Laura Beinbrech

While the term I'd use to describe them would be more along the lines of a Sampan or Skiff (basically a flat-bottomed boat) than a raft, I do really like the design.... I was actually thinking of making something sort of like this (with the larger rafts being combined into a sort of crude catamaran) for my post-apocalyptic pirates....

As an ex-Navy guy, I'm always delighted to see modernish ships around these forums, especially ones as well-build and detailed as yours. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Nice! I always like to see large minifig-scale space ships with an actual interior around here. This kinda reminds me of the classic FUTURON theme in coloration....

Excellent robot, and nice use of those otherwise useless Hero Factory parts. I really like the cooling fans on the back.

Well, one of my suggestions would be to have the Asian Pirates (who were often called Wokou, despite the fact that over half were from China, rather than Japan, towards the end of the eastern age of piracy) have a more LOCAL "good guy" faction to go up against: I.e. maybe something like the Koreans and their famous Turtle Ship (the world's first iron-clad warship).... As for the pirates themselves.... Depending on what you feel about using non-LEGO custom minifig accessories (i.e. BrickForge, BrickArms, Brick Warriors, etc), you might want to check out BrickTW, who specializes in ancient Chinese weapons and accessories. I've ordered from him in the past, and the products are top-notch (at least as good as actual LEGO minifig accessories), and reasonably priced.

This Friends Mad Max interceptor is just pure WIN! I also rather like your distaff counterpart to everyone's favorite road warrior.

This is a very interesting Mafia game, and the first one I've seen where neither the Town nor the Scum starts off knowing who anybody is for sure... I must say, it's also been interesting watching the Eurobricks Mafia masters in action!

I love it! You nailed the crew's outfits, sails and cannon styles perfectly! It's nice to see the Wakou (倭寇, a.k.a. Wokou or Waegu) getting some love around here. For those who don't know, Japan during the Age of Sail was almost like the Asian equivalent of medieval Scandinavia... I.e. a nation of sea-going raiders who established outposts on the main continent and were the terror of the high seas with the Wakou (lit: Japanese Raiders) raiding everything from Manchuria to Macau.

Napoleon, I was wondering if you had considered using the torso from the Series 6 Leprechaun for your greencoats... I've tried it for some certain special units' officers and it looked pretty good.... Just my $0.02

I second this motion....

There's a fair amount of interior space... If you click on the pics and go to the full Flickr set, you can see interior pics, or I could just post them here: Interior shots of the bridges: Hawkwing Bridge Interior by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Tony Soprano Bridge Interior by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr And a shot of the main deck interior (which has the crew berthing and Combat Information Center): Hawkwing Main Deck Interior by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Tony Soprano Main Deck Interior by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

Sucks that you don't have a LEGO store nearby.... Granted, the closest one to me is two hours away, but still.... Anyways, here's the updated color scheme, as per the suggestion of Si-MOCs: Frigates with Blue 02 LVL Platform by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

As one of the people supporting this project, I'm quite delighted to see it achieve the 10,000 votes needed to go to the review stage. If it does get made, I will definitely buy it, mainly due to being a HUGE BTTF fan (I bought the 25th anniversary collectors DVD box set).

Thanks for the kind words, Napoleon. Yes, ships do come fairly naturally, but as can be seen by some of the earlier versions of the Hawkwing, translating what I know into LEGO has taken some practice. The CMF series 4 sailors were fairly easy for me to come by: I'm pretty good at feeling packs to get the minifigs I wanted, and it seemed that the sailors were the least popular (and more numerous) ones from that series, and I made it a point to get at least one sailor every time I bought some Series 4 figures. As a result, I had about two dozen sailors by the time all was said and done... I decided to use the Series 4 sailor as the enlisted Naval personnel of the Republic of New Jersey because I realized that I had created the Republic of New Jersey to be kind of based on Renaissance Venice as well as Napoleonic England (i.e. small country with a powerful navy), but didn't have any naval personnel for them (aside from the officers & Chiefs that I built from the Build a Minifig thing), and the Series 4 Sailor fit the general color scheme of the Republic of New Jersey perfecty (New Jersey's Military forces uniforms are primarily white and black, like their flag: The army has white shirts with black pants, like the Navy officers, their SOCOM branch are black Ninjas led by Ryu Hayabusa, their Marine Corps uses the old 1980's type black fireman's torso with white pants and the regular sailors are, of course, white). If you want some more Series 4 sailors, you might want to check the Build-a-Minifig section of your local LEGO store: I was down at the LEGO store in Arundel Mills, and they had a TON of parts for the Sailor, Musketeer and Mad Scientist.... Finally, to address one of Si-MOCs' earlier comments, I decided to dismantle my old Sea Serpent castle ship (the only set ever to be made with blue balcony pieces) and re-build the 02-LEVEL platforms using blue parts to kind of harmonize the ships' color schemes (so that the hulls wouldn't be the only blue things on the ships), and it actually DID make them look better, overall (the FNS Hawkwing now looks like a Surface Navy ship belonging to the Classic Space fleet )... I was planning on taking the Sea Serpent apart so I could re-use the hull pieces to make two gunboats (either Confederate or Grand Duchy of New York, haven't decided yet), so that was no big deal. I'm at my Fiance's place right now, and spent most of the day at home entertaining relatives from Pittsburgh, so I haven't had time to take pics with the new color scheme. I'll try to get them posted tomorrow.

