Frank Brick Wright

It definitely is an improvement from your last version and I don't think it is possible to build something much better than this at this scale, great work The only thing I actually would change is the keel, quoting Kurigan's plans: They don't get much of a keel, do they? I mean, there is a keel, obviously, but is so thin in comparison that I don't think its really worth making it. Yours is actually pretty near to the scale — in the plans the keel height is 1/10 of the total height while in yours is precisely 1/7, 1 plate out of 7. The whole point is that if there is a keel it should extend from stern to stern which is clearly impossible in this case. The keel is totally irrelevant but I think it adds to extra height unnecessarily. This being said I absolutely love your design and I never thought that a boat this good could be made Fantastic!

The bow was designed in LDD As well as improvements on the stern and masts. But finally the real bricks arrived, so: One can ask: how strong is that deck? Pretty strong if you consider the offsetting and the vertical curve. It has a nice sheer of 6 plates. Moreover it is some 70 bricks long. For some reason structure was needed to support that.

After a strenuous day of work on board of HMS Crash, the Admiral asked the time to one of his officers. — 'Five o'clock, sir'. — Very well, that means it is tea-time. Tea-time! One of the few comforts on the high-sea, remembering us of the pleasures of civilization! The officers are invited to a small snack in the captain's cabin, and of course there is tea and croissants (croissants…) But then, the ship's wheel is left alone and… hum… Buuuum! HMS Crash crashes against a rock. Oh well… A few time later: But then the majority of those who escaped decide to leave the vessel, even without the Admiral's permission. Because HMS Crash is His Majesty's Property the old man decides to protect the ship until help comes. Bye deserters! Some notes: first of all this was just something I put together rather quickly as I am waiting for my BL order to arrive in order to complete my frigate . Secondly I wanted to try both some rigging and minifig-customization before going to the real thing. The decal of the Admiral is Blackmoor's design Moreover the shrouds are glued — as in Perfectionist's ships. I think I am going to use black rope for my frigate as I prefer the overall look — I was undecided between rigging like in Nuestra Senora or NextGen but I think I prefer the latter. A bonus-pic showing the full shrouds:

I see what you mean there. That's a problem you will always basically face and I can assure you that with the complete hull that will be totally unnoticed. If you still want to solve that you can attempt something with double slopes, I guess it is theoretically possible to change that though I'm not sure if you won't compromise something in stability. My only point so far is that the tumblehome starts too low. If you check a typical ship's plan you will see that the lower section of the curve (the section when the curve is to the outside) is about half of the ship's height; the point where you turn inward should be at about half the ship, as you can check here.

I still prefer your frigate Are those brick-built cannons? They look fantastic, I think we deserve a closer look Does she has an interior — I mean, besides the cosy cabin? Also that system of attaching the prow-figure is very clever, I don't think you have used it before (?) though IMO it surely fits better in a ship, at least in one of this size. Medium blue is alongside with tan my favourite lego colour

I own nothing at the moment But a XL order (+2500 parts) has been placed yesterday so I'll start working on my frigate as soon as it arrives.

That sails! Superb! Also I totally understand why you kept your grille design from Achille, I love it too I saw those nice hawseholes over there so will you connect the capstan to the anchors? I'm fascinated with the way you worked her all over, the small details you added, she is beautiful! The only detail you could add as far as I can see is the waterholes, I think one or two would look nice

The drydock is for sure my favourite part, what a brilliant idea! I think I'll have to (try) to make a MOC with one too someday in the near future Plus the lava-surfer, that's a whole new level of emotion, water-waves are for sissies

I hope you'll get her some background for the photos, she surely deserves it! My favourite, you've captured the style so well!

The rigging… It just occurred to me that adding blocks could be a good idea (I learned that from Nuestra Senora actually ) to add even more detail, just like in here. I'm not very sure about what parts are typically used, but I guess any connector would do.

