Dreamweb

I think it's just a matter of taste - IMO they fit together quite nicely. The horizontal red stripes of the upper sails and the vertical red stripes of the lower sails make a nice composition... And BTW these aren't Imperial Flaghip's sails, they are custom sails made to look like them. In fact these sails weren't a problem to me and are one of the things I didn't change since the 2004 version, so I'm quite surprised with your reaction. But I'm also grateful to you for it and glad you pointed it out - after all that's one of the reasons why we show our MOCs - so that people can tell what they think and sometimes point out things the creator doesn't even notice. From my point of view the sails were OK, however now that you've both mentioned it I've got a more objective view and I know I might try to change something... Actually I already have - I've come up with quite an original solution, I'll soon take new pictures... Thanks!

They must have just added it... I checked about 5 hours ago and it still wasn't there :-)

I've noticed a funny trend. Back in the good old times of classic Castle, Pirates etc. good sets were part of everyday's life, they were in the shops, they were nothing "special" in a sense of availability. Today a set better than average, like this one, is often an exclusive limited issue, sold only online, not everywhere (AFAIK there are a lot of countries to which S@H doesn't deliver stuff, mine included) and so on.

The soldiers are the pirates' enemies - blue soldiers, red soldiers, and the Imperial Armada which was introduced afterwards. Somehow I don't feel like saying that they are "the good guys" - after all nobody said all those soldier factions are each other's friends - they may be all at war and in this case it would be hard to tell which of them are the good guys. But pirates are definitely the bad guys. Not all sailors in striped shirts are pirates! He may just be a normal sailor, a civilian that is. Or in some cases Lego added pirates (identified by Jolly Roger emblems) to Imperial sets to increase their playability I guess. You can imagine they are attacking the soldiers, or sneaking around, or are imprisoned by the soldiers - it's all up to you. All factions during their travels visit many islands and meet their natives. What are their relationships - it's up to you once again. The pirates can steal from them or make an alliance with them to fight the soldiers, the soldiers can be the islanders' friends or may want to catch them as slaves (which would be very bad behaviour but they did that back in the old days) - giving the islanders the reason to be allied with pirates... There are really no strict rules.

I think it all depends on what you are building - recently I tried to mix dark gray with dark bley while building rocks and they didn't fit together. Bley resembles metal to me and I think in many other cases it will work with old gray.

My thought exactly - at first glance it looked like a microscale landscape to me. Looks pretty nice, would be even OK as an official set (Western had similar sets I think).

I've seen examples of sails built of bricks which looked good, however not this time. I don't like the overall shape of the ship either - it looks a bit too simple. What I do like are the inner areas of the ship which can be accessed - a feature many good-looking ships lack. Ships with low castles are of course as accurate as those with high castles, however I prefer high castles all the way. This ship looks like a cigar. However if you look at this guy's folder you will see a promising work in progress - the castle of another ship. This one is much better and I'm looking forward to seeing it finished.

53d I wish to show you the new version of a MOC I once posted here. This is the latest version of my HMS Progress. Warning: Version with old sails, posted in this thread as the first one, before posting the above version, is here: I built the 1st version around October 2004. It was my first MOC I thought deserved being shown publicly and in fact was my best MOC for a long time, until De Rode Draak I think. To be honest I built a lot of crap after HMS Progress and still can't believe how this could have happened - I mean, I still like this ship, but have destroyed many other ships built later. However with time I began to notice some flaws and made certain modifications to the vessel. The 2nd version was ready in June 2005 - I added a sail at the stern and changed a few bricks here and there, especially on the bridge. This was the version I posted here at Eurobricks, however I didn't have a digital camera back then so the pictures I took were rather poor. The old thread is here, however those pictures are no longer public. The 3rd version was completed last week - and the modifications were quite extensive. I rebuilt parts of the bow and, most important, rebuilt the whole sterncastle from scratch. I did it because those areas were too colourful and looked chaotic. And, last but not least, I changed the crew from redcoats to bluecoats, as I now consider both of them British and the bluecoats are my sailors, while the redcoats are ground troops. Added on June 1, 2006: Version 3.1 (the current one) uses different sails - I changed them shortly after posting version 3.0 on Eurobricks, inspired by other users' comments. Apart from that it's the same as 3.0. Despite all those modifications there are still parts of the ship which haven't been changed since version 1. Links: Brickshelf folder MOCpages page

The name Black Widow has been ringing a bell since I first saw it. I've done some research and I've found what I've been looking for: The Black Widower I first saw this one a year or so ago and now I've experienced a sort of d

Now that this guy has presented various stages of construction, I've noticed this set has a really nice baseplate to which I didn't pay much attention before.

You mean red pelvis part, don't you? :-) As for the blue legs - if you don't like them, think about KK2 skittle colours, that helps... :-)

Post your older stuff Mr. BigDaddy! Since it hasn't been posted here yet it will be like a premiere to most of us anyway!

Ah, yes... I wanted to use this design myself some time ago, however I have too few of those 75 deg. inverted slopes to put them in a row like that, especially on a long ship.

The masts of the ship are much too short and the sails are too small. It would be nice if the wall with cannons on its top were, say, 2 studs wider, so that the cannons have more room to be pulled backwards, loaded with cannonballs and pushed back forwards. Apart from that it's a great MOC, I like the way you used 75 deg. gray slopes and arches as parts of the wall - they make a nice structure together. The small tower looks very good but I can't see any ladders or stairs leading to its top - perhaps you should add some? And I like the rocky cliff very much! Believe me, as a geologist I can tell a good-looking cliff from a bad one! And this one looks pretty authentic. Those BURPs aren't such bad parts after all, they're quite useful for building big rock structures.

So he should show them here as well, the more people see your MOC the better.

Mind you that even one official Lego pirate ship had red hull. It was of course the Red Beard Runner. So if Lego could do it - anyone can :-) And there was also this 4+ ship but that's a different story :-) So now it should be clear for everyone why the Red Beard Runner had so many holes in her sails :-)

I'd be really happy to contribute by making some photo reviews of the Pirate sets I own, unfortunately almost all of them are disassembled and their parts are or will be used in MOCs. The only exception is the BSB but it's a bit modified anyway. I can still write reviews, but no photos unfortunately.

The way the rudder is controlled here doesn't require a wheel, mister Evil Willy. I agree that you would have to add some bricks to those masts if you wanted to attach sails - the way it is now they won't hold very well.

I like it, too bad it's so short right now, so not much can be said, really looking forward to seeing the rest though! As I mentioned in other thread, I've been planning on making a Lego comic book myself, I've already started taking the pictures some time ago but it's gonna be long before it's ready for publishing.

Now I have two subforums to browse instead of one... That's fine with me. I really don't think it's better or worse - I'm sure I'll be posting in both ex-Castle and Pirates subforums anyway.

Well done! I think the original Ninja theme had one of the greatest minifigs ever made but the buildings weren't that good. If only they had made sets like this MOC the line would have been way better!

Well, that's one crappy MOC (actually it's great, but you know what I mean)... :-) Does choosing this MOC to celebrate the "new" forum mean you don't like the new order of things?

Aye, I have, they look great, but what I mean is it's more inventive to make completely new custom torsos than just replicas of original torsos, and it results in greater diversity for your minifigs and makes them more unique!

You have to browse Brickshelf more often, man... You can find MANY better ships there... Well, you've already shown us one MOC, albeit a small one, but it was a good "warm-up", don't stop now!

Through lots of hard work... :-)