Cousarmy0001

I love how you've got a shark mounted on the wall, and your frothy beer mugs are a very clever idea.

I've been wanting pics of the bottom level. Thanks :-)

The kind that make light when you turn them on. Seriously, though, just get a lamp, take a few pictures, and look at the results on your computer. If they look good, post them, if they don't, try putting the lamp in a different position, or try a different lamp. Nobody expects professional photography. The pictures I take certainly aren't anything to brag about, the idea is just to produce a picture that allows people to see what's in it.

Pretty much any lighting, to be honest. If these were taken without your normal lights on, try turning them on. If they're already on, try opening a few window shades. Barring that, get a desk lamp and shine it at the part you're photographing. I haven't given any positive or negative comments yet because I can't really see the ship. Once you get that figured out, try taking some pictures closer in as well as far out, so that we can get a better idea of the ship's details.

I would have glowing reviews of this ship, but there is one glaring deficiency that completely ruins it for me. It's a redcoat ship.

I figured it would look something like that, but they didn't have in in LDD. Thanks!

I like it so far! Would you be willing to share with us the secret of the bottom piece of the mortars, that joins the barrels to the mounts?

Here ya go! http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=38226

I've got lines like that on all of my MOCs, though they're usually a checker pattern two plates high, rather than a single line. I copied it from Maive Auselbrook, which was the ship that got me back into Lego. I think it adds a nice bit of color to the hulls, and I try to make each ship's pennant match it. As for the bowsprit, there is an actual piece called "bowsprit", part # 30047 (at least in LDD), that basically functions as an extender for the old style top mast. I didn't know they existed either, until I got one in a minifig order off of Ebay (before I'd discovered Bricklink). This is the second ship I've built that uses one (the other being my flagship, which is linked in my signature). It looks like this:

I've got another one waiting for its sails, that is a little less boxy on the stern.

So enough lurking and commenting on other people's builds, time for one of my own. I'm not sure if I want to classify this as a cutter, or as a sloop. I intended for it to be the former, and entering BoBS with it, but on reading the materials for BoBS, the latter may be better for the character I'm wanting to use. I used a different color scheme than I'm used to on this one, using the colors of my wife's favorite (American) football team, the Green Bay Packers- mostly so I could spend the money on the pieces without getting yelled at :-) She also gets to pick the name, which is why this ship currently lacks a name. It turns out she has an even harder time picking a name than she does picking a restaurant At any rate, here is my newest completed creation, an unnamed slootter. She features a tiny cabin for the captain, a dedicated cooking area for the crew (the pictures of that didn't turn out very well, but it's got a stove), a common area for the crew, and bunks for the luckier members of the crew. Forward of all of that is the cargo hold. No tumblehome on this one, I was on a kick where I wanted to build some small, relatively cheap and simple merchant ships for my warships to protect. Perhaps in the future I'll change that, but not likely, as my attempts at building tumblehome into ships this small have been somewhat less than successful. The exterior is painted so that from a distance it looks like she's mounting six guns, though in reality she's only got the four deck guns. The thing I'm proudest of, I think, is the slant of the mast. I wasn't sure how well that was going to work out, but as luck would have it, the whole thing was at a perfect angle for the aft rat line on each side to connect to a vertical holder installed in the hull. So, without further ado, my slootter. Thoughts?

I said the exact same thing when Kurigan posted it. He did so right after I finished putting my ship back together, too late to do me any good. For my rebuild, I used 4275/4276 hinge plates as in the CGH method, but also several 92280/60478 combinations as well. In the case of the latter, the 92280s were usually buried beneath the deck, or the clasp part was flush with the deck. Previously, I had only used the 92280/60478 combinations due to parts availability, and as I said, my sides were quite unstable. Since the redesign, though, I haven't noticed a difference between the stability of each combination. As a result, I don't think that's what improved stability. I did block in the flag holders at the top of the gunports. I had a problem with them breaking off when I went to open the ports, and then the hull side would break when I was trying to reattach the holder. The only other major changes I made was installing tile "planking" on the gun deck, and connecting the frames at the top, like so: Connecting the frames at the top made those more stable, as they had a tendency to fall in pretty much any direction at any time. After connecting the frames, they are now collectively solid as a rock. Using tiles for that also allowed me to make my spar deck removable, something I'd wanted to do ever since I first saw Achille. Again, though, I really don't know that any of that contributed to the side stability. I apologize if this has taken away from the build everybody's actually here to see. I'm up to redoing the sails for my flagship, once those are installed, I'll be posting it in a new thread for everybody to see, and we'll be able to stop tying up this thread. I'll be sure to take some pictures of the hinge work for you guys to check out. In the off chance that I ever touch that ship again (pretty much guaranteed to never happen), I'll be modifying it to use Kurigan's top connection method.