Agreed. Prefabs usually provide more stability. I don't agree however that stability isn't a concern in full-hull models. It really is. You can't built it properly if everything is breaking apart, or if even for small dislocations the ship masts and components start separating. IMO stability is always essential. Cb4's technique is indeed absolutely strong. I can easily hold my hull in any position without the slightest problem. I never experienced real contact with a model using Anders' technique, but I do think that the hull is pretty solid, I'm more afraid with the above connection in terms of decks and tumblehome building.

Knew that image too, is IMPRESSIVE But when I said "no ship" I meant sailing ship, I thought it was implied as this was all about sailing vessels and plus we are in the Pirate forum Making sails or rigging something at 1:40 scale (minifig-scale) is also a tremendous challenge. I intended to quote this sentence but I didn't so I guess I haven't expressed myself very clearly: This all to say that I think I have been misunderstood. I'm neither saying that it is impossible to build a ship at that scale in terms of time or budget nor saying that both this aircraft nor Anders T ships are fantastic creations. The guy who built the aircraft spent some 600 hours building it plus 15.000£. But there aren't many (i.e. a reasonable amount) of ships at that scale in the world. For some reason it is My point is just that the normal builder won't be able to spent that amount of time or money in a vessel. That doesn't mean that "the average" moccers can't build minifig scale ships! The whole point here is this: if a technique consumes toooooo many parts then it really isn't viable in terms of a larger build. My remark was just that though it is very beautiful and detailed, Anders' technique is rather ineffective because it consumes too many parts. This is not discussable: it is a fact — it is possible to brick-built a hull of that size with a third of the parts he used (and even more accessible parts). So if you want to build a ship using that technique do so. Just be prepared because it will probably cost you up to three more times (both time and money) than you could have spent using another technique Again: I am not discussing his ships' quality nor the beauty of his technique: just its practicability.

Of course it can! That means that it is impossible to build large ships (like, say, a ship of the line) using this technique because it becomes impracticable in terms of budget and of time… Assembling a 33000 parts model is surrealistic, that's why no ship has been ever finished at that scale

Well, if the keel is under the water-line and if a water-line model only has what is above the water-line, then if it is water-line, it doesn't has a keel, simple logic Of course a water-line model can't have a full keel, your Snake, for instance, which does have a keel, isn't clearly water-line, or if it is supposed to be, well, then…

I apologize from the beginning if I offended anyone. Did I offend you? I hope that, if I offend someone, that someone has the courage of telling me so, because that way I can improve. I also know that I may be irritating or annoying sometimes and I also apologize for that with the guarantee of an attempt to change that in the future for the sake of the community good. I could hardly agree more with Sebeus. I have nothing against you nor against anyone here. We are now totally offtopic. That is why I won't answer your post. Eurobricks is an amazing community, let's not ruin it with this stupid divergencies Of course Anders is a great builder and this is also a great ship, I only complained that it requires a very high amount of parts, that's it.

I have to say, I thought Achille would always be in my top 3 favourite pre-fab ships! Not anymore, for me the Magnicienne looks better even without the sails The shape is brilliant!! And what a fleet! I have two questions though. Have you got a number of parts per ship (approx.) or at least an idea of how many bricks are there floating in that awesome fleet? A pretty high number I guess. The other question is about the rigging. Do you glue it or something? For my experience after 2/3 months in the shelf the rigging starts to get loose, especially in the shrouds, but yours always look so strong and strained. You definitively own the most impressive fleet in the web

Actually no. And I am not kidding. If a model is fantastic, as this surely is, what is the point of telling that? Do you have any doubts that the builder does know that? Is that new information? No. No. No. So no point in telling. That won't make him build better. the same for you. And for me. And for anyone. He's not a child needing positive feedback to keep his self-esteem. We cannot stay at mediocrity. Or even at very high standards, we should not rest in the comfort of moderately good. There are ALWAYS things to improve, and that is the point of criticism. If I really want to help other people don't you think that telling them what is bad is more proficient than telling them how good their work is? Don't you think that changing what is wrong is precisely what allows them to develop? "What a build!", "What a job!", "What a colourscheme!", "Wow, that's awesome!", "I'd never seen anything like this before, GREAT WORK!". Typical comments. That deserves a smile from the builder, surely, but no one learns anything from this. Think about that.

