ringleheim

Awesome!

This build is awesome in every respect! I fell in love at first glance.

I am an avid lover of ancient Roman history as well as Lego. I've been in the real Flavian amphitheater many times. I LOVE THIS SET. I think the color is about as good as Lego could have done with their present color pallet. Standard lego colors are not well suited to masonry projects anyway. I've long thought about Lego doing one of these and this set is long overdue!

Definitely not "UCS" in look and feel. A disappointment. This is just a really nice play set for kids. I'd rather use the $300 as a Bricklink starting point and try my own MOC.

My immediate reaction was that a lot of people will pass on this. It's not enough pieces, and it's rather expensive. On top of that it is kind of an unusual looking ship to begin with and an odd choice for a UCS set in my opinion. It's just an awkward shape and is difficult to display. I think this will go down as one of the less popular UCS sets. I will likely buy it.

Thanks for your reply. What are the strange problems with the Emerald Night, and are they severe enough to avoid purchasing the set? I prefer the aesthetics of the Emerald Night over the Maersk so I am curious as to what it's problems are. No one seems to mention them, at least in video reviews on youtube!

I am new to Lego trains and have been studying up on the various sets over the last several days. The question is: which one to get? I think I have it narrowed down to the Emerald Night and the Maersk, as they seem to be on a higher level than all the other Lego trains to date. Honorable mention goes to the red freight train, simply b/c I like the design of the locomotive in that set. I do not mind having to buy all the bits and pieces a la carte in order to get a running train. Are there any weird issues with the Emerald Night or Maersk I should know about? Is there anything to watch out for? I assume many here own ALL of the Lego trains ever made! I'm hoping to tap into your knowledge and experience in getting a really good train set. Thank you!

Dread Pirate Wesley, Let me start by saying this is a really fantastic build and I have greatly enjoyed following it VERY closely. I am new to this forum and currently trying to make my own sailing ship so I found this build log fascinating and informative. I have a few comments which you have likely already considered, but... First, the proportion of the hull is not right, in that there is way too much ship sticking up out of the water relative to its length. You have the bulk of a 3 decker. But the 64s and even 74s were "thinner" in appearance. Secondly, and this relates to point 1 in a nice way: your lowest black stripe running the length of the hull should be much wider than the upper black stripe. If you simply removed 1 brick height from you upper black stripe you would lower the height of the hull side while correcting the stripe issue all in 1 go, though it sounds like that would ruin your deck height engineering and minifigs would no longer fit! Third: You addressed this early in your build log, but I still think there is something not right with the angle of your hull sides. Particularly at midship, nearly the entire hull side should angle inward all the way to the top. The angle changes along the way, but its all "leaning" inward. Fourth: I realize a lot of people go with that bright yellow for the yellow ochre paint, and Lego doesn't give us a good choice with color. But it is just so bright and garish. Have you considered "brick yellow" or "tan" as a substitute? It wouldn't be right either, but it would be more muted and perhaps not look so toy like. I don't really know about this! I am just kicking around ideas here. Lastly, there is something that does not seem right about how your hull goes straight down into the "water" at the very bottom of the ship. At dead midship, that is probably accurate, but the ship should be angled inward fore and aft in particular, and really only a small portion in the center of the ship is reasonably "straight" or vertical at the waterline. There is an excellent photo of HMS Victory at sea, taken around the year 1900 I believe, at wikipedia. Look at the angle of the hull as it meets the water from bow to stern. There is something that just seems "off" about having the ship go straight down to the water line. I would consider lining the entire bottom of the ship with a row of inverted slope pieces, so that the ship slopes inward, away from the viewer, at the waterline. Or you might want to recess the bottom by even a half stud (plate) followed by another half stud recessed plate. The slope would be much more gradual than by using 45 degree inverted slopes. If any of that makes sense! This also might be one of those things where even if it is technically "correct" to have the ship meet the water vertically, it still doesn't seem right to my eye. It seems like a slght angle (inward) makes sense, even if done as a "creative trick of the eye". These huge ships just didn't meet the waterline in that perfect right angle kind of way. I offer all these comments as just that: comments to be kicked about. If your ship wasn't as brilliant as it is, I would probably refrain from commenting at all. But you have a real chance here to come up with something truly magnificent (it's practically there already!) so why not go all the way? I'm curious to hear your responses to some of these thoughts, as you have very clearly spent a great deal of time, effort, and money on this wonderful build! I hope to post photos of my own build (probably stealing some of your own techniques!) in the near future. Keep up the OUTSTANDING build! And keep your powder dry!