Mister Phes

Fans can praise and criticise LEGO sets as much as they like via forums and social media. But what determines whether a set remains in production is how well it's selling. I.e. how much revenue it generates. 10320 Eldorado Fortress cannot generating as much revenue as anticipated if The LEGO Group has decided to trim a couple of years off its production run.

Hello? Anyone home... still very curious about other aspects of your display... Found some videos of the motorized features in your WIP topic but is there anymore content from the event beyond what's been shared on both LUGs' websites and social media profiles?

That's merely your opinion (based on what you saw in the initial BrickLink Designer Program releases) and not something officially stated by The LEGO Group - however, I'm prepared to stand corrected if you can provide an official source that confirms your statement. Regardless, there is no official Pirates theme anymore. The LEGO Group distributes pirate-themed sets under various sub-brands. I.e. 10320 Eldorado Fortress was released under the Icons sub-brand, 40597 Spooky Pirate Island was released under the Creator sub brand, 23122 Pirates of Barracuda Bay was released under the LEGO Ideas sub-brand, etc. In the same vein 40710 Pirate Splash Battle will be released under the LEGOLAND sub-brand and Ominous Isle will be released under the BrickLink Design Program sub-brand.

If it's manufactured by The LEGO Group, it's an official LEGO set, it just may not be your preferred format or distribution model.

A new pirate Build A Minifigure minfig, BrickLink Designer Program set and a Legoland set are on their way within the next 6 months...

Magnifico! The Imperial Armada were long overdue to upgrade their flagship and the St.Miguel fits the bill nicely! And it's also great that you've drawn influences from the design of actual galleons, and not just labeled your ship a "galleon" for the sake of it.

You can start preparing for Christmas next year, Jack!

@JintaiZ and I are working on a blog post for this collaboration. Where do we find nice, high resolution images and videos of your electronically enhanced contributions?

The Classic Pirates live to feature AFOL work! Certainly not going to create a topic for AI images, instead they will relegated to augment Classic-Pirates.com webpages and blog posts due to lack of personnel to create images especially for that purpose. The latest blog post is one such example.

With the festive season in full swing, here are some of this year's (2023) LEGO Pirate Christmas Creations... Feel free to add yer own... By Matty Brick "Christmas Time in the Caribbean" by Hendrik Uzume By Rafdanzig By Dariolegoafol "Arrr... Where are my Presents?" by Pablo AFOL "Meanwhile nearby..." by Tobi Putzo By PataLegoPata "Have you written your Christmas letters?" by Vintage Pirate Bricks "HO HO Hmmm(?)..seems like a party going on down there" by lego_pirates_world "Merry Christmas" by niridan_05 "Merry Christmas!" by Bambrickery "Merry Christmas from Admiral Woodhouse" by bricking747

From the perspective of a manufacturer, attracting new customers is desirable for increasing profits. From the perspective of a consumer who is only interested in classic LEGO themes, it provides very little benefit at all.

You've turned this into a family affair and have explained why Ironhook's face look so similar to Roger and Redbeard's face...

Roger, ay? How very British of you.

Let's get a bigger photo of this wonderful creation!

You're probably aware that the designers eventually incorporated ladders into the later forts. However, when the LEGO Pirates theme was first introduced, the designers had already designed dozens of brand new parts just for the LEGO Pirate theme. Everything from cutlasses and muskets to palm trunks and leaves, to new animals, to ship hulls, ratlines and sails, to barrels and tubs was new for the theme. But there were only so many new moulds LEGO could accommodate in the first wave of sets so ladders had to wait for the future.

Oh no! They have the dreaded 4+ hulls! @PxChris will be mad I said that...

The Imperial Armada appeals to me because they have vastly different design to the Soldiers and Imperial Guards, and not just a palette swap. So I would not add that torso to my Armada... Queens Ranger's however, completely different story...

He's practically turned it into another set!

I'll suggest it's not the most exciting feature, but it's a badly needed one. Aye, it would be interesting to use AI to generate concept art and then have talented builders interpret those concepts as actual LEGO builds.

Admittedly I've generated enough content to make that feasible - too bad I don't have time to edit it into a suitable format. And that's thing with AI generation... I can do it in the background while I get my work done, then cherry pick the best generated images at the end of the day. So stayed tuned, I'm working on a new feature for Classic-Pirates.com which makes use of some of those images.

I used Photoshop's Generative Fill feature to expand the image and remove the flying objects. Yeah, we're not in any danger of AI building LEGO sets for us... it's pretty hit and miss when it comes to generating a decent image. Sometimes you've got to generate a dozen images to get one that doesn't abstract or distorted in some way. But you're right, it could be useful for creating concept art for MOCs to visually communicate ideas and then further evolved by talented builders with real bricks. Here's another image I'm experimenting with:

Updated version without funny flying things in the sky...

Most excellent! The Imperial Armada need to a flagship to rival that of the Imperial Guards! And you shall delivered it to them! Where are their shiny chrome curiasses?

Yer know... I didn't actually think people would use the image as a wallpaper

That would be fantastic! I have upscale it for 1920x1080 wallpaper use: