A small ship to transport some cargo.

I'm going to be honest, I h ate building small ships, just because I don't know what to do/how to design them.

Well-built ship with a nice design. The ship's bow, stern, masts, railing and rigging are well made. Everything fits together well.

I also hate building small ships, that's why I never built the free Class 2.

5 hours ago, NOD said:

I also hate building small ships, that's why I never built the free Class 2.

Come on! Small merchant ships are the best! They are more down to earth and "realistically playable" if that thing exists at all!

17 hours ago, KotZ said:

I don't know what to do/how to design them.

Well, here's an opportunity to learn. In, just about, any other modeling medium the, solid, common advice for beginners is not to scratch build, but to "get a kit". If you're still, then, going to scratch build, build something for which, detailed plans are available. It's good advice and applies the same here. Don't design, just copy what was, off a real thing, at least at first. For the purposes of Lego you don't even really need a full set of detailed plans, just the basic elevations you can often get as a preview or from someone who did buy the full set and decided to share, just, that little bit. What you have here isn't bad, it shows that you do have an understanding already of what a ship needs, you'd just need more exposure to better material to understand what's still missing and how better to proportion things. In the end you don't have to stick with historical accuracy, but realism stems from understanding... well real things. It's, sort of, a "learn the rules before you break them" kind of thing. 

Like a broken record I suggest to everyone to check out NRG Model Ship World. It's a great place to find information, resources, even lots of pictures. It's especially handy because you can see what modelers are doing to bring 2D drawings to a 3D medium. Here's a link to a build log for Mary Byrne, a commercially available kit, similar to what you're trying to build here. Plug her name into the search function to find even more.

 

Keep building and best to ya!

Dave 

14 hours ago, NOD said:

Well-built ship with a nice design. The ship's bow, stern, masts, railing and rigging are well made. Everything fits together well.

I also hate building small ships, that's why I never built the free Class 2.

Thanks!

8 hours ago, blackdeathgr said:

Come on! Small merchant ships are the best! They are more down to earth and "realistically playable" if that thing exists at all!

I have a lot of respect for people who build smaller ships alot, but I find it so difficult. Bigger warships seem easier to me.

2 hours ago, kurigan said:

Well, here's an opportunity to learn. In, just about, any other modeling medium the, solid, common advice for beginners is not to scratch build, but to "get a kit". If you're still, then, going to scratch build, build something for which, detailed plans are available. It's good advice and applies the same here. Don't design, just copy what was, off a real thing, at least at first. For the purposes of Lego you don't even really need a full set of detailed plans, just the basic elevations you can often get as a preview or from someone who did buy the full set and decided to share, just, that little bit. What you have here isn't bad, it shows that you do have an understanding already of what a ship needs, you'd just need more exposure to better material to understand what's still missing and how better to proportion things. In the end you don't have to stick with historical accuracy, but realism stems from understanding... well real things. It's, sort of, a "learn the rules before you break them" kind of thing. 

Like a broken record I suggest to everyone to check out NRG Model Ship World. It's a great place to find information, resources, even lots of pictures. It's especially handy because you can see what modelers are doing to bring 2D drawings to a 3D medium. Here's a link to a build log for Mary Byrne, a commercially available kit, similar to what you're trying to build here. Plug her name into the search function to find even more.

 

Keep building and best to ya!

Dave 

Yeah, I've got more experience with recreating bigger ships, be it official sets or following Captain Greenhair's guide. I never owned one of the smaller ships, LEGO released, so I'll definitely look at those instructions for inspiration next time.

11 hours ago, KotZ said:

I have a lot of respect for people who build smaller ships alot, but I find it so difficult. Bigger warships seem easier to me.

I believe it's due to the fact that the past examples/mocs have shown us that one needs to use brick-built hulls for a better looking small/medium ship (or at least I personally haven't seen an outstanding one, from our master builders around here yet, using a prefab hull)

Well I like it. I think I came out very well, taking the time to plank the deck with tiles I think always improves the final product. I would have liked to see a crew though.