ZCerberus

Hours and hours of tying off the little pieces of yarn for the rigging... interior of captain's cabin and some more fixtures of sorts on the lower deck... But that will have to wait for about another week before I can start that again!

Phes, minus 400 points for attempting to interfere with the creative process! Heh- that was the first time I give anyone a point deduction in the point race for coolness. You now only have 2,987,955.2 points left. To put that perspective, it is only 3 more points than Billy, my dead hamster, but still enough to keep you entrench in a 4 way tie for 3rd place, right behind my mom and Ghandi, tied with LaDainian Tomlinson, Shrek and a storm trooper. Yeah, Lego stopped putting jibs on when they decided people where too stupid to tie a piece of string for themselves. It was a shame the RBR never got a jib sail!

Nice Army! I love the red coats! Umm... anyhow, yeah, yeah shakos are really tough to come by, but that doesn't mean we can't try to collect them all!! Maybe they are easier to get in Europe than they are in the US! Anyhow, keep us updated on the collection. Do you have any MOCs besides the figures in the work?

This ship is lots of fun! Good job old Chap... I would like to add, I would be aware of maj.com ;-) who knows how long it will be around... Anyhow, I like it! *y* *y* *y*

I would like to help but I wouldn't be able to even try to do it until next Thursday or Friday. If you have trouble filling all the slots before then, I will do a row or two. What are we doing about the LAND index???

Fancy that, they do look awfully familiar!! I also think I am getting the hang of my digital camera now too. These pictures are coming out much better than earlier ones I tried to snap!!

Actually I believe Captain Certich has a thing for her... I guess we can agree she seems none to pleased about the proposal... Forced marriage ON! Fancy that...

Yeah, a few are awfully generic... but I got her at PaB at the Mall of America when they were doing their minifig promotion, so I didn't even have to buy the Castle set!! She is the most feminine figure I have for sure! I also forgot two of the photos I intended to include... The clash of Good and Evil!

I began to introduce these in the Phantom thread. I plan to use these as part of an evolving story that I hope to introduce in August. Here is a little introduction of the various characters and classes I plan to use in the stories. First, the "Bricktish" Heroes Admiral Burress All the heroes. Marine Captain Jack Fitzplastick, Admiral Burress and Captain Gregory Certich The Governor of Aldea de Ensenada, Governor Block and his personal Guard And now the various generic character classes in my world... Soldiers Sailors Marines And now the region's Pirate horde! La Tortuga Oscura The pirate horde The Spanish Characters. Explorer Benito Legoso Captain Juan Velsparo And then the other characters that will figure into my stories... Sienna Studwell and the Ghost Pirates

This oldy is getting dusted off as a thread for two reasons. 1) I need to replace the photos here so that they don't become nothing but dead links when Brickshelf goes off line at the end of the month 2) It was featured in this month's classic-pirates.com newsletter!! Anyone who is unfamiliar with this MOC, or those who would like to revisit past glories (and my first major MOC featured in the forums), feel free to comment! Edit: Phred, did you resize my signature picture? If you did I appreciate it, if you didn't, then I must have done something weird...

Since we are unaware of how long the whole B.S. photo thing will take (take that anyway you want!), I though I would just post some refresher images of the Phantom here... sigh...

Well I get all the accessories from Bricklink now-a-days. The black stuff is a little more pricey than the brown, and it is in fairly short supply. The back guns were used in Ninja sets back in the day, so if you can find some ninja sets for a good price, you might be able to get a few in there as well!!

Very nice indeed! The two ships look like they go well together!! The sails are indeed well done. *y* *y* Does the smaller ship have a name?

Ohh, lots of things to say. 1) I like the coloring of this MOC and the cabin does remind me a lot of the L'Orient! I think the Endeavour was actually yellow and dark blue, but black is a good substitute given how rare dark blue is! 2) it looks like you have some large cannons up on the main deck, are those the ones you got from the indexes? They look mighty powerful! 3) Your crew torsos look good, as well as the custom East Indy flag. A few recommendations if I may... 1) I might move the mizzen (rear mast) back several studs and the Main mast (middle mast) back a few as well! They seem a little cramped in there. Mast position has been an issue for many of even the experieced builders, so it is pretty common to get them a little cramped the first time out! 2) The masts also seem a little tall to me, but it is hard to work with the fixed Lego rigging sometimes and achieve a perfect height! As for the land based MOCs, they seem to get people from other areas of the forum more excited than ships, so posting one of those could bring in some of the admins and fellows from the history and castle areas as well for comments and praise!! As for help with your construction requests... I can only show you what I have tried. I will give you links instead of pictures so the MOC focus stays on your excellent ship!! If you take a look at the Arbiter II here you will see I used a Lego "Ilet" and a round stud to attach the jibs in three places. I then used a piece of string and a thin technic lift arm as a slide the could loosen or tighten the string at each point the sail is attached. Take a look at this post where I explain what I did with some better close up pictures! Link to the Ilet discussion and the Phantom uses the same idea here The benefits are that you can move the jib around and still ensure that it stays tight and doesn't slide down the string and it will also allow you to angle the jib in any direction you want since no two points will be connected in a straight line as you have done in your photos!. I think it works well! As for the capstan, Phred has a pretty complex one on the DDW (Dame du Loup). He might be able to give you a few pointers! Link to the DDW here I also have a functional... but poorly placed capstan on the Phantom. I am not sure showing you the construction of it would help as I don't think it is a very good design! Here is how it looks from the forecastle at least. Capstan

In 1994 I would have been 12. As you can see I was prime Lego age for Pirates! That is probably why I still like them best, though I have a lot of castle as well... (where are the castle MOCs? non-existent for now!) Oh, the suspense!