Nice to see someone doing some Timeline 191 MOCs around here, Napo! Believe it or not, but the New-Confederacy in my own Sci-Fi setting (the one that all my MOCs thus far belong to) is heavily based on Harry Turtledove's TL-191 books, with plenty of shout-outs to the same (i.e. I originally had envisioned the flag being the colors-reversed battle flag used in the Second Great War books)... Definitely want to see more. Also, good job on finding an alternative use for that single-piece palm tree trunk.

Thanks! The Federal Republic and Republic of New Jersey both have rather aggressive equal-opportunity recruitment policies.... Well, to be honest, a fair part of that problem is the fact that I had to use all artificial lighting, and even with every light in the room on (and aimed at the shooting area if I could aim it) it still turned out rather dark, for some reason... Looks like I'm going to have to spring for a spotlight for LEGO photography purposes. Well, to be perfectly honest, I'd have preferred the hull to be light or dark bley, but LEGO doesn't make them in that color. The closest they have to what I'd like would be (essentially) the same hull, but in black from the 7899 2006 Police boat, which costs an average of $6 on BrickLink and is impossible to find more than one of at any given BL store.... Well, this setting pretty much split from our timeline in 1988 (when my brother and I got into LEGO) and had been fairly schizo-tech from the get-go (i.e. star fighters alongside (vibro-)sword wielding knights), and after much of the world got antimatter bombed back to the stone age, most of the nations that rebuilt from the rubble are at a mid-late 20th century tech level: the Federal Republic and Grand Duchy of New York have both managed to preserve a fair bit of pre-Final War tech, but due to its complexity and an almost constant state of warfare, they can't build too much super-awesomesauce stuff at any one time. For example, the FRA still manages to build and maintain a small space fighter fleet, but they can only build 2 of their Strike Viper (mod I did of the Raid VPR, which I'll get around to posting sometime in the near future) per YEAR... It's also why only the Special Operations Command gets all the really cool toys, like hand-held energy weapons....

