Cousarmy0001

From what I understand, a lot of people were disappointed by the Pearl set. I don't have one, so I can't say much, but the rudder looked ridiculous. On my ships, I generally have three colors in the hull, plus a two color checker pattern to liven things up a bit (minus the brown hull, of course). With one exception, though, mine are all black with a thick white stripe, and a thin blue stripe at the top of the white. The checker pattern is a ways above the thin blue stripe. My only exception uses yellow instead of white, but doesn't have the blue stripe. Going with a red hull is a difficult call. I've experimented with breaking from my normal brown hull with black and white pattern, but I've never been satisfied with the result, so none of my experiments in that have ever seen the light of day. I believe it was Achille that at one point was black with a thick red stripe that looked really good, but using red as the primary color is very different. You're off to a pretty good start here, though, and I think you should stick with it. You might want to think about making the decks tan instead of black or red, to brighten things up and add a third color without having to mess with the hull itself. Another idea may be to "tile" the decks, to make it look like they're planks. It removes a lot of the playability, as any minifigs you put on it will have to balance on their own, but it looks terrific. I've wound up going back and tiling all of mine after experimenting on one ship and seeing how good it looked.

I was going to fill it with legs, but it turns out you could only put one leg in, and it filled the barrel in such a way that you couldn't really tell what it was.

I like your use of levers as the stair railings. That's very clever, and looks pretty cool. I'd say your proportions are pretty good with five center hull sections, but I get what you're saying. My flagship started with three, I think, and now has five. Each time I lengthened it, I worried that I was making it too long, but once I was done I found it was better than before. I don't think I'll go larger than five, though. I think all of the masters, like Captain Greenhair, have stopped at five. If you're set on shortening it, I wouldn't go shorter than four, if I were you. The rudder mechanism is very impressive, by the way. I've never attempted one, but I've always been envious of those who have pulled it off. Part of why I haven't tried it, I think, is that I'd want to leave the mechanism exposed so I can show it off to people. It's good that you're taking pictures of it now, before it gets closed in.

I've got this building, a (small) foundry, a brewery with a rathskellar, a tavern/brothel/boarding house, a print shop, a warehouse/sailmaker (sailmaker is upstairs from the warehouse), a clockmaker/cobbler (cobbler is upstairs from the clockmaker), a tailor/rope maker (ropemaker upstairs from the tailor), a church (which I've posted on another thread), and a state house/naval headquarters/state house with barracks (I've got two different state house versions. One of those versions has two different versions where there is either a walled in courtyard or a pair of barracks). I haven't decided which version of the statehouse/naval headquarters I'll go with, but it's slated to be the last building I make, since I've changed it so many times now. I'll be asking for input here before I start it.

It butts up against another building that is yet to be built, so outside stairs aren't really practical. I intend to put some gold stripes on the ledgers, once I find my gold pen. (Edit) I went back to take a screenshot to show why stairs wouldn't be practical, and found that I actually could put them on the back of the building. It'd be on the opposite side from the street, but certainly within the realm of possibilities. I may well do that later in the project. Thanks!

Progress!!! So thanks to a few errors in ordering, my church looks like it's 1944, but I actually do have about 90% of the roof, it just won't hold together at less than 100%. I also need additional floor tiles, obviously, and more pipes for the organ. Also, the wrong parts came for the candle holders. I'm missing a few windows as well because the black arched windows cost a fortune, and I'm waiting to see if I can find them for cheaper than $5 each. At any rate, I wanted to show off what I have. I included two high ranking minifigs to give it some scale. I honestly didn't realize just how big this thing actually is until I had laid out the foundation. Enjoy!

At long last, I have 100% completed a building in my wharf project. Behold, the counting house/doctor's office/Sons of Liberty hideout! The building comes apart like so, to allow easy viewing of each floor: In the upstairs, we have a room rented by the local "Sons of Liberty" branch- under a fake name, of course- in which they've secretly built a printing press to distribute all of their treasonous literature against the monarchy. Just outside of that, we have the doctor's office, featuring an examination table, a bench with a variety of period medical instruments, and a bucket for depositing amputated limbs. Clearly the doctor has been busy! Downstairs (whoever designed this building didn't really think things through, as people will have to go through this to get to the doctor), we have the main office of the counting house. Here we see their large shelf of ledgers: And here we see three of their work stations, and their filing system. What do you all think?

She seems a wee bit tall in the hull. Perhaps that's what you're after, but if you're looking for accuracy, and assuming this is intended to only be above the waterline, she'll be a bit top heavy, and a large target. Lowering the hull may make her look a lot faster as well as make her harder to hit. Alternately (or additionally), you could try lengthening it, which would make it sleeker, as well as give you more room for guns. If I'm judging this correctly, you've got two center sections, right? If you want to keep the hull that tall, you might want to double that. I don't know that rams were common during this time period, as you'd probably de-mast yourself if you rammed anybody with enough speed to cause damage. That being said, I think that it's a clever idea, that makes your ship stand out, and makes her look more dangerous! Your captain may de-mast himself, but he would in all likelihood deliver a fatal blow to his opponent! I like how simple your captain's cabin access is, and I'm looking forward to seeing the interior you come up with for that. Your stern details are great, and the stained glass is a nice touch. I also like the stern chasers, and I think your idea for bow mortars is a good one. Also, could I trouble you for some more pictures of your staircase? I think that's a really nice addition.

