Merchant vessel strikes back

[Dreamweb]

Welcome all. Since I'd finally bought a digital camera, I once again took pictures of my merchant ship. Hope you can see it better now.

The gallery is here.

Hope you enjoy it.

[WesternOutlaw]

Very nice ship DW. Very nice detail (esp the back) and the sails look very good.

[Mister Phes]

Congratulations on getting a digitial camerea Mr Dreamweb, that is something I need to do in the near future. I need advice in that area badly!

Now onto the MOC. I'm looking through the images... I see the figure-head (or is that a mini-figure head :D ) and its the first thing that strikes me... So I wonder... Is it suppose to represent anyone important, like a king? Or is that just the way it turned out due the availability of pieces you had?

[Dreamweb]

It is supposed to represent someone important, probably even King Neptune or some counterpart of his. And yes, it was made due to availability of pieces. I didn't want to make a female figurehead like the one of the BSB because female faces are too precious for me and I use them for "real" women. The long white beard would fit here but unfortunately it can't be used together with the crown.

This question made me think about creating a thread concerning figureheads, I'll give it some thought and then start such thread.

Now back to the ship. As I mentioned before, it is a merchant vessel, however I still can't decide what nation it belongs to. It has a huge cargo bay with two hatches and a crane with can be used for loading goods into the cargo bay and unloading them off the ship. The sailors live of course in the forecastle, we can't see its interior but we can see two entrances to that section - a hatch and a door. Since it's not a warship, the vessel is not heavily armed - it has four cannons. Here you can see the captain (the one in the hat at the top of the picture) and his second in command - a girl. They don't have any names yet as I don't even know their nationality. The captain's quarters consist of two rooms - a bedroom and a room with a table where the captain can eat, study maps and write in his log. You can gain access to his quarters by opening the roof.

[Evil Willy]

It is a good start, and if finished I would put more work into it..What I think is that it is too square..Ralings made with 1x1 bricks and 1x6, 1x8 etc plates look much too square...Maybe just use studs? you know 1x1 rounds..add some angles etc...If you have railing pieces maybe use those. Just a sugestion! But it is a nice merchant vessle none the less. But like I said the squareness makes it sort of wierd looking.

Keep it up!

[Dreamweb]

You mean round 1x1's like in the Black Seas Barracuda? Well, it's all a matter of taste. I like the square railings as well as the round or specialised railing parts like those green curved ones seen in Armada Flagship or the straight black ones in Red Beard Runner. For this ship I wanted the railing to look just the way it does. Other options are saved for other ships of mine.

[Norro]

Great Work... you're a ship ahead of me in the all time MOC list with just this contribution ; ) so I'm envious... I think the colour balance of the ship could stand some adjusting but I really like the, far more important, shape of the vessel...

God Bless,

Nathan

[Dreamweb]

There's one thing I don't like about this model, which you can't tell from pictures. I didn't have enough original mast parts (well, I had but I had to spare them for my future projects) so the aft mast is kind of custom and because of that it's quite unstable - I just have to be careful not to shake the ship too much or it would fall. This is pretty irritating but I had to make it that way if I wanted to have some masts left for another ships.

[Mister Phes]

Does this merchant vessel have a name... Besides merchant vessel?

[Dreamweb]

As I said - first I have to determine what nation this ship belongs to and then give it a name in appropriate language.

[Mister Phes]

And how long will that take?

[Dreamweb]

That's hard to establish. I still cannot decide what other nation I should add to my own pirate world apart from Spaniards and Britons (I've finally decided to consider both bluecoats and redcoats as English, which is historically accurate). I have an idea to make another army whose soldiers will wear jackets like this one:

However I can't decide what nation they should represent (French? Dutch? someone else?). Perhaps someone can help me with an advice? It would be best to choose a nation whose real life uniforms resembled this one from the picture at least a bit (for example weren't black or green :) ). It's a pirate jacket but I think it would work well as part of a uniform.

And when I finally add and name another nation, I will decide what country should this merchant ship here belong to as I don't want any country to have too big an advantage in the number of vessels, military or not. So far the English (bluecoats and redcoats) have the biggest amount of units so I don't want this ship to be English.

[Mister Phes]

That's hard to establish. I still cannot decide what other nation I should add to my own pirate world apart from Spaniards and Britons (I've finally decided to consider both bluecoats and redcoats as English, which is historically accurate). I have an idea to make another army whose soldiers will wear jackets like this one:

However I can't decide what nation they should represent (French? Dutch? someone else?). Perhaps someone can help me with an advice? It would be best to choose a nation whose real life uniforms resembled this one from the picture at least a bit (for example weren't black or green :) ). It's a pirate jacket but I think it would work well as part of a uniform.

