Briggs Broadside

Thanks for the review! I have mixed feelings about this set. I'm a Castle collector, and Kingdoms is impressive as a whole enough that I want one of each set - for parts, for minifigs, and for completion. It's a sturdy set, a nice bulky, cumbersome construct. A bit haphazard to let you know it's the villains - much like the Troll Fortress. The problem lies in the color scheme - that problem people couldn't quite put their finger on. You just don't mix black and brown. It's rule # 1 of fashion, in fact ... you never mix black and brown clothes. Brown belt with black shoes or vice versa? Get the heck out! The only place black and brown looks good is on German Shepherds. Now ... ultimately, we've seen hundreds of creations and MOCs with black and brown features that are amazing. Logical areas, like a black obsidian tower with boarded up windows and trees outside. The brown is used sparingly and in logical ways, and the black is overbearing. Or vice versa ... a massive Forestmen tree hideout of brown, with a few black details like a black pitched roof. But ultimately the problem comes down to black and brown not going very well together. Then you add in that blue-grey? Hideous color scheme. The green and gold highlights on the brown color are fantastic. And everything can look good with gray for "stone". Picture for a moment, this set ... if all the black parts were brown - either the same brown, or a different color Lego brown. The whole building would look like a wooden fort. Now consider if all of the parts that are black were blue-grey. The building would look like a stone outcropping with wooden man-made parts added over the carved stone base. It's bipolar. It's not sure if it wants to be a "Black Knights" style building with imposing black stone walls, or if it wants to be a "Troll" style building with rough wooden construction on stone. Clearly being both doesn't work. Even the Green Dragons' closest relative in the Castle world - the Bull Rebels from back in 2000 - a similar marauding band of rebellious, rough, disorganized guys - managed to go primarily black, with just a little bit of brown (and red details really helped to blur the contrast). My problems with this set's design (wrong-way stairs ... kind of illogical Knights Kingdom II shape of the building ... silly ladders for doors instead of doors) don't mean much. I still want the set for the Princess, the Knights, the Horse, and parts. But I'll be throwing all the black bits into my big bin of black pieces and just using the browns and greens and greys. As for the rest of the discussion? I assumed the Green Wizard was in charge of these Green Dragon Knights - at least until somebody else comes along like a Warlord or something. For that reason they're a little similar to the Dragon Masters as well - in my mind, the private army of a wizard and not loyal to any crown.

Fantastic! The scale on this beast of a vessel is wonderful, not just because being full-size you're able to fit a full crew, full cannons, and really have an accurate and massive warship - but I think best of all because it allows you to use 1xhowever long tiles as the planks of the ship's hull, and I've always thought that would look amazing but take a ton of tiles very carefully planned and executed. So it's good to finally see that done and done well, and it looks better than I ever hoped it would. The midshipmen all look good. I think a nice alternative for people who don't sticker torsos would be the new "second" captain that came with the LEGO Pirate Building Set - this fellow: Love seeing top hats on midshipmen as well. Now I feel I must watch Master & Commander again as soon as I can. I like the use of the Diver submarine arms as the massive headrails. I'm not sure if confronted with the same problem of scaling up I'd have thought to use them. It looks very iconic, and would set this ship apart from the rest even if Le Fourageux didn't already dwarf every other ship in the ocean. I think the thing I like best is the use of the classic white LEGO doors on the white interior topdeck cabin wall. I've been using those old-style doors on every ship I build, but can't hold a candle to seeing them used on a ship that's actually large enough for a pair of them so they don't seem too modern and out of place. My only complaint? The fact that the vessel's lowest deck is nonexistent, because it would be below the water level and this needs to be flat-bottomed for display, balance and proper appearances sake ... means we won't have a fully realized bottom deck filled with 1x1 or 2x2 round gray and light gray plates and massive barrels keeping the boat weighted. But that's just wishful thinking, and is no complaint at all compared to the magnificence of this build.

