Dreamweb

Is this the one shot against my background? Anyway, good job and congratulations about the frontpage!

You're not the only one. 😁 I complained about this ship many times in here. It was a big ship, the largest back then. I also liked the sails. And the crew of course. But the rest is rather disappointing. The rotating cannons are just silly. And they make the deck look empty. The BSB had so many more cool details in comparison.

The best pirate ship? 7075 obviously, it has the best hull. Wait, it's not even on the list? Seriously, the Barracuda Bay ship is the best-looking one and she got my vote. But it does require some conversion, especially inside, from the shipwreck-turned-into-a-house, to an actual seaworthy vessel with guns and everything.

Does the system still work? It's kind of funny how I am still number six after over a decade of not being a blogger.

This is all a very interesting insight, and it kind of confirms what I have been claiming for a long time: LEGO is trying too much to make most of their ships resemble their first one. Anyway, your topic seems like perfect timing to me, as I'm currently working on a ship which I'm trying to make a bit more realistic compared to my previous MOCs, and the website which you have mentioned is a great source of useful images (actually I think I might have stumbled across that site a few times already).

My ship (all of my ships actually ) just got a new home. The image is just a thumbnail for the full film which shows both display cases. Since Instagram embedding doesn't seem to work anymore on Eurobricks, just click this link to see the film.

Exactly. In order to have top quality pictures of a real build, you need a real photographic studio and whatnot. When you work digitally, you just make some cool renders and you're fine, and it's easy to add custom backgrounds and other fancy effects. Also, there are things like dust, cracks, etc. - this happens to real bricks, even if you're super careful about them. This especially concerns the old ones, and there are a lot of useful bricks which can only be found in vintage Pirate sets, and not in new ones. And don't even get me started on old sails and what could happen to them. Digital models on the other hand will always look brand new, perfect, almost sterile. That's another reason why those two kinds should never compete against each other.

What can be done to make future contests better? I know I'm in the minority here, but my answer is: never mix digital entries and physical builds in the same category. This just isn't fair and will never be. I am aware that someone in one of the entry threads stated something like: "Allowing digital entries lets the people who cannot afford real bricks participate in contests too". This is obviously true, but it works both ways: It also forces the people who cannot/do not use digital building software to spend more money and/or time to make their real builds, in order to compete with those who make their entries basically without never even having to move away from their comfortable chair in front of the computer. I don't see how this can be fair either. I know there are many people who build both digitally and physically. I personally know a few who start digitally, and then when they know the necessary pieces, they stand up from their computer and build the real thing. I have much respect for them. But I also know there are quite a lot of 'old school' AFOLS (myself included) who never learned how to 'build' digitally and probably never will, because they are too busy with, you know, that thing called building with bricks. In my opinion, the best and really the only fair way to go is to make separate categories for digital and real entries. That way everyone would be satisfied, and there would be no need to engage in unfair competition. I also remember that Eurobricks did organise some contests with exactly these rules in the past.

And here's my new ship and some of my older ships at another exhibition last weekend: And a short film from the exhibition! Also, I'll be uploading more pictures from the event to my Instagram account soon.

Well, here's my entry (bottom of the picture) along with some of my other ships at the recent exhibition, photo taken by Jerac: And another exhibition begins this weekend!

I hope the votes of members who have just registered will not be counted? Also, why is this even allowed to be an entry, since it is stated clearly that it was built last year?

Below are links to those two events: EVENT 1 EVENT 2 The first one will be a small local exhibition, while the second one looks like it may turn into quite a big show. Then I'll also be attending the exhibition in Olomouc, Czechia, which is an absolute killer (over 20 thousand visitors last year), but that won't be until November.