And when I finally add and name another nation, I will decide what country should this merchant ship here belong to as I don't want any country to have too big an advantage in the number of vessels, military or not. So far the English (bluecoats and redcoats) have the biggest amount of units so I don't want this ship to be English.

So you've finally accepted that the blue coats are British Naval forces and not French!

However I can't decide what nation they should represent (French? Dutch? someone else?). Perhaps someone can help me with an advice? It would be best to choose a nation whose real life uniforms resembled this one from the picture at least a bit (for example weren't black or green :) ). It's a pirate jacket but I think it would work well as part of a uniform.

I've seen French mini-figure MOCs before using custom made torsos. Somewhere in this forum is a couple of threads relating to this matter, but I have never seen anybody tackle the Dutch before. There's also the Portuguese but I don't know much about them,

And when I finally add and name another nation, I will decide what country should this merchant ship here belong to as I don't want any country to have too big an advantage in the number of vessels, military or not. So far the English (bluecoats and redcoats) have the biggest amount of units so I don't want this ship to be English.

Yes, this is always very good information for adding background story to MOCs!

[Dreamweb]

Yes, I've seen custom French soldiers as well but I think these blue pirate jackets would work well for alternative versions of uniforms. However as I said I don't know which country they should represent and this is due to my lack of historical knowledge. Did the Dutch or Portugese wear blue jackets? This knowledge alone would help me decide. When Lego is involved the uniforms don't have to look very historically accurate, but at least the colours should be similar - that's what I think.

[Mister Phes]

I've got some pictures of 17th century Portugese soldiers at home, but since I'm somewhere else I can exactly upload them at the moment. So you'll have to wait. But as for the damn Dutch... I don't actually know!

[Wes]

It is a good start, and if finished I would put more work into it..What I think is that it is too square..Ralings made with 1x1 bricks and 1x6, 1x8 etc plates look much too square...Maybe just use studs? you know 1x1 rounds..add some angles etc...If you have railing pieces maybe use those. Just a sugestion! But it is a nice merchant vessle none the less. But like I said the squareness makes it sort of wierd looking.

Keep it up!

I agree with the comments on the railing.

It's got a great overall shape, though.

[Mister Phes]

Got any updates in regards to nationalities for us Dreamweb?

[Dreamweb]

Yes I've just introduced the Dutch to my Lego world, they have mainly the kind of coats I showed in this thread, I think it looks all right. I'll make a thread about them and especially their ship (the biggest MOC I've ever made BTW) really soon (as soon as I take some additional photos and upload them to Brickshelf and the gallery is moderated).

About the merchant vessel - I'm still not sure, perhaps it should be French (but the way I decided for the things to be I don't have any French soldiers), or maybe British after all. What about your pictures of Portugese soldiers?

[Mister Phes]

Did you find any information on Dutch naval uniforms or flags from the 17th century?

[Kikuichimonji]

Did you find any information on Dutch naval uniforms or flags from the 17th century?

Did a quick google search on that. Results.

Heh, I'm dutch, after all

[Dreamweb]

The flags are easy to find, the uniforms are the tough part, however of the links you showed us I especially like this one - we can see some Dutch uniforms there.

Also, provided the costumes are historically accurate, you can see Dutch soldiers in one of the final scenes of the movie "The Bounty" (starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson) - just after landing Lieutenant Bligh is led by some guys wearing red uniforms, but I'm pretty sure some bluecoats can be seen in the port as well. The bluecoats can also be seen on some of the pics found by Kikuichimonji. So maybe we should assume that there were both bluecoats and redcoats among the Dutch, just like among the British, probably representing sailors and soldiers respectively.

[Trabnl]

Here are some uniforms :happy: (Dutch of course) :

(from: www.abeltasman.org/afbeeldingen.html )

[Mister Phes]

Mr Trabnl you should be commended for your efforts! This is the first time I've ever seen a photographic depiction of Dutch uniforms.

Can you tell us anything about the three men in the front? Why are the dressed differently to the men in the back row? Are the men in front nobel men or higher ranks? If higher rank do you know their rank?

[John475]

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Edited November 18, 2017 by John475

[Mister Phes]

Why do you say the sails are "too white," Mr Tole? I think we may find its just the lighting that makes them look so bright, and under different lighting conditions it probably wouldn't look like that. Of course I might be mistaken!