WE NEED MORE PICTURES!!!! From a distance, the tower looks amazing, as does the battery. I like the gibbets that you've put on the island with the tower as well, and the water looks very Caribbeany.

I like that you managed to fit stern chasers through those aft portholes. I've spent 25 years trying to make that work and not look ridiculous. Beyond that, this seems a lot like a cross between Black Seas Barracuda and the 2009 Imperial Flagship. Good job combining two of the best kit ships in Lego history!

On the positive side, they have a roughly 500% chance of seeing the other guy first :-D

I'm concerned that she might be a little top heavy... and I'm worried that the sterncastle will interfere with the wind reaching the sails... In all seriousness, I wish you had some better pictures. Ridiculous though she may be, I would've liked to get a look at the details.

This wins.

I like the use of the large doors as rudders. One of the things that got me involved in Legos again several years ago was seeing a few builds people had made that used parts I recognized in clever ways like that. Well done, sir!

I wanted closeups of the prow because I wanted to see what you used to make it. From a distance, it looked really good, and it looks good up close. Using those arches is a clever idea, most of the times that I've built ships, I've used angled bricks and tried to blend the prow into the hull itself because I was never happy with how it looked otherwise. You've managed to make it look pretty darn good. The use of flags for the upper hull is pretty clever as well. It allows you to give a smooth appearance to the ship's lines. For the side windows, you don't need another 1x4 window, you could probably get by with a 1x2 arched window and lattice insert. The big thing is just that that part of the ship seems a little empty, and adding a window is one way to spruce it up a bit. How many center hull sections are there in this? My only other critique based off of what I can see here is that you might want to try a brick built anchor. I like the modifications you made to that one, but there are some pretty good looking designs on this site if you want to make something better. I use this design for all of my ships. https://imgur.com/a/4abIF (Edit: For some reason, imgur isn't letting me deeplink. Sorry!) I can't remember who designed it, but it wasn't me. Full credit goes to whoever did. Oh, and maybe put some guns behind those ports. Given the size of this ship, you probably wouldn't want to go with the standard Lego cannons, I think a smaller brick built design would be more appropriate. I'm surprised Kurigan hasn't weighed in on this yet, but he's very good with those, and could probably make a few good suggestions.

Easily the best accidental build I've ever seen! The pictures are a little far out to offer critiques, if we could get some closer in, we could offer advice, but from a distance, it looks terrific! The only thing I can offer right now is that you might want to add some side windows to the captain's cabin. If I might, could I request some close ups of the prow?

Sebeus, have you ever made an MOC that was not legitimately awesome?

I like it! You did a great job on the jungle branches, and on the waves, which are extremely difficult to do well in Lego- I can count on one hand how many times I've seen it done in a way that didn't look weird (and none of those attempts were by me). The stream from the jungle is a nice touch, and the rocks under the jungle also look terrific. The vines on the large tree are a very good detail as well. The two different sand colors to mark dry and wet is cool, and I assume the holes are incorrect digging spots? That, or these pirates are tide pooling :-D

Excellent! Thank you both.

...and get a picture of HMS Hood. No, seriously. That was the second result. So apparently I really suck at this Google thing. I'm exploring redoing the state house in my uber project that the church I posted a few months ago is a part of. This building is across the street from that church, incidentally. I'm trying to find examples of buildings that were used as naval headquarters and/or office buildings during this time period, but I'm having a hard time. I've found the Scheepvaartmuseum, but as far as I can tell, that was more of a warehouse than a headquarters. I'm wanting to continue a lowlands type building style, but can go Scandinavian if necessary. Can anybody refer me to a building or buildings that were used for this purpose during the 1600-1800 period?

On the one hand, I'd be pissed if somebody claimed credit for my work. On the other hand, though, I'd be kind of flattered. I guess the better route would've been for that person to do the legal thing, and purchase my plans or the model itself.

That's part of why I haven't gotten involved, either. In addition, I have a few ships that would probably be good to start out with, but I don't have the money right now to make the leap from them to my larger ships.

You'll probably get flak for this not being strictly pirates, but before that happens, I want to echo everybody else and say that this is brilliant! Naturally, the gondola has the biggest draw, and it looks terrific in the pictures. Any chance we could get some better close-ups of it, and maybe an explanation of your technique for getting that beautiful curve in it? Also, if BotBS is still a thing, you should think about joining with this! You would DOMINATE :-D

I don't have this set, but if you post a few pictures of the area, or make an approximation of it in LDD and post it here, I might be able to come up with some stuff for you.

LOVE THIS