Hello all, 

I've decided to branch off into a new theme and I chose pirates and colonial troops (I was inspired mainly by Ayrlego's flickr page).I just need some help, I have absolutely no clue where to start and I don't want to start aimlessly dropping tons of money on bricklink to build a collection only to realize I've brought the wrong stuff or worse yet lose interest. Where should I begin, what should I look for, and what are some other places to get inspiration for mocs such as islands and ships. 

Thank you,

Comrade

I’m pretty new to Pirates myself. Long time Lego builder, but am currently building my first Pirate set, the so far very impressive Pirates of Barracuda Bay. 

This year seems like it’s seeing a minor renaissance of Pirates with the aforementioned PoBB.  We also got the Creator 3-in-1 Pirate Ship.  Those both seem like great starting points.  That would give you two pirate ships.

I’ve also picked up loose pirate minifigs from bricklink and have bricklinked multiple cannon sets to add to these two ships.

As for what old sets to get, I can’t help you there but I look forward to reading any answers. I’d love an affordable Imperial ship.

12 hours ago, Comrade_funny said:

I've decided to branch off into a new theme and I chose pirates and colonial troops (I was inspired mainly by Ayrlego's flickr page)

You have made an excellent choice!

12 hours ago, Comrade_funny said:

I just need some help, I have absolutely no clue where to start and I don't want to start aimlessly dropping tons of money on bricklink to build a collection only to realize I've brought the wrong stuff or worse yet lose interest. Where should I begin, what should I look for, and

So let's clarify that... are you aiming to;

• collect sets
• build armies
• build MOCs
• all of the above

12 hours ago, Comrade_funny said:

What are some other places to get inspiration for mocs such as islands and ships.

On Eurobricks you'll find creations in the Pirate MOC Forum and Bretheren of the Brick Seas forums.

Classic Pirates also has a presence on Facebook and Instagram.

1 hour ago, Mister Phes said:

You have made an excellent choice!

So let's clarify that... are you aiming to;

• collect sets
• build armies
• build MOCs
• all of the above

 

I think I would most want to build mocs the most while also building a little bit of an army. I'm not opposed to sets, but I get more joy being able to create something from scratch with little to no instructions. I guess I just need to get inspiration and experiment.

Thank you 

Edited November 17, 20204 yr by Comrade_funny

Hey @Comrade_funny - Welcome to Eurobricks and pirates! MOCs are where it's at - you get to use your imagination

I would suggest buying some bulk color sorted LEGOs from ebay - can be cheaper than Bricklink and you get a mixture of parts that can help with your imagination during MOC builds. Lots of pirate theme MOCs are white, tan, dark tan, reddish brown, gray, yellow heavy.

A fun thing with @Ayrlego's MOC style is you don't even need baseplates  You just build the base with bricks, plates, and SNOT (studs not on top).

For minifigs, it can often be much cheaper to just pick up their torsos on Bricklink and supplement with legs/arms/heads from other minifigs. A classic torso might be $0.80 while the full minifig would be $4. Cheaper still would be to just print your own torso stickers on your home printer.

Edited November 17, 20204 yr by evancelt

Hi Comrade_funny. I'm glad to hear my Flickr inspired you to give pirates a try!

I think collection wise, where to start really depends on what direction you want to go in. I mainly build land based scenes, although I actually started in this forum when I found the tutorial Build a Frigate with Captain Green Hair. I'd always wanted a more realistic ship for my imperials so that got me started... BoBS launched shortly after that and I haven't stopped building in this genre since!

With regards to collection, the good news is that a lot of pieces for land based pirate builds are relevant for any genre and so you will get good use out of them. When I started my collection was mostly classic parts from my childhood in the 80's and 90's, so I had to build the newer colours up from scratch. I'd probably divide parts up into two categories; landscape/vegetation and building. Below are some of the basic parts I find the most useful. 

Landscape/vegetation

I find that dark tan and olive are probably my most utilised landscape colours. I use lots of plates, usually in the smaller sizes. I try and get bulk 1x2 plates in most colours and these can be used to build up landscapes as well as in some buildings. Vegetation pieces can be more expensive; however, my general rule is to cram as many as you can into a build. For the style of bases I like to make you'll need a lot of 1x1 modified bricks with the stud on the side to make the SNOT borders.

Buildings

For stone work I use a lot of 1x2 modified masonry bricks, 1x1, 1x2, 1x3 plates, headlight bricks and 1x2 modified plate with door rail. Mostly in bley, but you'll also want highlights in dark bley or dark tan. To achieve the 'classic' stucco look I use similar techniques but using white bricks, including all the old discolored and yellowed bricks I can get my hands on. Highlights for these builds can be tan, dark tan, dark orange, medium dark flesh/nougat etc. For the tudor sections, in the 'wooden' frame work I use a lot of reddish brown 1x1 bricks, plates and modified bricks with the stud on the side. I also have a lot of reddish brown tiles of all sizes. The panels are usually a mixture of tan, dark tan or sometimes white plates; including 1x1 round plates. Roof techniques depend on the style I'm building. I have stacks of 1x1 dark red, dark orange and reddish brown round bricks for the terracotta style. Other techniques use plates, mostly either black or dark tan/medium dark flesh. Hinge plates are useful for connecting the plates that form the base of these roofs to the rest of the building. 

