This thread might be a little weird, forgive me :)

I am a little bit new to lego and was wondering about brick colors in historic/pirate context. My question is which brick colors can actually be used, where are the boundaries?

For example I was thinking about buying the lego creator beach hut (31035), mainly because of the roof tiles, on the other hand its got a lot of yellow bricks which might be a little bit off.

What are your opinions?

Which non standard colors can be used for what?

Yellow is perfect (y) If I had more yellow and white bricks, I would build a cool house that I started designing. So yellow is great. :)

Yellow is perfect (y) If I had more yellow and white bricks, I would build a cool house that I started designing. So yellow is great. :)

For real?

Yellow?

Like yellow medieval houses? - I mean I am no expert but it feels kinda weird - but maybe I am mistaken...

You can find some inspiration with digging in this forum for some very nice MOCs, or you can look into some official sets. Especially the oldest wave is generally considered as one of the finest. You can view them here : http://brickset.com/sets/theme-Pirates

For real?

Yellow?

Like yellow medieval houses? - I mean I am no expert but it feels kinda weird - but maybe I am mistaken...

Medieval times were very colourfull so it would not surprise me if there were yellow houses back then :)

IMO Lego Pirates is set in or around the 18th Century Caribbean era. If you look at the housing, bright colours such as yellow were built back then

Use what colors you're comfortable with using. It is your creation and imagination after all. If you're building something that exists in real life, then copy their colors to stay prototype true as we say in model railroading. Alternatively, change it up to your personal tastes. Your limit is the colors LEGO offers.

Use what colors you're comfortable with using. It is your creation and imagination after all. If you're building something that exists in real life, then copy their colors to stay prototype true as we say in model railroading. Alternatively, change it up to your personal tastes. Your limit is the colors LEGO offers.

True, but still I want to create things as close to 'reality' as possible. And as I just started with lego recently I want to buy sets and pieces with a certain goal in mind. Right now there is this beach hut - I recently bought set 31026 - bike shop and cafe to get some bricks and pieces and try building something medieval out of it, the brick colors seemed suitable. The roof tiles of the beach hut (earth blue) would complement the roof tiles of that set (which had only a couple). Now the beach comes with a new brick color for me (yellow). So I wanted to check how much this purchase would benefit me in the long run. But thanks to you and the guys from the historic board I am sure that this one will be a good purchase.

Yellow is realistic. Check out this topic .

Hope that helps.

My proposals are (bricklink colors):

white,

all shades of gray,

dark red,

all shades of brown,

tan and dark tan,

medium dark flash,

dark orange,

maybe not yellow, but light yellow definitely,

olive green, dark green, sand green,

dark blue, sand blue

black

My proposals are (bricklink colors):

white,

all shades of gray,

dark red,

all shades of brown,

tan and dark tan,

medium dark flash,

dark orange,

maybe not yellow, but light yellow definitely,

olive green, dark green, sand green,

dark blue, sand blue

black

Maybe not yellow?

I see, yellow is a controversial color...

The thing is that people maybe tend to use yellow color for buildings because Lego used it in many pirates sets back in that days.The reason is that Lego didn't have so many different ("natural") colors like today. Yellow is too garish for my taste and I avoid using it in my historic creations.

The thing is that people maybe tend to use yellow color for buildings because Lego used it in many pirates sets back in that days.The reason is that Lego didn't have so many different ("natural") colors like today. Yellow is too garish for my taste and I avoid using it in my historic creations.

You could be right on this one! - I think I will give this set a pass. Will probably wait until august to get the new creator house which has sand bricks (always good I guess) or maybe try to get the old seaside house which has a lot of medium blue (which is actually very nice IMHO).

As a matter of fact I wasnt sure about that yellow color from the beginning - if I bought this set I would feel compelled to build something with it lateron and maybe I wouldnt like that - guess there are more suitable colors out there...

Thanks a lot Dzoni!!!

Edited May 2, 20159 yr by Endriu

It's a really vague question, and no one has been wrong or inappropriate with advice yet, but I don't know if you're getting the information you actually want. You see it depends on a host if factors like, who, when, where and what. Through out the 18th and 19th centuries yellow was a popular color for ships, especially British, for instance. Continentally speaking, though buildings were often painted colors to differentiate them from each other, really bold color didn't come into vogue till about mid 19th century. Once you started spreading out around the world things were very different though, especially in the West Indies. To my observation, it would seem, the more exotic the local the more vivid the color pallet. Yellow is most certainly a useful color in many Pirate related instances.

I red recently that 17th-18th houses or "habitations" in Martinique and Guadeloupe was painted in white or yellow ocher with timbered structure. If you're interested in, I can send you the link (sorry, it's in french, but with pictures). It's a scientific publication.

I red recently that 17th-18th houses or "habitations" in Martinique and Guadeloupe was painted in white or yellow ocher with timbered structure. If you're interested in, I can send you the link (sorry, it's in french, but with pictures). It's a scientific publication.

Thanks for the info! - I have finally come to the conclusion that I dont really like that bright yellow color (the one thats used for the beach hut). In the end it was a good decision not to buy it, invested the money into the treasure island set - for the minifigs basically (and some parts). I made a decision only to buy sets that will be most useful in the long run for castle/pirates mocs/dioramas... time is probably not of the essence (as it will take a long time to get so experienced as to post something here, though).

Now I have another color problem! :)

I bought myself some green baseplates - in regard to grassy surfaces dark green seems to be the best IMHO, in fact its the only option if I want to create some uneven grassy terrain as I dont have any of those bright green plates anyway. So dark green is my color of choise for grass.

Now what about that bright yellow-green? What do you think? Can it be useful for something? Would it pass for a grass area? I mean its kinda yellowish...

... I mean like here for example:

http://www.google.pl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fotothing.com/photos/1bd/1bdaa883e5c988fd0ce110c7baada0f3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fotothing.com/Olympe1961/photo/1bdaa883e5c988fd0ce110c7baada0f3/&h=339&w=550&tbnid=kR0ZSaujlmG0lM:&zoom=1&docid=HK0uiIOiKtGaVM&ei=2wBRVcujOsK7ygPYhYCgCw&tbm=isch&ved=0CDEQMygOMA4