I hear you on that. I also used the CGH method, and for the first three iterations, the sides were extremely unstable. One of the good things that came out of the revision that I mentioned is that the sides of my hull are much more solid than before, and much easier to reinstall if/when they come off. I wish I could tell you exactly what I did differently, but I honestly don't know myself. Kurigan came up with this modification to the CGH/Sebeus method, though, that I intend to use the next time I build a ship that has tumblehome. I imagine it's much more sturdy, due to the multiple attach points.

Probably also too late now that you've started the rigging, but I think if you raised the center of your gun and spar decks by one plate, that might help alleviate the curve issue, and if you just stacked them on top of what's already there, you wouldn't have to rip out the entire deck. Believe me, I know how frustrating it can be to do that. I recently redid my flagship (again. I think this is my fourth revision) and I got really frustrated in reworking it all. To make matters worse, I had my research wrong, and put the larger gap between the main and the mizzen, rather than between the fore and the main. It's not a huge difference, the space between the fore and main is 11 studs, compared to 14 between the main and mizzen, so it's not glaring. I know that it's there, though, so every time I look at the ship, that's the first thing I see. To redo it now, I would have to rip the ship apart all the way down to the orlop, because of how I put in the holds. So I'm just going to have to leave it. I don't wish that process on anybody. Everything that I'm saying is just suggestions, of course, and please feel free to ignore. I've never tried to get a ship like this done in the space of one day, and I don't think I'll ever be bold enough try for realistic rigging like you're doing at all, much less in the space of a few hours. The prospect is just too daunting for me. All in all, it's a very good design, and the ship looks quite nice. The rigging, I think, is going to be the primary draw of this ship. Even incomplete as it is now, that is the first thing that I notice about the latest pictures. In all honesty, if I had seen it complete with rigging before I saw pictures of the hull alone, I would not have noticed the curve.

Not bad for such a rapid build! I do have two issues, however. 1- the curve of the gun deck is a little too drastic for my liking 2- Eslandola? Ewww!

We should add a little thing to the forum, where any time somebody posts to an old thread, a window pops up that says something to the effect of, "This thread is X number of years old, and your post is all of two sentences long. Are you sure you want to violate the site guidelines and incur the wrath of Phred for such a trivial comment?"

Very nicely done! Though I do have to comment, I kind of feel like there should be a second gun deck.

Holy crap! This is amazing! Not that we should expect anything less from the guy who brought us Achille. Your details, as usual, are amazing. I love the pumps on the gun deck, and the stern face is absolutely perfect. I'm curious about the mid-ship capstan on the gun deck, though. What is its purpose? I'm also curious about how several of your ships have guns in the captain's cabin. Was this common practice back in the day? I always thought only officers were allowed in there, except for in special circumstances. Additionally, it looks like the sides of the gun deck are only one brick thick, yet you've managed to mount your gunports flush with the rest of the hull. Would you be willing to share how you did that?

One of these days, I'm going to bump the oldest thread on the forum, just to spite Phred

The behemoth continues to progress! Lookin' good! So after this is done, are you going to have an Inigo Montoya moment, where you realize that you've been working on the Poseidon for so long, now that it's over, you don't know what to do with the rest of your life?

That's like an anime catamaran Bounty

Hey Kurigan, do you have a link for the Sebeus method? I would like to echo some of Kurigan's points, particularly about adding color. A properly balanced color scheme can really make a ship. He's also correct in saying that you'll likely rebuild your ship several times before achieving the desired result. With my flagship, I rebuilt it at least four times to get it where it is today- two of those were before I even ordered parts- and it got better with each rebuild. Just keep at it, and you'll get there. LDD is an invaluable tool for fleshing out designs, but you'll also find when you go to build that it's not perfect, so be prepared to modify some things as you go. Additionally, reference images are very helpful, as he said. I've never picked a single image to build off of, but I've got a whole file of various engravings and photographs of historic ships that I use for reference when I'm designing a ship. It is helpful not just for construction, but also can help in picking a good color scheme. I differ from him, however, in that I personally still prefer the prefab hulls. This is primarily because I think it makes the build more challenging, and requires more creative thinking. For most single deck ships, the prefab hulls are wide enough to accommodate a good build, and you can make them as long as necessary. If you are looking to make a multi-deck ship, however, then you may want to look more into brick build hulls. I've seen several multi-deck ships that have used the prefab hulls, and are excellent, but they're usually by very experienced builders, and are the exception, rather than the rule. Also, there is still Pick-a-Brick, which can be cheaper than Bricklink, for parts that aren't ship hulls or masts.

This is tremendous! I'd like to complement you on building such a well balanced ship of the line with (assuming I counted correctly) only five center hull pieces. You made some rather bold decisions regarding deck height in order to keep her from getting too tall, and I think they paid off quite well. Thank you for posting this link on the MOC thread, or I never would've seen this.

Thank you, sir!

Which ship is the one with the green gunports, on the far right of the 4th picture under the BoBS heading?