I like this a bunch. As I can never resist browsing these sorts of sets and finding little bits I like, and praising them ... I'll get to that in a second. But for starters, let me just say I'm thrilled to see you tackle something a little less epic in size ("Medium-sized"?). Something a little closer to what I have for available parts. This could almost be modular, too. Anyway, hopefully seeing this will give me the kick in the pants I need to get started on my next fort. So ... five things I really enjoy here ... 1. The longshoreman. I like that particular look a lot. Really, a longshoreman can look like just about any sailor or dockworker, but I like seeing them dressed for cooler weather. An ascot, some sleeves. Anyway, no busy dock is complete without a couple of longshoremen rolling or carrying barrels up and down a ramp. 2. The windows. I was pondering 4-wide arches for windows not that long ago and I could never quite figure out how to incorporate them. Being that it's a military installation ... bars make plenty of sense. Can't be having pirates sneak into the armory from outside. Anyway, I can see from this that the trick is to have a good spread of "white wall" around the windows, at least two full studs out on either side before any more architecture elements in the walls are placed. And the key is to spread the large windows out somewhat and not have them too close to one another. 3. Cracked walls. I always like seeing new ways people incorporate damage from cannonballs striking the outer walls. I think these are some of the best I've seen, making the white exterior stucco look like it's over more traditional stone walls (which is getting to be one of your specialties). I'd like to see this done with more earthy clay colored "stones" as well ... tan, brown, and some of the myriad of other browns Lego now has. (I suppose they'd be "clay" based) 4. The Spanish tiles. I love seeing different versions of Spanish tile roofs, especially in the classic reds. Again, clay was pretty much the ultimate construction material in those days and clay, stucco and wood were the primary Caribbean building blocks. It lends some great authenticity (and looks so nice with the white walls). I'm not sure if I like the gray 1x1 shingle/spike pieces at the bottom, but they do certainly add to the "military" feeling of the place. 5. Bunch of small things here, because I said "5 things I like" and then realized there's a bunch more: New Redshirts with Indiana Jones pouches. Awesome. Lone palm tree. Awesome. Crooked steps on the dock. Awesome. Armory/store rooms, lookout posts and officers eating and studying sea charts. Awesome. Curved white walls atop the cliffs, fantastic. And lastly - the wooden "deck" style floor that continues from the dock all the way up into the fort. Very cool. Very, very cool.

This 7 point allocation is a clever way of going about it. And I'm happy that I even got votes myself, since it was my first published MOC ever and I'm suffering from a general parts shortage. Right, so ... 3 Points - Infomaniac's "Slippery Eel" The building construction is unique and realistic, with interesting angles and good color choices. The figures are assorted and have good story and action. The hanged pirates are showcased so their deaths seem gruesome. But ultimately, this scored highest with me purely based on the stone-work. Those curved walls, and how they contrast with the darker gray of the sea-wall. The 2xRoundx2 curved wall formula really knocked me out of the park in this construct. 2 Points - Evildead's "Royale Trading Post" I love the yellow/white walls and the exposed brick, the use of the classic colors. Love the tower, and especially love the Spanish tile style roof shingles. It could use water, of course ... but it reminds me a ton of the village in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, with its windmill and rocky outcropping with a tower. And since some day my hope is to actually recreate that small island (Windfall Island, for those curious) out of Lego (some day ...) it's nice to see similar little islands. I am a little critical of the landscaping, which I think, had the model had some water, there could've been great rocky outcroppings that made the lower portion seem less "squared off" and more irregular. 2 Points - Derfel Cardarn's "Renegade Redcoat Rum Runners" Gorgeous landscaping and bountiful grass and greenery clinging to the rock for a perfect natural landscape is a nice start, but that house, using the same style he impressed the heck out of me using on that church, of all 1x1 round tiles? Insane. The cobblestone effect done perfectly. The cove itself, tucked smartly between stairs/sentry and flowery outcrop, the technique in the water (the horizontal layout of the blue tiles gives it a bit of a wave vibe, subtle since it's cut off by every other vertical line between tiles, but it still holds up). Too good. I wish he'd do an Islander-theme model at some point, with the same tall rocks and dense plants he's been using to good effect for Pirates and Soldiers. I wish I had more points to give out!

I love learning these things. It's been years since I've actually been aboard the real ship out in Boston. And now I vaguely remember a tour guide or exhibit and that line by the British. So my bad. But there were ships with iron sheets bolted to the hull for extra defense against cannons. For instance, the Santa Anna, c.1522, was clad in lead armor riveted to the wooden hull.

