimes circumstances change - doesn't necessarily mean someone has died. People start families, lose interest, etc. I wouldn't fret too much.

Thanks. I've always liked the classic pirates theme with a lot of yellow.

Not any time soon. She'd probably cost 2-3 grand to construct, and I just don't have that kind of scratch. Maybe one day. I don't think it's specific to me. Rather, I think it's due to the fact that the pirates forum has its own MOCs subforum. A lot of what we do here flies sort of under the radar, while places like trains and historica have their mocs front and center. Not angry - and not making a complaint. Just think a lot of people's work in pirates gets missed (not snubbed, just not seen). Like, I didn't even know there was a moc sub forum for the first 6 months I was here...

Redid the stern - cleaned it up, and added the side lanterns.

Interesting. I still wish they'd do a play-scale version of this ship.

Out of curiosity, you always see paintings where the yards for the topsail (middle sail) on the main and foremasts are really low (you can see it in that painting of Prince Royal). Was the entire yard/sail hoisted up the mast during this era?

A few renders (I downloaded stud.io specifically for this, since Bluerender causes my GTX 2080 Super to self destruct for some reason. No chances of a change on my part from LDD, though. I cannot stand stud.io). There's no piping on the beak because the bends didn't transfer, and I wasn't going to learn the process just for some screenshots :P. I have one more picture in the oven. Will post when it finishes.

I had wondered that. I grabbed a whole bunch of the screenshots in my build folder last night right before sleeping, looked kind of blearily at that one for a moment, and dropped it in. Oh well.

In addition to being one of the longest-serving wooden ships in the history of the Royal Navy (lasting a full six decades before she was accidentally burned while laid up), HMS Sovereign of the Seas (later Sovereign and then Royal Sovereign [and thereby being the namesake of all the Royal Sovereigns that followed]) was really a revolutionary vessel, and the first true first-rate the British ever built. Based (perhaps more in spirit than anything else) on the equally-famous Revenge of 1577, Sovereign of the Seas can either be viewed as an extremely late, very large galleon, or a very early ship of the line - she had attributes of both, and actually preceded the line-ship classification we are so familiar with (she was first commissioned as a 'royal ship,' only earning first rate status when the system codified in the decades that followed). She was also a contemporary of the Swedish Vasa, as well as the French galleon Couronne (the latter serving as the basis of Pirates of the Caribbean's Silent Mary), and vaguely resembles both. During her life time, Sovereign of the Seas was rebuilt extensively several times. Most of these rebuilds involved the shedding of her famed decorative gilding bit by bit (though she was still adorned enough during the Anglo-Dutch wars to be infamously condemned as 'den Gulden Duvel' by her continental foes), but they also allowed her to become the first large ship to fly royals above her top-gallants - an innovation not really common for another century. One of these reconstructions was so thorough, in fact, that it involved gutting her internal decking and re-laying her gunports to a flatter alignment. This same renovation removed so much of her upper weight that later commanders claimed that she handled more like a frigate than a ship her size. The digital model took approximately 35 hours to design over the course of 4 days. My version of the Sovereign of the Seas portrays her as-built in 1637, in all her top-heavy glory. I know that the proportions aren't *quite* accurate to the photos, but most of the models out there seem to reflect later incarnations of the boat where she wasn't so bloated with ornate sculpture (and that's no fun). She has all 90 guns, can split cleanly into 4 pieces, has fully-furnished captain's and admiral's cabins, is about 4 feet long, and runs in at a staggering 12,000 pieces (and change). The paint scheme is not prototypical, but is rather a homage to the Lego pirate ship (photos below), which I believe, ironically enough, is actually based on the Sovereign. Proto/Inspiration: Model:

The mistake wasn't in the switch to batteries... it was making the rechargeable batteries rare and more expensive. I don't think most Lego train folks would mind PU and PF so much if it didn't require constantly cracking open their models (even if you provide for it in the design, almost every loco needs some amount of fiddling to accomplish this) to replace the damned batteries (which are themselves costly over time). Moreover, we can't just run most batteries until they're dead - once the 'flashlight begins to dim,' out go the old ones, and in come a fresh set. What modern modelers want is the flexibility of battery systems (and the cheap track + lack of potential shorts) with easily-chargeable, port-based packs that can be 'topped off' at any time with a simple plug placed into a socket. This is the direction that the mainstream model railroading will almost certainly go - Lego should, frankly, already be there.

Love the use of the classic coat.

I love wood palisades.

Out of curiosity - and this isn't a criticism - why do you use dark grey for so much of your stuff?

I'll try to remember to take a compilation shot sometime over the next several days. As for the .lxf file, like a lot of folks, I don't share them. It's absolutely nothing personal at all - I'm flattered you'd asked all - but I have a lot of MOCs now, and given my battered financial state, I may want to eventually monetize them in some way.