ZCerberus

Both ships will be two deckers and I think they will be around the same length and beam width. On the other hand the Phantom will have more guns, but Le Fourageux has the benefit of already being finished! (or so Blacky says... where are those pics?!!) Guns alone, however, do not a champion make. The sail plan, manueverability and hull strength of the ship and the sailing skills of the crews and the strategy of the captains will greatly influence a battle as well. Instead of battling, I think the two ships should go pirate hunting together.

I have seen a couple of ships with them runing through the rail, but they often times have a cutout for them. They are attached to the head rail with a small rubberband to keep them and the headrails from moving too much.

It might partially be the pictures though, because it does definatley have a rounded look. It might be a little too fast a transition, but I am not sure there is much to be done with it now. I think it will probably stay that way! Sir, you insult me! Everyone know my heart only pumps red coat blood!

Yeah... I have been working a lot to try to get them more curved. It is hard with the way they are constructed to get them to be pearl gold. I looked at a lot of headrails and none are exactly the same. Though I think it would look better if I could indeed achieve a better curve on them. I have seen bumkins go both through and over the headrails. I am mostly going through them to help keep them in place!. The whole thing is really only connected in two spots, so it is nice to have something in the middle holding them down.

Some more work. The dk blue isn't really visible until the flash in the camera amplifies it. I would, for example. want to remove the blue "stripe" on the fore above the doors now that I can see it in the pics. You can get a good look at the catheads from here. A straight-on look at the headrails And finally a shot down the broadside.

Some more good improvements. I like how it is coming along. The Admiral makes a good suggestion to add some cross beam type supports to connect the upper and lower headrails. Don't let his name fool you, he knows his ships as well as his baked delights. Fear the MIGHTY Puffin!

From the comments the builder posted on Flickr, I am guessing he/she has a limited brick supply and hence the occational odd color. I do like the sail plan on the ship and the rigging is good. It could use some work in the stern/cabin area, but once again, limited bricks might be a factor there. I think this is a sold effort with some good techniques.

True, but it brings new challenges as well! Bows, sterns, masts, yardarms... they all offer new challenges when you don’t have the nice premade pieces to work with. I think you can do it though! It is just a different style of building, and the work on the Vesta proves you have the chops to make it work!

I like it. The sails, yardarms and rigging look fantastic. It looks a lot like the Greenhair style of making a model. I do not recall what SlyOwl's looks like, though I am sure whatever he did was awesome. I do have some criticisms though. 1) The deck tiling is going the wrong way! 2) The hear rails seem to drop down to low and I don’t love the color. Maybe you didn’t have the right pieces, but yellow head rails would look much better in my opinion! Oh yeah, and welcome aboard matey! Great first ship!

Be careful bringing up cheap Chinese anything! Well my wife is going out of town next week, so I might get some time to make some progress on the ship. The bow is definatley the target. Check for updates soon!

Two thumbs up.... err wait... Lego men don't really have thumbs... hats off to you then. The ship is gorgeous! As good as can be done on the prefabbed hulls for sure.

Well they are too large to post here. I would need to shrink them to something more reasonable (800 x 600) to put the pictures in the thread and I did not have the capabilities to do so at the time I but the pics on brickshelf. In the future they will likely be posted in the thread with 800 x 600 dimensions, but you will need to click on these for now!

ohhh.... I do like the red tiles. It ties together nicely. As for the headrails... I am wondering if the rail is a little low... either way you now need another headrail that is a little higher than the first with the pair connected. That would look really sharp. This ship is looking better all the time!

Yeah... I considered it, but I would need to devote more space to the capstan raising mechnism in the front than I would like. It would be rather cool to do it that way. I know you have done some interesting work with capstans and gearing in the past (thinking of your old ship... don't recall the name- Dom De Loope?), have you ever geared the ropes separately? Hmm... well the first thing I need to do is complete the prow to see how that looks- then we'll see how it looks...

There is a capstan in the lower gun deck right now and it does raise and lower the ropes when turned. Only problem is that it runs through two gear boxes to ensure it turns properly. The gears for the gear boxes are rather large which means I have to turn the capstan A LOT to make the ropes move at all. I hooked the capstan up to a power functions motor and wound it up and it worked smoothly to move the ropes up, it just probably took a few hundred rotation to get there. Thanks. Though Pearl Gold is so hard to work with since the only pearl gold plates are jumper plates or modified plates with clips. Yeah? It may be a little steep, but I am hoping the prow will help it out. It at least looks rounded as compared to the older versions. I am not sure if there will be any major changes there, but we'll see. By the way, good to see your hair is green once again!

Yes. This is a concern. The red/black/blue color scheme was very popular with French ships in the age of Sail. In the painting of the Acheron vs. the Surprise for example, the Acheron has the same color scheme. I am hoping when I put some more dark blue on the stern and bow it will look more coherent. Plus, it looks much less out of place in person. I think the camerea makes the blue colors seem a bit more vibrant than they are in real life.

Yes, if I moved it back I would lose space, which is my hesitation... I think I can squeeze them both in if I leave the mast where it is now. Correct. Just the ol' charlie noble would show on the main deck, but the galley would be below the main deck and there is a capstan on more than just one level of the ship, I suppose I could just slide an axel through that area and not have a capstan below the main deck, but I think I would want a capstan there as well... As for the capstan, the one on the older versions of the Phantom are behind the main mast, but it is hard to get the technic axels all the way through to the front if I want it to work, plus, if you take a look at the pictures of Le Superbe, (which I am drawing some inspiration from) it is actually placed behind the foremast and before the hole. I am leaning towards leaving the mast where it is, just wanted some thoughts...

Okay, so here is some progress but there are two caveats, 1) I took the pictures with my wife's camera and she e-mailed them to me, so I didn't resize them and you will need to click on the thumbs to see the pictures. The pics are quite big, so you might not want to click on them all. 2) After looking at the progress, the one thing I think I want to change the most is moving the foremast back a little bit. Not sure about that yet though. I would like to get the galley and the capstan in between the "hole" and the foremast. I am not sure I have enough space for both, but the foremast does appear to be a bit too far forward to me... I will be building the bow out a little more with some snot techniques, so maybe the mast will be okay where it is. Any thoughts? Progress (about 1 week ago). The bow shape turned out pretty nice I think. It definatley has a more curved look than the older versions. A look at some of the blue and gold detailing and the rigging. More overview shots of the work on the bow. You can see the gears in there that raise and lower the anchors from the capstan. Like on older versions of the Phantom, the capstans do actually work. The capstan will raise all four ropes at the same time since I ship this size would have four anchors up front. Because of the various gears and gear boxes I used to get the capstan to work, it pulls up the rope really slowly. I hooked up a power functions motor just to wind the ropes in some. I can not imagine how many laps around the deck my crew would need to do to lift the anchors, but it would be hundreds! You can see the openings were I will be able to get access to parts of the lower deck. I will be building the galley and the capstans and what not on platforms that can be placed in the holes so I do not need to finish those parts while trying to get the look of the rest of the ship right.

Good updates! The curve in the middle of the ship looks much better now and I like the red up front as well. Still love the figure head and I like the black flag in the back as well. Some other thoughts if I may: Head rails (in red?)- there are several cool techniques I have seen for those that might be worth trying out and maybe some fancier railings on the deck would be an improvement- I wonder if making the black tiling that runs from the bow to the stern in the middle red might look really sharp. Lastly, I wonder if a more decorative, big arching curved brick along the stairs on the stern down to the middle would make the transition along the stairs, from the poop deck down to the midsection look better. Do you have any of this piece in red? I would try that piece where you have the smaller curved red brick and round brick by the stairs. I think that might look really sharp and smooth the transition back there. The ship is looking better with every improvement!

The color transition from the bow to the sides seems a bit strange to me, but that is my only real complaint. I like the coloration of the masts and the bowsprit looks good. The bow is a bit of a quick curve, but I know how hard it is to get the shape right with the brickbuilt hulls using the SNOT techniques on the side. The decoartions on the bow look great and I like how you incoporated some dk blue up there too. I wonder if black string is going to be too dark to see all the hard work you are putting in on rigging. Even the brown on the Phantom is a little too dark to photograph all that well. Just a thought. Good update!

Some nice improvements indeed. I would try it with some red on the bow to match the color of the stern and maybe raise the middle gunport/middle section up one plate. I think you can leave the rest, but I think it will make a positive change!

The problem with our hobby isn't it? It is some times hard to sacrafice a feature you like to correct something you don't like quite as well. It is a balancing act, and if you are aware of an issue, but even still like it, then that is all that really matters! Any thoughts on adding the Lego rigging pieces to the ship? Respect the puffin.... FEAR THE PUFFIN!

I like the anchor as well... but I was wondering if a simple black 1x1 cone would work to complete the look instead.

I like the name and the figurehead to match. I also like the black soldiers. They look very sharp. I think that even if you don't want to rig such a small ship, you should at least do with the prefab Lego rigging so there is something there! There a couple things I would change on the ship if you don't mind my comments... 1) I would make the first porthole cover black like the others. 2) I would redesign the bow. All the black plates are sort of weird. I would also consider adding some red like you used in the stern. 3) The poop deck seems a bit high to me. I am not sure there is much to be done about though!

These are old threads that were bumped- but at least they weren't bumped by their creators and they are great ships. I hope they inspire new builders to make ships that look this great!