Anyway, hopefully some of the above helps. Good luck and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Hey everyone, thanks for the advice! This sure is a welcoming community. I now have more of a sense in the direction that I'll go and I'll definitely be around the forums. Hopefully you'll see the progress that I make.  

Thanks again, 

Comrade.

12 hours ago, Comrade_funny said:

I guess I just need to get inspiration and experiment.

Well, there is plenty of inspiration in our forums and social media

On 11/17/2020 at 2:23 PM, Ayrlego said:

Landscape/vegetation

I find that dark tan and olive are probably my most utilised landscape colours. I use lots of plates, usually in the smaller sizes. I try and get bulk 1x2 plates in most colours and these can be used to build up landscapes as well as in some buildings. Vegetation pieces can be more expensive; however, my general rule is to cram as many as you can into a build. For the style of bases I like to make you'll need a lot of 1x1 modified bricks with the stud on the side to make the SNOT borders.

Buildings

For stone work I use a lot of 1x2 modified masonry bricks, 1x1, 1x2, 1x3 plates, headlight bricks and 1x2 modified plate with door rail. Mostly in bley, but you'll also want highlights in dark bley or dark tan. To achieve the 'classic' stucco look I use similar techniques but using white bricks, including all the old discolored and yellowed bricks I can get my hands on. Highlights for these builds can be tan, dark tan, dark orange, medium dark flesh/nougat etc. For the tudor sections, in the 'wooden' frame work I use a lot of reddish brown 1x1 bricks, plates and modified bricks with the stud on the side. I also have a lot of reddish brown tiles of all sizes. The panels are usually a mixture of tan, dark tan or sometimes white plates; including 1x1 round plates. Roof techniques depend on the style I'm building. I have stacks of 1x1 dark red, dark orange and reddish brown round bricks for the terracotta style. Other techniques use plates, mostly either black or dark tan/medium dark flesh. Hinge plates are useful for connecting the plates that form the base of these roofs to the rest of the building. 

Anyway, hopefully some of the above helps. Good luck and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Thanks for sharing this @Ayrlego! I recently stocked up on 1x2 plates in dark tan, tan, dark orange, olive green, sand green, medium nougat, light/dark bley, white, brown, etc. While building this way (using lots of little plates vs. bigger ones) means deconstructing a MOC takes much longer, it is much easier to build color and landscape variation during the build.

Oh, ah Welcome!

On 11/17/2020 at 2:28 PM, Comrade_funny said:

I think I would most want to build mocs the most while also building a little bit of an army. I'm not opposed to sets, but I get more joy being able to create something from scratch with little to no instructions. I guess I just need to get inspiration and experiment.

Thank you 

Hi Comrade,

Like you, I am new to the Pirate theme (that launched looong after my junior brick building years), and a wanted to start with that. I learned a valuable lesson last year when I made a similar start in Lego Classic Space; just buying randomly bricks that seemed to fit in at Bricklink was problematic. Many bricks work well, but mostly in combination with certain other bricks that are less clearly linked to a theme. Lego designs usually have a 'certain way of building' behind it, and until I got a good idea about that, I ended up with a lot of 'how do I do that?' and slow builds due to ordering missing stuff again and again.

So this time I decided to approach thins differently; I started with buying 2 big sets (the 3in1 31109 Pirates set, and the 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay set).

Entr'acte: work station finally ready for action... by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

The basic idea was to get a whole bunch of bricks that work together well in one go. I could also learn from the instructions from those sets since modern Lego construction is rather different that what I was used to (did I mention I am older than Lego wheels?). But my main goal is still to most moc or modify stuff, and more or less tell my own story in bricks. Because building the sets was not my main goal, I started with simply sorting all those bricks into drawers straight away, without building the sets. With all this done, I had a pretty clear idea of what I had, and I could start with sending little-me out on his nautic adventure...

The Briney Brick... (2) by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

 

So far, it had been working out great, and pretty much as I had hoped. I combined it wit one of the 3in1 sets I bought a year ago (31088, Deep Sea Creatures) in several ways, both using official builds and mocs I found on the web).

The Briney Brick 6 (b) and more sea life by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

 

I also build the Skull Island from the 31109 set (which turned out to look a lot better and more fun in real life that I had expected) before using the skull in an own design Island

Entr'acte (bis): Skull Island from set 31109 by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

 

6 Months into it I am having a great time, and all is working as I hoped. I am still buying stuff to add, but now I know what I need, and it is all a lot easier to test little ideas on the fly.

At this moment it appears I have -without realising it at first- re-created one of the huge pirates/islander sets of way back one (Enchanted Island, set 6292). Pirates on a small Island, using more and more driftwood to build bigger rafts and a hut for example, and Islanders on a big Island that includes the full build Idol that is suggested in Barracuda Bay, a shrine for Spinoza the original Pirate theme monkey (here somwhat hidden behind a tree) and the treasure cave with skull...

 

Yo-Ho Ho Ho and seasonal wishes to all...

The Briney Brick 28 (bis): seasonal break... by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

Edited December 27, 20204 yr by jan kusters
minor corrections