Welcome aboard Zeeky! Borrowing from the L'Orient is a good choice! I would suggest that you give us deeplinks so we don't have to wait for the folder to be moderated. That means you should post links to a few of the pictures themselves because deeplinks work immediately! Hope to see your creation soon!

Nice looking Torsos! Mosana sure has been helpful hasn't he! Shakos, however, will be very hard to come by on bricklink, you may have to buy some off Ebay! I recognize the face on the captain... are you sure this ship isn't going to go Pirate on us? *see this guy is a notorious Pirate!!*

Awesome! Can't wait to see version 2!! Any idea when it will be completed?

Very nice. Though the guy with the fleshy Star Wars face is kinda weird!! I like the piece as used for a shield, it works very well! Good work overall, are you planning on expanding this Vig with more figures, or is this little vig "complete"?

Poor Phes! I was just barely still young enough to feel like I could buy them and get some use out of them... barely... ;-) I think we have an understanding here. I agree with Starwars4J (and Phes too) that price should be a consideration... but I also agree with Phes (and Starwars4J) that concept, execution, structure, playability, and aesthetics should be factored in. I also personally think we should factor in the number and type of new or distinctive elements in a set for both the aesthetics and "bang for the buck" considerations. Because of this I disagree with Starwars4J that the set was overpriced in and of itself. I gave it a high 4 for small set because it had new and distinctive elements and figures and a good design, playability, etc at the second lowest price point for sets at that time. However.... I agree with Starwars4J that compared to other sets at the time, it might not have had as a good a "value". Therefore, I gave it a much lower 2.5 out of 5 because it didn't give tiki masks, canoes, drum-top tiles, or some of the other cool islander elements that could be had on sets that were very well designed like the Islander Catamaran or the King's thrown for a slightly higher or slightly lower price point. Not that I need to break it down again, but on the price issue, since that seems to be the one we are debating the most, I would say the set in and of itself is not overpriced, but comparatively speaking, other sets at the time may have been a better value, that is, better bang for the buck, depending on what type of elements you were looking for and how "cool" you thought the set was compared to some of the other ones in existence at the time like the ones I mentioned! I hope we can hear from some people who have not had a chance to discuss this set as well... Sometimes I fear long debates scare off newbies (though it attracts some long time members who have opinions on the debates and know the people in the discussion) due to all the quotations and counter-points from long time members, I think to a certain degree it might suggest we are criticizing each other and not discussing points of the sets. I know this in an AFOL community so we should be mature and take these as actual set debates, and that all the discussion is actually very good and enlightening generally, but I still hope that people who have not voted are not scared off by thinking they might get the third degree if we disagree with their opinion! As a side note, I see that Phes already posted this on Classic-Pirates, is it going to be the set in the July Newsletter?

I don't know that the price is "too high" per se... I guess I would say the problem is there are not enough distinctive elements for your taste at $7.25 USD. I would imagine that the set fits the price point almost perfectly given the size of the elements and the number of figures. In that sense, I think what you are trying to say is that if the set lacks distinctive elements, you would rate it higher if you could get a bargain on it, or conversely, if it lacks special elements, it should be priced lower than a formula based on the number and size of the elements and the number of figures... I think we are jaded by time... a lot of the elements in this set were fairly new at the time. The islander figure as a whole, the crocodile, the cattle horns, the Islander figure's headpiece, his shield and even the fire elements were all pretty new back then as I think a lot of those elements came out around 1993 (Dragon Masters for Fire and the top jaw piece that went on the crocs and dragons). So there were plenty of new and distinctive elements in this set at the time. I am sure I owned this set. I can't say I have any great recollection as it being the greatest set ever or anything, or having particularly found memories of it, but it did give me five spears, a cutlass, a musket, a crocodile, the cool fire element and some cattle horns (which fit nicely in the Dragon Master helmets) an islander figure, with the cool new oval shields (Also came out in Dragon Masters for the first time) and a pirate figure. All in all, not a bad list of nice parts for $7.25! I guess I do agree that if something has no distinctive elements and therefore has nothing special compared to other sets which might sell at a lower price point, it should perhaps be rated a little lower, but on balance, there were plenty of new elements (probably the cheapest set to get a crocodile and 2 figures) in the set at the time to justify buying it at the retail price mentioned. Because there were quite a few new elements in this set and it was fairly priced, I think I will give it a 4/5. At the time there were a lot of cool sets though, like the Islander Catamaran and the King's thrown, which had better figures over all. I will say it was only about a 2.5/5 compared to the other islander sets which also had canoes and tiki masks!

Nice work. Does the LDD Program give you the inventory of the pieces you are using? If it does, you could always check Bricklink for prices. Another good idea might be to remove ALL of the figures and see how the price changes. The figs aren't overly pirate-y anyway. Then, once again, check prices for figures on Bricklink. Anyhow, the ship looks nice, even in LDD! I hope to see more good work from you in the future!

Continuing with my "Classes" Series, here are my good guy Heroes... Starting from the left: Jack Fitzplastick, Captain of the Marines-- Admiral Benjamin Burress, Admiral of the fleet and Captain of the Phantom-- Captain Gregory Certich, Captain of the Sienna. The Evil La Tortuga Oscura And a Clash between Good and Evil!

I looked up the head for Wild Hunters this afternoon since I thought your figure head looked a lot like that one. When I went to look at it though I realized you had made several changes including the whiskers, the mane and the bridge of the snout. I think all of those changes do make the head more "menacing" as you had wished!

Very nice. This is an excellent castle/fantasy type ship. Good back end and very nice figurehead. The one thing I might recommend changing though is raising the height of the main mast a bit so the sail up there isn't so cramped for space! Obviously making the base of the whole mast taller won't help, so here is a technique for making the TOP of the mast taller! Try that out if you want, though there is no definite need to change anything, as overall this is an excellent MOC!