My votes go to: MAIN: Imperial Trading Outpost by aex383 6254+6258 "Remastered" - Atolls by Amedeo Base impériale by omby54 SMALL: King Kahuka's Outrigger Boat by Kritch Pirate's Dock by ElephantKnight Buried Treasure 6235 - Remake by Omby54

I'll be participating in two LEGO exhibitions in Poland: in 2 and in 3 weeks; the first one will be well before the voting deadline, and the second one will take place partially before the deadline. My entry in the contest will be among the MOCs which I'll be presenting during those events. Therefore, I have a question for @Mister Phes: will it violate the rules if I post pictures of the ship from those exhibitions while voting is still on? Technically, those would be new pictures, but the entry itself will NOT be modified.

I think grouping them by type would also be a good idea. E.g. islands, ships, forts, etc. This time without categorising them on the basis of whether they are remakes or new ideas. Just a different perspective.

Having given it much thought, I decided to withdraw from further participation in the Creative Critic contest. It just doesn't sit right with me to comment on other entries, which has to include looking for and pointing out possible drawbacks, in a situation where I have submitted an entry of my own. Were I not a participant in the building category, I would have a different approach to this task and feel more comfortably about it. So I wish the best of luck to other critics who are still providing their valuable feedback.

I'm confused, does the voting start right away or on August 28th like it says it does? If the latter is true, perhaps it would be good to lock the voting topic for now.

A wise compromise! Edited: @Mister Phes I noticed that this subject still states that there are only 3 votes per category. This might be confusing to some users.

3 - 1 point 8 - 1 point 12 - 1 point

3 - 1 point 13 - 2 points

18 - 1 point 20 - 2 points

The water was very calm that morning, so I was lucky. I was shooting at roughly 6 am on a beach which is very crowded during the day. At such an early hour, there were very few people, but still two guys were interested and asked me what I was doing. I returned to the same beach later that day (without the ship ) and not only were the crowds insane, but the waves were much higher, and even without all those people around, I would not risk taking photos in such weather. I couldn't make another trip to take similar pictures of the second version (I live about 350 km from the shore), but at least the bricks didn't get wet and covered in sand this time. Anyway, thanks for your comments, I see your point, I do, but I don't think I'll be tinkering with the ship anymore... The captain likes his trophies, and the cups are not for drinking, but for display. Besides, today I am going on another trip, and this time in an opposite direction (away from the sea). But I will stay in touch all the time!

I am very aware of this, as I used to be a member of several message boards which died because of it (even a moderator on one of them). Eurobricks is doing quite well given the circumstances. Anyway, the sheer number of entries and the registered creative critics makes me think there will be plenty of votes. I'm pretty sure almost everyone who posted an entry will want to vote, even if they cannot vote for self. And I'm also sure the registered critics will want to vote too. As for the casual lurkers, you may be right that the necessity to vote for a total of 10 entries (5+5) might be discouraging for them, but on the other hand, it would reduce the problem of votes which are not very thought over and accidental, e.g. like when someone has to choose one entry, takes a brief look at all the pictures and picks one based on just the general impression, without really analysing it. What I am sure of though is that providing the ability to vote for 3 to 5 entries would not really be fair. Let's pick one number of votes to be followed by everyone! Well, in this case I can imagine making an exception to the above rule, e.g. 5 votes for those who submitted their entries, and to the registered critics, 3 votes to everyone else. But it raises new problems, like what to do with those who have registered as critics but provided little to no feedback, or those who have not registered but have presented some opinions about the entries nonetheless.

I'm sure a lot of people will vote anyway. Wasn't it always so in every contest in the past?

It wasn't so hard really to make those changes. I'm glad I made it in time though, as tomorrow I'll be leaving home for a few days and will not be back until after the submission deadline. Thanks! I'm not sure about adding more colours as I just removed some to make it less messy. I'm glad you like the figurehead, it turned out... weird, but I guess I like it too. Yes, I was trying to be true to that. Perhaps even too much initially (in the first version of the ship anyway). Now it has more or less the same proportions as the Caribbean Clipper, and I always liked that set. I guess back then LEGO also concluded that wide hulls with one middle section looked 'short', so they introduced the narrow hulls soon after. Maybe I'm just used to the proportions of the CC, because the length to width ratio doesn't bother me. I asked him about it and he said he didn't care.