Sebeus I

Not much to report for last weekend. I worked a little on the stern. On the previous model I used a pair of standard sharks to portray the demon fish sculptures that support the lower balcony, which I quite liked. However, since there are supposed to be 4 supports, rather than 2, I needed something else now, given the limited space. Quite challenging at this scale.

Very recognizable. To motorize such a small model is truly impressive, I may want to try that myself. Where do you get your motors/ controller?

Progress is slow but steady. The bow section was going to take much time and study, I anticipated that. The Tripple Cannon mechanism is not finished yet but I had to make certain that the barrel positions were correct relative to the gun ports first. It's a tight fit though it's supposed to be. Must remember to swap the brown chains with dark grey ones still. It's all a bit messy still but it will get better once the mechanism is finished. I expanded the crew, along with the official minifigures the Dutchman will have 22 crew members. I hope that will be enough to populate the weather deck. Much to do still...

What a beautiful machine, I love the elegant manner of resetting.

It's interesting that I designed my previous version to have the main mast inclined originally, however, after attaching the rigging, it ended up at almost 90° anyway . When it comes to the curvature of the decks I go by what I see in the movies mostly. so it will be very limited, almost straight, I believe my previous model had about 3 plates elevation between lowest part of the upper gun deck and highest. The elevation is greater on the lower gun deck but since that one won't be visible, I guess that doesn't matter much. I've seen the movies dozen of times and I only noticed it recently, watching the interior scenes almost frame per frame , in an attempt to make sure my new version will be as faithful to the movies as I can possibly manage. Not at all, this is one of the reasons I like keeping a building log on Eurobricks, these discussions are very interesting!

Exactly! I see I'm dealing with another connaisseur 😊. An historical ship would have something like this. The Flying Dutchman's mizzen mast is placed all wrong for that. Though since she has a modern steering wheel instead of a whipstaff, I suppose that doesn't matter really. I chose to go for a compromise, instead of going two decks down, I will straighten the upper gun deck and locate the captain's quarters there. As on my sketch. I figured it made sense to do it like that as it seems to me that, in the movies, the Flying Dutchman doesn't have its decks following the curve of the ship, eventhough its cannon ports do 😆. The broadside cannons in the captain's quarters are most likely meant to be those from the lower gun deck. I took this picture from my television 😅. The starboard cannon is clearly visible. Another interesting thing about this picture is that it looks like the ceiling isn't that high near the entrance, which led me to presume that the interior prop is actually meant to be partially under the upper gun deck. This of course makes accessing the cabin via the doors on the quarter deck even more weird. Here's another one from At Worlds End. I don't think I've seen these cannons in any of the scenes from Dead Man's Chest though, perhaps they were added later. PS. I didn't play the lego PotC game actually, but I'm beginning to think that I should

Fantastic! I love this scene, might have been the only scene I loved, watching the movie when I was a kid (only wanted to see dragons). The collapsing bridge is a nice touch.

Not much to report as this point. Lot's of celebration to be attended . But my bricklink orders have been coming in and I finished the outer shell of the lower hull. There are well over 1500 pieces in there already and I still need to add some reinforcing inner structures. It is a slow and cumbersome work, building a custom hull of these proportions. But it has to be right from the start. Adjustments will not be possible later. I am satisfied with the result, an excellent hull will make a great ship! That rudder end of the keel is attached via 3 different anchorage points (the one on the old model fell off every time so this time I want to make sure it doesn't ) Furtermore... Two more crewmembers have presented themselves, they are very enthusiastic about joining the Flying Dutchman. I couldn't wait to get started on the doors to the cabin. I had this design in mind ever since I laid eyes on those fender pieces. The 2x2 half round tile allows for a compact design. I'll need 6 of these doors since I'll be paying a little more attention to the bulkheads as well this time. I've been studying all Flying Dutchman movie scenes the last couple of days, including the deleted scenes. As was to be expected, more inconsistencies surfaced. This means choices will have to be made. A rather special part in my bricklink order, were these chain links with bar, I do hope they prove to be useful for the triple cannon mechanism. Another interesting part are these arches. One of the area's I look forward to revising, are the side galleries. In a perfect world, I'd use old light and dark gray arches. However, we don't live in a perfect world, cost-wise these are simply not viable. So I'm giving it a go with sand green and dark green, hoping that they won't stand out of the ship too much. With most of the needed parts at my disposal, there's nothing stopping me to continue building this ship. I've decided to have the ship in two parts, much like the old one, for transport reasons, that will bring challenges for the rigging but I'm confident that I'll manage to figure out a good system. Still need to figure out were to place the battery boxes though . The intent is to either turn the window around or have the flex tubes in a position were they won't be seen, such as behind the upper balcony. I don't have the space for a double window though, due to a consistency error in the movies, the captain quarters' interior is longer on the inside than it is on the outside. So I'll need all the space I can get . I made a quick sketch to get my bearings on the interior,I took some liberties in deciding where some area's are, begin and/or end.

Thank you, I had that clam piece for some time now, wanted to use it on the stern initially but then found this better use for it . Thank you, I did not place any organ pipes on the port side to get a better view, yes. The new Flying Dutchman will be about the same size as the old one, I'll have to squeeze the organ pipes a bit closer together to make it fit the cabin though. I haven't decided on how I want to do the entrance of the captain quarters yet either. Since there are some consistency errors in the movies, it's not exactly a given.

Beautiful! I love the U-boat-like silhouette, excellent choice of colours as well, is that medium nougat on the bow?

That is a lovely little sloop, I like the comparison shot with he Black Pearl.

I've decided to build a Captain's Quarters vignette first. I figured it would be a shame to hide away all of this in the ship before taking good pictures of it. Since the accessibility of the interior will be limited on the finished ship (if even accessible at all), It makes sense to take out and highlight the most famous part of the interior this way. I designed a new organ, which I'm very happy with. This vignette may also serve as a benchmark on Rebrickable to see how realistic it is to expect to sell building instructions of the Flying Dutchman. I gave the anchors a makeover. They are more consistent in colour. The previous ones were hard to spot since they blended into the the rest of the ship very well. Not necessarily an improvement, more like a personal preference. Not a very urgent matter but I have been looking into the planking of the weather deck. I hadn't really paid much attention to it earlier but upon closer study of the movies I noticed the weather deck isn't as dark as I imagined. This picture gives a good impression of what it really is (but I've confirmed this colour with movie shots as well). Building a deck out of medium nougat tiles and plates is perfectly viable. All though I'm not sure I want to. In my mind the colour doesn't fit so well on the ship. Anyway, lots of time to reconsider, I haven't even started on the lower decks yet. That would be an easy way to enlarge the crew though I think the presence of "normal" people on board, would weaken its ghost ship appearance. I already ordered some transparent yellow and orange to replace the starry window panes . The vine pieces are not really the main limitation for the cannon flap mechanism, what makes the whole thing very complicated is that the sides are angled, already reducing usable cannon barrel length. I tried, instead of using a brick wall, using plates and brackets but I end up not winning any space at all . I have been a bit too ambitious with this Idea. Perhaps the scale is just too small to make this work. That, my friend, is thanks to the wonderful D-shape SNOT brick. A real game changer in the world of MOCing, if you ask me . These connect to the tiles while 1x1 clip plates connected to flex tubes behind the window, keep the thing together. this means there's the backside is the ugly side though. Well, counting from the waterline it's the exact same height as on the old model. However, since my new model includes a significant part under the waterline, which amounts to about 3 bricks, the total height from the bottom to where the hull ends and the superstructure begins, is exactly 10 bricks high (if that is what you meant).

I figured I can keep the old one intact for a bit longer, at least until I finish the lower hull. I'll have to dismantle it at some point though. Or at least strip some essential parts from it. The comparison is a little bit distorted since the old one was a waterline model while the new one has a significant part of the submerged hull built as well. Which makes it about 3 bricks higher. I considered to stick with a waterline model, they work great on layouts after all, engaging into battle with other ships... However, the new rounded underside does provide additional strength. Much needed strength if I ever were to, for instant, set it up in a mealstrom scene. Not saying I will but If I do get such crazy idea in my head, at least the ship will be able to handle it. I threw some money at this project. Partially spent on a missing crew member, Hadras (on the top right). Hadras is the only one that is still somewhat affordable, I'm glad I already have Davy Jones, Maccus and Bootstrap Bill. Below the official crew, there are some of my own and below that some other POTC figures. The Flying Dutchman will need a much bigger crew though, to man this 52-gun ship. I'm considering using these fish people as well. A bit early perhaps but I tried my hand at a new stern window for the Captain's Quarters. The sparkling transparent purple is only temporary, the intention is to replace those with transparent yellow, orange and maybe pink. Though I've got to say, I do like the starry appearance as it is now. I placed some large bricklink orders to get going, mostly dark tan parts but also some specialised Technic parts to enable the triple cannon mechanism. Which still isn't ready but I'm confident I'll get there. I did decide to have the triple cannon hatches mechanism independent of the firing mechanism, there simply is not enough space in the forecastle to make it work otherwise. I'll have to forego the broadside cannon mechanism, unless I leave out the front 2 cannons (on each side), I can't make it fit along with the triple cannon mechanism. I might explore the concept one final time when I get the triple guns working but I doubt I'll come up with something. The big one yes. But the small ones look rather derpy though I don't think they embody the haunting impression I want to display with this ship. Not all of them look angry for sure, some have a rather sad expression.

Thank you! I have been working on the Triple Cannon mouths first. A significant improvement over the previous model. Much more recognisable as a demon face. It's going to be a challenge to get the chains routed smoothly through the interior and and even bigger challenge to figure out how to operate the hatches. I've been making great progress on the triple gun mechanism already, retracting, turning 120 degrees and recoiling all operated with a single axle. Can't wait to show that off. I looked into a potential feature for the broadside cannon hatches. The design on the right makes a mechanism, to slide down the hatch within the hull, viable. I don't like the design much however. I'm considering to forego such mechanism and simply leave them open. Before these two designs I looked into alternatives for the vine pieces but they really do make the best option to somewhat create the demon faces on this scale. I think I'll fiddle a bit more with it before I finalise my decision, which I will have to do in order to continue building the lower hull. Another dilemma that has been plaguing me, is the transport solution. The old ship went in two parts, each in a box. Upper masts and sails removed. This proved to be a very efficient solution . However, for my new model, I'd like to add some more rigging, which will become rather complicated on a ship that goes in two parts. It has to go in two parts though since it wouldn't fit in my car otherwise .

Rotate them out of the way? That is an interesting suggestion, one I hadn't considered so far. I'll keep it in mind when I give the broadside flaps a try . Regarding the triple guns, I'll do something similar to the old design. I will have to make the openings (which are 4 studs wide) smaller though, to account for the forecastle width which will be smaller. 3 studs wide would be perfect. I hope I can design a proper hatch for that. Perhaps I'll have to move the triple barrels closer to each other to make them fit as well. Thank you! That's the plan, though I'll try to make the mechanism as compact as possible to keep future interior plans possible. Dark tan will be the main colour, yes. These parts were not available to me when I completed the last version and I can't wait to use them on the hull for some more texture and detailing. I will use a lot of smal light gray plates still, to break the dark tan a bit.