SlyOwl

Dwarf Battlepack available at Legoland California - They won't have gone in for brickbuilt hammers, as the figs are assembled and packaged by hand for the battlepacks, and it's far simpler to build an axe or a brown carrot. I'll end up getting a troll one and a dwarf one, although to be honest I'd have preferred only 1 winged helmet - they're far too common, especially as they're for the head dwarves...

Sure thing. I guess you're talking about Forbidden Cove, which has run the Castaway Contest and Whale of a Tale Contest since it launched. However, activity has been very low there for quite some time... Dan Siskind (Brickmania) also ran the Custom Brick Community Building Contest, which had a Pirate/Colonial category, along with many others. He says he'll do it again next year, with more prizes and categories.

As I'm normally building "crude" stuff, like pirate and castle, it adds to the aesthetic not to align them. Or you could line up all the Lego logos... I do make sure the moulding points don't show myself (as well as on normal bricks, like 1x1) Don't think stuff would fit down the middle sometimes, then (e.g. minifig necks)

It's black And I told you, I'm colour blind...

Bluebeard and Redbeard, you colour blind toaster, you! Heck, what colour is maroon?

Might look better without the thing on the right, though - what is that? I know - I have the original X-Pod strap, and can barely get it over my shoulder Not that I'd want to walk round with 4 X-Pods under my arm, but y'know...

What happened when Blackbeard met Bluebeard? They got marooned. This belongs in Community

A few weeks ago, we got news of a Troll Battlepack, leading to much speculation about the possibility of a Dwarf Battlepack. Thanks to members Whung and The Cobra, it looks like Eurobricks' speculation can be right, after all...

Good thoughts It is unlikely that the Conquistadors were an homogenous army in terms of weaponry and armour - they would all have been equipped with what they could afford and preferred. Pikes/halberds are definitely something that Lego should have given them, but didn't. I'll also add that DNL did something similar for his PTV entry last year -

Yes, the painting really does add a lot to the MOC. It's nice to see a bronze cannon (even if it says ornamental to me), and I love that subtle yet detailed painted back-pack. Am I the only one who thinks the guy on the far right is holding one of those Magna Guard batons? I'm assuming it's a thing you shove the cannonball down the barrel with, but I've never seen a two-ended one before

It's not the clarity that's a problem - it's the time it takes to load on people's computers - especially if they have a low bandwidth. It came new in a set How did your burnt Lego turn out? Even if not purist, a partly burnt boat would be nice in a MOC.

3 red (one has a broken rowlock), 2 brown, 2 Islander canoes (one with stickers, one without) What bugs me about the rowing boats is the front part, where they're hollow. Looks bad, in my opinion, and I haven't come across a way of filling it in properly yet. Speaking of rowing boats, look what Akama_1 from Flickr got in one of the new pirate sets - Useful for shipwrecks, no? I want one, in brown Looks clone-brand. (Could you resize those pics to 800x600 please? Tutorials, if you need help)

Chrome or sprayed silver (like the Crownie helmets) would rub off or chip too easily for a "friction" piece. Pearl "popsicle" silver (Crownie spear/sword) would be suitable, as the plastic itself is coloured. Personally I prefer the old dark grey hook from Adventurers to the light grey or pearl gold ones, as it looks more menacing. A black hook would be cool. Alright, he's in! I've called him Captain Pete, as it seems to fit in my opinion, but the name's up for dicussion

It's a pretty common standard for mods to add a picture to the first post, be it linking to a new set/news or a MOC/MOD. The only time this doesn't normally happen is if the picture is waaaay too big... On a personal note, I only really look at the first few photos of any MOC, unless it really appeals to me, and will only explore a link if it is to Brickshelf. I can't get my head round the MOCpages interface (or most personal sites), and if it's on Flickr, the likelihood is that I've already seen it in "My Contacts' Photostreams". I make my pics 800x600 (or smaller), and then use the different sizes you're given on Flickr on sites where there are size limits.

Just saw this on Brickshelf, and I love it All those colours, wavy lines - most delicious eye candy! It also has an Aquanauts aesthetic - they're one of my favourite themes, so I like it all the more.