I too have found this builder a while ago. Besides the masts' thing it really looks like the ship isn't very solid, at least there is a gap in the tumblehome connection with the bow. I would be afraid to pick it up, judging from the photos And for a ship of this size I guess 9100 bricks are way too much this number deserves a true ship of the line! Quite an inefficient building technique, if you ask my opinion.

I never were really into castle but I think each one is hard in its own way. Building a castle or a village is very parts consuming because it is hard to get a natural look; if you just pile out bricks it won't really seem natural, you must integrate plants and create textures. Shipbuilding aims at another target. What is hard there is to reproduce faithfully the ship's lines: the curves, the tumblehome, the sheer, the prow and stern. It involves trying to recreate curved surfaces with square bricks. Both are incredibly detailed. Often shipbuilding is accompanied by an obsession for historical accuracy and usually custom production, such as sails and rigging: it isn't as much as a free build, as a castle or so; that too requires time. None can said to be "harder", each being different and having its own style.

Just for the sake of curiosity: did you know that eyepatches were not the result of battles but instead the natural consequence of calculating the vessel's position by looking at the sun through a monocle or astrolabe?

This is nice! I specially like the tilled deck with the shutters I'm actually Portuguese so I'm quite inside the history of our sailors, specially the first ones. As you might know, if you are going for a 1450s caravel then it surely was one of the pioneers in terms of ocean-going voyages, as it al started with the take of Ceuta in 1415. What I mean here is that the first caravels would be latin caravels, thus latin rigged, while your front mast is square rigged Just a small matter in terms of historical accuracy, but the square-rigging came in a slightly later period in history (from around 1515, approx.) with the naus, a.k.a. carracks in the English term. Anyway neat build!

Great design, incredible how you built it so detailed. I tried to make a design of my own but really couldn't find anything with which I was pleased. Perhaps you can however take some inspiration at Foremast's Jack design, which I find very nice too:

What a build! Fantastic, she is amazing I totally love the hull and the totality of the vessel. The stern is specially ornate and of course the technique you used for the windows is brilliant The way you built the curves, so smooth is amazing too, and of course all the tilling gives her a very shiny look. Besides agreeing with Sebeus on the galleries I would like to point some things out. In the upper gun's deck your gunports are way too high (comparing to the gun's height, of course) because in that position the crew would only be able to fire upwards. That wouldn't be very useful in such a giant, would it? Wheels on the cannons would solve the problem I guess. The shrouds look odd in such a masterpiece, I really hope you go for custom rigging. An issue that I immediately spotted is the masts' distances. Ok, it is not something that noticeable but I made some simple calculations using your reference pictures and your mainmast is 4 bricks farther to the foremast than it should. Of course you are not building an historical accurate replica, but from naked eye one understands that the two aft masts are way too close. Nitpicking, I guess, but she is so good she surely deserves it

Tilling that studs row would work too I guess

That's it, fantastic work! You get space for the hold and it looks very sturdy! However, if you want to build the orlop, I would suggest that you built the curve some slopes further. Check this basic plan: (sorry but the image is slightly over-sized) As you can see each curve tends to have more height than breadth and in the most widest position it basically makes a square while yours is longer than higher This really doesn't matter and doesn't have great visible effects except that the hull might look too short but "normal" people won't notice that But if you build her higher, then you get the orlop INSIDE the hull, which is precisely what you want because it has a perfect shape and curvature and then you can use the fantastic CGH technique up from the guns deck, thus avoiding those large straight lines ruining your fantastic work I think I will build my next ship (when this one gets finished -.-) with your technique! It looks sturdier and more elegant after all, avoiding the complex structure required to keep the hinges. Can you tell an esteem of how many slopes you used to make your East Indianman hull? (great design )