In the (not quite-so) grim post-apocalyptic future of 2111, one of the most steadfast forces for good is the Federal Republic of America; remnant of and heir to the traditions of the United States, they continue to battle the forces of evil that had been unleashed by the Final War twenty years prior. Standing at their side against the nefarious Grand Duchy of New York (a nation founded by the architect of the Final War) and the Hordes of Chaos is the small, but doughty Republic of New Jersey, which was founded by the various Mafia families banding together to restore order during the chaos following the catastrophic antimatter exchange that marked the end of the Final War. Part of the alliance's strength is their powerful navies, consisting of a variety of ships crewed by brave men and women and led by stalwart captains. A key factor in building these navies is the tech-sharing program that allows the FRA and New Jersey to pool their research and military construction programs. One early result of this collaboration is the Federal Republic Kestrel-class Frigates (FF) and Republic of New Jersey John-Gotti-class Guided Missile Frigates (FFG). Here we have a representative ship from each class, namely the Kestrel-class frigate, FNS Hawkwing (FF-03), and the John Gotti-class guided missile frigate, RNJS Tony Soprano (FFG-004). Armed with a formidable array of weapons and salty crews with brave captains, they are ready to take on any pirates, Confederate Gunboats, Grand Duchy of New York coastal patrols or Chaos raiders that might cross their path: FNS Hawkwing: Hawkwing Port by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Vital statistics (data from the 2110 edition of Jaynes Fighting Ships): Data: FF-03, Kestrel Class Frigate, Manufactured by BFG Industries in Philadelphia, PA as part of a joint Naval construction project with the Republic of New Jersey, Corleone Shipyards, LTD. Launch Date: 2089 Current CO: Lt. Commander Honor S. Harrington, Federal Republic of America Navy Armament: Guns: Two 3" (76mm) dual-purpose cannons, two aft-mounted BA-Industries MG-3/42 machineguns (7.62 NATO) and three bridge-wing mounted BA Industries Lewis-Lexington Heavy machineguns (.50 BMG). Missiles: Two MK-75 twin medium-range Merculite Multipurpose Missile (MMM) launchers Torpedoes: Two MK-50 sonar-guided long-range heavy anti-ship torpedoes. Propulsion: Twin John Reed 12-cylinder 1500 HP bio-diesel engines with a cruising speed of about 40 Knots. Notes: The Federal Republic of America version of this ship differs from the original Republic of New Jersey Kestrel class frigates in that it has the BFG Industries MK-98 Search/Track radar as opposed to the Corleone Shipyards Target Acquisition System (TAS) Mark-7, along with an added Furuno Commercial Navigation radar (for both standard navigation and deceptive tactics to fool enemy ships into thinking the frigate is a mere fishing vessel) and the PRC-99 directional HF communications array. Furthermore, the RNJ Navy's "Nebelwerfer" style aft-mounted multiple rocket launcher system is replaced by a second 3-inch/76mm cannon. FWD View: Hawkwing Fwd by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Aft View: Hawkwing Aft by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Her brave Crew: Hawkwing's Crew by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr L-R: 7 Seamen and Junior Petty Officers, Chief Aubrey Wandermann, Senior Chief Inara D'lann, Master Cheif Ginger Lewis, Lt. William Turner (XO) and Lt. Cmdr Honor Harrington (CO) Click on any of the pics to see the rest of the set, including interior views of the bridge and main deck. RNJS Tony Soprano: Tony Soprano Port by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Vital statistics (data from the 2110 edition of Jaynes Fighting Ships): Data: FFG-04, John Gottie Class Frigate, Manufactured by Corleone Shipyards, LTD in Camden, NJ as part of a joint Naval construction project with the Federal Republic of America and BFG Industries. Launch Date: 2096 Current CO: Lt. Commander Archibald Haddock, Republic of New Jersey Navy Armament: Guns: One 3" (76mm) dual-purpose cannon, two aft-mounted BA-Industries MG-3/42 machineguns (7.62 NATO) and three bridge-wing mounted BA Industries Lewis-Lexington Heavy machineguns (.50 BMG). Missiles: Two MK-75 twin medium-range Multipurpose Merculite Missile (MMM) launchers and One aft-mounted 6-round MK-7 3" (76mm) "Screaming Mimi" short-range Multipurpose Merculite Missile (MMM) launcher. Torpedoes: Two MK-50 sonar-guided long-range heavy anti-ship torpedoes. Propulsion: Twin John Reed 12-cylinder 1500 HP bio-diesel engines with a cruising speed of about 40 Knots. Notes: The Republic of New Jersey named this ship after Doge Antonia Soprano's Great-Great Grandfather. FWD View: Tony Soprano Fwd by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Aft View: Tony Soprano Aft by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr The Crew: Tony Soprano Crew by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Far Right is Lt. Cmdr. Archibald Haddock, and immediately to his left is Lt. Marcia Salvatore Again, click on any of the pics to see the rest of the set. 4th wall stuff: I decided to change the Hawkwing to light bley in color to fit in better with my emerging general "paint scheme" for the Federal Republic's Navy.. I.e. more white/light bley than black and dark bley (as was evident from the FNS Inferno and RNJS Thunder Child), and used a slightly modified version of the dark bley original version of the ship for the RNJS Tony Soprano. I also didn't like the original ladder going from the main deck to the 01 Level, or the fact that there was no visible means of going from the 01 Level to the 02 Level platform, and after thinking a while on it, I came up with the idea of using two 1x2 Ladder plates (in contrasting colors) to give the impression of a typical exterior shipboard ladder, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. Finally, the "Screaming Mimi" missile launcher on the Tony Soprano is based on Brickmania's Nebelwerfer kit (one of which I bought at Brickfair last year), but modified into a shipboard mounted version. I hope you like them, and Comments and Criticism is always welcome.

Nice work turning the boat from the Power Boat transporter into a Yacht! I also like how you made the waves out of trans-clear cheese slopes. You also did a great job with the sails. Does the Yacht have an interior? If so, I would like to see some pics, please! -Hikaro Takyama, Eurobricks resident post-apocalyptic shipwright.

That's really interesting, because, now that I think about it, aside from color, your Space Marines would be about perfect for Royal Manticorian Marines (IIRC, their power armor is black)... I'm a huge fan of the series and have read all of the books except the most recent one (mainly because I was in the process of reading all 7 Harry Potter books when it came out and have just finished).

I'm really liking the fact that you made some GOOD-GUY aliens, which LEGO seems reluctant to add to any themes (aside from Star Wars, that is), and I also like the Ugokins... If they had a third arm coming out of their chest, then they would look almost exactly like how David Weber described the Medusans in his Honor Harrington book, On Basilisk Station.

Congratulations, Big Cam on a well-deserved promotion! "Splice the Mainbrace!"

I really like this design. I find the configuration for the pilot/passenger compartments to be interesting and highly original.

I absolutely love it! Looks like a perfect blend of Classic Space and Star Wars! That was about the first thing I thought when I stopped drooling over the speeder: "Dobby LIKES fixing speeders, sir!"

AAARGH! I really wish I could play, because Steampunk is one of my favorite genres (I actually have a fair number of "steampunk" devices I built myself at home) but due to ineligibility and RL getting in the way, I'll just have to watch from the sidelines. I am rather glad to see that I'm not the only one who considers Bob's "Paranoid Protector/Investigator/Jailkeeper/Vigilante/Bomb" claim to be their favorite fake claims.