I'm not a "great" ship builder (the largest ship I've done was two years ago, and ultimately came down to adding three central hull extensions to the Caribbean Clipper, building up the walls, adding a deck and not being satisfied with the stern). But I think, if you replaced the black jumper plates on the small ship that uses the ... what is that, the Renegade Runner hull? If instead of black jumper plates, you used the same color grey as the stud-side of the hull, it would give the little sloop the appearance of iron-sides just above water level. Now, granted, iron-sides were more common AFTER the Golden Age of Piracy, but for Napoleonic Era accuracy they'd be common enough ... IE; the U.S.S. Constitution, otherwise known as "Old Ironsides". It would add a very interesting, and accurate element to the colors you choose to balance it out. (And just out of curiosity (and since I'm on the subject of Old Ironsides) ... typically I've seen massive work done with Redshirts and Blueshirts, some Spanish, and many attempts at doing German and Scandinavian and Russian and even some Portuguese, and varying other sea-faring classic tropes ... but does anyone have any links to some American sailors and forts? I've seen some good looking U.S.S. Constitutions, but not much else!)

I have faith in the outcome, since following Captain GreenHair's blueprints gives you such a rock-solid foundation to add your own creative colors and extrapolations and details to. But I sincerely hope you have the Redshirts to crew all of these warships! And a proper Fleet Admiral calling the shots!

This is really spectacular. Swiss Family Robinson style pirate forts are great ... seeing all three pirate captains playing cards is funny, seeing the chieftain's carrot sacrifice is funny. Love the carrot juice trickling down the steps. Love the steps, and how you made some of them crooked and old/broken looking. Like all the little figureheads and faces on the temple. So many lovely little details. The water all looks very good as well, putting in good use of the light blue "shallows" technique, and a lot of nice white sea-foam and wake-trail effects. Well done!

This has my vote of confidence, for sure. Eldorado Fortress has great nostalgia for me, because I didn't have it - my cousins did. But I loved it anyway, and this is perfect. Plus, the Empty Barrel inspiration is spot on - that was my favorite MOC in recent history. This model, apart from making the Fortress actually seem more fortress-like, with thick walls and heavier doors, really looks like a military base because of how it's set up - seperate buildings along an outer wall, with a courtyard. Classic "fort" structure. I was going to list what I like (the wood construction in the stone basement, the ball and chain, and the red tile roof jump out most), but frankly it's easier to list the one thing I don't - those should be old-school Blueshirts manning the battlements! And I have one request, and that's to see a top-down, or more complete shot of the courtyard itself. There's a couple shots that show it off, but only really from the back angle, and I'd like to see what's hiding around the corners of the buildings. Oh, and thanks, too. Ever since seeing the "upgraded" Lagoon Lock-Up, I've been thinking about attempting a full-scale sprucing of Rock Island Refuge, and this has spurred me into starting immediately.

PTVII: Harbourmaster's Office - UPDATED! See first post for pictures of a cleaner, leaner presentation of the same MOC. Criticisms addressed. A few nitpicks of my own taken care of. Overall a good 75% less dusty. More picks at Flickr, all labeled as "UPDATED" for easy recognition.

Ah! I've been anxiously awaiting a nice, well-thought pros/cons list and I can address a lot of this. Pros 1&2: The rock and vegetation is the stuff that comes naturally to me from outdoor exploring, and I guess painting. The tall trees went well with a tall building, the curves were because I see trees grow sideways all the time, especially on cliffs, whether lakeside, oceanside, or where there are plenty of rocks falling. It seemed like an easy choice (especially since it was early on in the build) but I really liked how it worked, and plan on incorporating that a bit in the future, at least when I build forts that ought to have "good stone foundations". 3: I'm partial to the beach rock, too. I love standing on big rocks in lakes or rivers and looking into the water. I only wish I had some light blue plates to make the rock seem like the line where the water goes from "shallow" to "deep". But I've actually got a tweak that might make that evident as well. 4: That came purely from my old-school Lego upbringing. The shakos stay on the bluecoats, and that's that, no arguments, and so blues with more Marines won the draw as far as who patrols the harbor. I guess it's easy to rationalize, since as strong as France's Navy was, England was the king of the seas. 6: Mini-flags were actually a happy accident. I was just using the white "ladder hitch" pieces as decorative and was going to hang mini-flags as banners from between every battlement ... but I was trying variations out and two simple bits of blue in the upper corners worked. 7: Proportion is why I moved the "penthouse" to the side and stuck with an L-shaped patrol area. I started with it in the middle, and there was no walking room for shakos to march back and forth on. It's still not really that logical a place for a cannon, since this office would arguably be deep in a harbor that was already well defended, and so at this point shako marksmen would have it covered, but something about a classic Lego fort without a canon on the roof seemed wrong. 8: Easy choice, since I don't own any of the new Pirates figures yet. CONS 1, 2, and 3: Violence. When I take two or three snapshots I'll be addressing numerous things. A little less activity - a mostly clear boardwalk for whoever asked to see it unimpaired ... nobody being tossed wantonly off a three story roof. Canon (which is currently facing oceanward and I'm not sure why I had facing sideways during the shoot. That'll come with some basic cleaning of dust. 4. Can't help that one, actually. I only have the one exposed-brick window piece. If I had more, I'd have used them all and tried not to use any plain white ones (or fewer, at least). If I had any of the windows with the red brick patterns around the window holes, I'd have used only them. But since I only have the one, I wanted it closest to the doors. Looking at it now I think I'd want it on the 2nd floor, right side window, where maybe trees in the wind had worn on it, but that's a lot of disassembling, so that's the main thing I'm not changing. 5. Map on the railing. There's also the two mugs. Originally, I had captains blue and red standing on the porch, overseeing their sailors doing all the hard work and taking in afternoon tea, no doubt discussing the map. It seemed a little too cozy. I'll get to the tweaks at some point this week. They're all pretty small tasks (except maybe dusting) so it'll be a quick matter of primarily rearranging figs and snapping half a dozen pictures.

really just 'scarved' pirates, but the fun of pirates swiping ninja looks and methods works here. plus i ran out of hats and bandanas. i agree, the 2x2 white tile didn't fit in. trying to pass it off among studs stands out. i'm definitely going to try the green flame linked seaweed. as for female figs - lego in the 90's (and still) is pretty stingy with female figs. i have the woman from Rock Island Refuge, but couldn't think of where to spotlight her. thanks for the compliments, everyone.

One of the drawbacks of a "Dark Age" - they might as well be called a dust age. I've had most of my bulk bricks since I got them in the 80's. I'm currently knee-deep in sorting out my bricks by color right now, and part of that process is going to be a quick bath in some warm water and dish soap, a shake, and a quick dry. I'm pretty sure that'll cover my dust problems. The big pet peeve I have is with the dust that settles in the deepest creases of the Tricorne Hats ... might have to put a little extra work into them. This MOC definitely has the bad position of being the first construct out of a long, long Dark Age and will suffer for it a little. Since that was the case, of course I jumped into inspired building, when I should've cleaned first. Thanks for the recommendation on quick clean-ups. I've grown fond of the gold caps on the battlements, so even if I'd pipe-dreamed about white, the way the gold, and newer colors like the varying browns and dark red look with classic white walls and yellow sand really worked. My main dilemma is a need for more bricks. Lots more bricks. New bricks. Time to get a job.

I'm in with my Harbourmaster's Office! Quite unmistakeably for the "Large" category. Harbourmaster's Office

The open water was a later addition. I only had one 16x32 blue plate and a shorter stretch of water, but having the boat at the dock, wanting the rock, and the fort being as tall as it is, I really thought it needed an extra 16 studs of water to balance it. The brown window shutters were actually the second desigm element, and I lifted them (and others) from this toy soldiers fort: Napoleonic Watch Tower. I'll definitely count this as a PTVII entry, then. After all, who knows ... while the three factions are arguing over who gets to execute Redbeard, the Pirates might rescue him without a single drop of blood being spilled. If a Moderator could throw "PTVII Entry:" before "Traders, Traitors, and Jail-Breakers", I'd appreciate it.

Manteau-rouge cochon! Heh. These Redcoats must be traitors ... or else banding with the Blues to combat a larger enemy, whether it be rapacious Pirates or corrupt Traders. The Blues do have the infamous, notorious, epic Captain Redbeard prisoner ... no doubt the Reds and Traders have arrived to try to parlay for his custody so that THEY rather than their rivals can be the ones to execute him. Don't think about it too hard.

Click the image for pictures at Flickr, and they're big enough that you can zoom in on some nitty-gritty detail if you want. I actually have quite a few more than that ... but I handpicked those I thought the best so I didn't use up all my monthly Flickr space. At any rate ... things to check out: * Blueshirts trading with Redshirts? Blasphemy! But then, who is the third faction waltzing in with treasure and a cannon? That's Lord Something-or-Other and the Dutch East India Company. Old alliances die when his private navy arrives to do business. The Redshirt captain is Captain Herringbone (a stuffy old sea-dog). The Blueshirt captain is Capitaine Cheval (a dashing, roguish fellow). * It's hard to tell from the angles, but none other than Captain Redbeard himself is locked up in the brig, and so the MOC is in fact a jailbreak scene - the young pirate captain leading the attack? Redbeard Junior, Prince of Pirates. The pirate about to gore the Marine atop the office? That's Mako, the trusty (and savage) first mate. The old, bearded pirate leading the way through the storm drains? Barbary Bill - a veteran pirate with extensive knowledge of excavation and tunneling. * A Redshirt sailor filling his flintlock from a powder horn. * The Harbourmaster's a busy man, studying sea-lane maps and keeping tabs on everything that goes on his harbor. His go-to-guy is the same Blueshirt from 6245 Harbor Sentry. My very first Pirate set, albeit I've given him a scarf to distinguish him a bit. He maintains the position of Harbor Sentry. * The poor old front clerk's eyesight isn't so good ... * Dark green foliage as beach kelp. * Dusty bricks. Very, very dusty. I've got to take some soapy water to them. I'm cool with yellowed white bricks, but the accumulated dust over the last 20 years requires a little TLC. I'm going to try to keep this model built until I can get my hands on the new Imperial Flagship so I can park it offshore and take a few pictures, but odds are it'll get dismantled before then. UPDATED! In an effort to more accurately convey the PTVII rules (there is now no violence, just spying, infiltrating and bartering), and to show off some angles that were harder to see in the first set of photos (overall less figures - plenty of "fully busy" pictures already), AND after a quick dusting, I'm ready in earnest for PTVII. Oh, and numerous suggestions and disappointed "aw, how comes" are satiated - there's a female fig, an easy view of how the catwalk is constructed, the cannon is pointed in the right direction, the white 2x2 tile found proper replacements, and ... well, that's all of it. And a string of white breakers to illustrate waves and subtly indicate where the shallows deepen. Build is the same. Story is basically the same (maybe set "10 minutes earlier"). Redcoats and Traders are still trying to parlay for Redbeard's custody. Pirates are still preparing a jailbreak. It's a typical hypothetical situation - maybe with this "hiccup in time" things'll be 100% non-lethal! Cleaner bricks! A few tiny tweaks! Better visibility! No fatalities! For those who wanted a better look at the dock itself. And wondered what the map was doing on the railing. Pirates are just "tunneling" for Redbeard now, rather than stealth-killing every shako guarding the place. Notice: Female fig for variety, based on popular demand. And just spying on the sentries, rather than tossing them three stories to their painful deaths. More angles at Flickr. It's amazing what a small brush and some warm water + dish-soap can do.

Well, that's enough to get me to get a job! And get me out of my dark ages. This thing is impressive in every way. It's the best ship Lego has ever built, for starters. It's one of the best "Pirate" parts sets I've ever seen. And it's got so many minifigs it's not funny. My grand plan is actually to get two or three. I'll keep one as is, change the color scheme on another to red, and change the color scheme on the third to green (for Blueshirts and Spanish Armada). But that's a few paychecks, and I've yet to catch up on the rest of the new Pirate line. I wonder how it'd look with original Caribbean Clipper sails ...

This is going to be some fort when it's said and done. But I just had to break from lurking to say that all those great red sloped roofs on the citadel are just begging for some swashbuckling sword-fights, escapes by roguish pirates by sliding down the shingles, and hanging from the edge by nothing but a quickly thrust-into-the-eaves dagger.