Not official, but Kyle Peterson (Armothe) does his own Chrome dudes - There are some chromed Lego parts you can buy on Brickforge too.

There's always the "HC 514" Adventurers number plate -

Thanks everyone Yeah, they were a rather last-minute thing, which I hadn't planned on - they were originally fauns, but I thought I needed some more variety. I don't think I'll do something this big for quite some time - the time taken to build something increases exponentially - I could have knocked up a larger baseplate area in smaller MOCs than this in the same time. The CCC normally gets me doing big stuff, but the Battles Contest has no size limit, so I guess I'll go big again next year (although it prefented me doing another entry this time). Baseplates for grass, and underneath. I would have landscaped the grass normally, but didn't have time, as my 60 2x4 plates only arrived on the morning of the deadline... The green on the witch doesn't bother me, as I'm colour blind And I realised after building it that I got Edmund and Peter's bodies the wrong way round I had originally intended to extend the diorama back down to the Fords of Beruna (with the River God dude), and outwards to encompass the wooded area where Susan and Lucy fought the Telmarine horsemen, but I ran out of bricks and effort. That fight scene was pretty lame too... Crownies are really a blessing to MOCers - they can be any armed troops, really. I looked into armada helmets, but no MOC is worth spending that much on (probably cheaper to work out some kind of custom-moulding instead anyway) I can't lose, now you've death-threatened Josh Um... plate 1x1 with tooth? I think you mean on the hag, in which case it's a throwbot visor - I wouldn't have painted it, but I lack a black hood, or a brown cape. It's cheap enough to replace at some point though.

I think Lugnet still has more active Technic and Train subforums because of the higher audience age for these two themes. They also have higher start-up costs (whereas with, say, Castle, you can build something different with only a few sets; there's no united colour scheme in technic, so it's harder to get somewhere quickly) and are speciality subjects (Technic is difficult for a first-timer, Trains are complicated). For reference, Bruce Heitbrink's essay on "Is Lugnet dying?"

I'll merge these topics, and add a few more poll choices. Well, TLG put yellow eps on redcoats, for the officers I'm not a big fan of blue eps on bluecoats, as the colours tend to blend, and they look a bit odd, in my opinion.

Panel walls and the weird crane aside, this is a great set. It's got all the things I love about classic-pirates - the neat docks, trapdoors, bountiful weapons, and, as is common, some random boat parts thrown in, for ship expansion. I tend to think of this as the Pirates' Eldorado Fortress or Imperial Trading Post, as it was the biggest of their bases, with plenty of extras and stuff to do. Plus, it's not so famous or collectable, so it can be picked up pretty cheaply. And it contains the ultra-rare 2x2x3 double slope in light grey - Added. The system for indexing reviews is on an as-and-when basis (unlike MOCs, where it's just one batch of indexing every fortnight or so), so it must have been missed

Build a secret hideout, 32x32 max. Best one wins a cookie. No, really, if you want something to build, it's sometimes best just to have something you have to make, and you'll be surprised what you can come up with. I can't enter anyway The Creative Critic makes it a bit fairer (in terms of finished product) - the not-so-good MOCs benefit a lot, whilst the better ones can't gain as much. What sort of contest can be made fairer in terms of talent?

Kris Kelvin's rendition of a Hanseatic Town is just incredible -

As has been said, you can support any faction. However, from the Ladybird Pirate Books, we get the impression that the pirates and imperials actually get on, mostly, and that there are good and bad pirates, which is where the main conflict lies. Judging from the faces in the current line, the pirates are ostensibly the bad guys, as they have more vicious faces, rather than the rather bland imperial ones. Or that's just reflecting who they are...

Thanks for the review! For the "explosion" mechanism, I'm assuming that when you press down on the canopy, it pushes down on the colourful insert. Then the 2x2 inverted slopes push the technic axles of the wings out, and the pressure builds up over the technic pins, until they just pop out, detaching the wings? TLG is really doing some good stuff with mechanisms at the moment, and they actually work properly, not with a hand-of-God. Agreed. Though cute, the Adventurers ones were too small in general, and a fair few used that horrid large cockpit piece...