This is Señor Palomar‘s trading post deep in the jungle. Max Rudo Villano and Gabarros are handling some cargo boxes with ancient artfacts.

This MOC with a 12x24 studs footprint is meant to be an extension of the Adventurers' jungle subtheme. It was heavily inspired by set 6377 "Delivery Center". I had ordered that red sliding door directly from LEGO customer service back in the 80s when I was a kid. That sign is a self printed "sticker": printed on paper and glued to the panel which I had found heavily scratched on a road.

What do you think? Critics and comments are welcome!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2024Apr 30 by The Reader

nice work! It would fit in well with the Jungle sets!

I was never sure who Gabarros was working for as he was in two sets - one where the box shows him in a boat with Palomar and the other in one with Johnny & Kilroy. Would this have been clarified in some of the corresponding media/magazines?

Max only came in a small River Raft set too but with a surname like Villano he must have been one of the bad guys!

I really like the outpost build too!

 

Interesting additional build for the Adventurers!  Though the characters are from the Jungle subtheme, the design style is much more similar to Dino Island, especially due to the inclusion of the water barrel, crane, and rusty steel roof slopes from that subtheme as well as large green bricks for the baseplate.  The simplicity of the build and reliance on mostly rectangular plates and bricks looks very stylistically similar to Dino Island sets.
A warehouse is a great idea for filling out more backstory on these villains and would have been a neat inclusion as an official set.

 

5 hours ago, lifeinplastic said:

I was never sure who Gabarros was working for as he was in two sets - one where the box shows him in a boat with Palomar and the other in one with Johnny & Kilroy. Would this have been clarified in some of the corresponding media/magazines?

Max only came in a small River Raft set too but with a surname like Villano he must have been one of the bad guys!

I really like the outpost build too!

 

Firstly, technically, his name is Gabarro without an 's' at the end, at least from what I can find online confirming what I remember from LEGO magazines including the Adventurers Jungle subtheme.  Somehow the 's' got added erroneously at some point online and was cross-referenced to many sites of LEGO history/resale, so that is a common mistake to make.
This character is not defined as a hero or villain.  Most commonly a neutral character working as a river boatman for whoever pays, Gabarro is shown helping the heroes in the comic at the end of the instructions for set 5976 River Expedition and is shown passing the sun disc to Señor Palomar on the side of the box and an inside page of the instructions for set 5986 Amazon Ancient Ruins.  Apparently, there is a book, The Lost Temple - An Interactive Puzzle Book, in which, according to a Brickipedia page: "Gabarro aids Señor Palomar and Rudo Villano in finding the Sun Disc until they are ensnared in a cobweb trap. Upon recognizing that the Sun Disc belongs with Achu in the Lost Temple, Gabarro betrays Palomar and prevents him from stealing the artifact in the end."

Rudo (Max) Villano is definitely a villain and seems to be made to be the evil version of the hero, Johnny Thunder.  He was one of my favorite childhood minifigures since I liked the design and clothing colors and got him in set 5956 Expedition Balloon and set 5901 River Raft in 1999, so he was not always a villain in my play adventurers, but he does seem to be intended to represent what Johnny would be like as a completely evil villain.

Adventurers is one of my top favorite LEGO themes of all time (including all of the subthemes/sub-subthemes), so I enjoy such discussions!

Edited April 29, 2024Apr 29 by Slegengr

16 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Interesting additional build for the Adventurers!  Though the characters are from the Jungle subtheme, the design style is much more similar to Dino Island, especially due to the inclusion of the water barrel, crane, and rusty steel roof slopes from that subtheme as well as large green bricks for the baseplate.  The simplicity of the build and reliance on mostly rectangular plates and bricks looks very stylistically similar to Dino Island sets.
A warehouse is a great idea for filling out more backstory on these villains and would have been a neat inclusion as an official set.

 

Firstly, technically, his name is Gabarro without an 's' at the end, at least from what I can find online confirming what I remember from LEGO magazines including the Adventurers Jungle subtheme.  Somehow the 's' got added erroneously at some point online and was cross-referenced to many sites of LEGO history/resale, so that is a common mistake to make.
This character is not defined as a hero or villain.  Most commonly a neutral character working as a river boatman for whoever pays, Gabarro is shown helping the heroes in the comic at the end of the instructions for set 5976 River Expedition and is shown passing the sun disc to Señor Palomar on the side of the box and an inside page of the instructions for set 5986 Amazon Ancient Ruins.  Apparently, there is a book, The Lost Temple - An Interactive Puzzle Book, in which, according to a Brickipedia page: "Gabarro aids Señor Palomar and Rudo Villano in finding the Sun Disc until they are ensnared in a cobweb trap. Upon recognizing that the Sun Disc belongs with Achu in the Lost Temple, Gabarro betrays Palomar and prevents him from stealing the artifact in the end."

Rudo (Max) Villano is definitely a villain and seems to be made to be the evil version of the hero, Johnny Thunder.  He was one of my favorite childhood minifigures since I liked the design and clothing colors and got him in set 5956 Expedition Balloon and set 5901 River Raft in 1999, so he was not always a villain in my play adventurers, but he does seem to be intended to represent what Johnny would be like as a completely evil villain.

Adventurers is one of my top favorite LEGO themes of all time (including all of the subthemes/sub-subthemes), so I enjoy such discussions!

That’s interesting Slegengr. You are right that this does have a Dino Island vibe, especially with the crane. Perhaps some trees would work well to show this is a jungle outpost.

I never particularly like Dino Island as a theme and was relieved when Johnny and the gang went back to ‘real world’ locations as part of the Orient Expedition subtheme. I always wondered where the next adventure would be - Polar Exploration, the Andes, Ancient Greece, Australia?

5 hours ago, lifeinplastic said:

That’s interesting Slegengr. You are right that this does have a Dino Island vibe, especially with the crane. Perhaps some trees would work well to show this is a jungle outpost.

I never particularly like Dino Island as a theme and was relieved when Johnny and the gang went back to ‘real world’ locations as part of the Orient Expedition subtheme. I always wondered where the next adventure would be - Polar Exploration, the Andes, Ancient Greece, Australia?

For sure, trees and the broadleaf plant piece would really help this build fit the Jungle subtheme better.

I have all of the Adventurers sets including those from Dino Island, but I also liked it much better when the adventures went back to locations based (at least loosely) on real cultures and geography.  The Orient Expedition subtheme is one of my top favorites of all time.

Those are great ideas for more adventures!  I've got lots of my own ideas as well as plans/designs underway currently for more adventures for the team.  Though some argue the theme is troublesome to bring back due to exploitation of cultural history and references to colonialism, I still think a wonderful return to the Adventurers theme could be had through more focus on learning about real-world cultures, architecture, geography, botany, and animals across the world (rather than focusing on stealing artifacts).

As time allows, I'd like to make my own sets for the Adventurers theme that essentially mimic National Geographic magazine articles about exploration, scientific studies, etc.
Some ideas could be similar to those covered in the adventures of the fictional reporter, Tintin.  That comic series has many similarities to the Adventurers theme.

@Murdoch17 @lifeinplastic @Slegengr Thank you all very much for your kind feedback and your input.

First I have to correct the names: Gabarro and Rudo Villano. While Rudo Villano IMHO obviously is a villain and a sidekick to the main villain (like Mr. Cunnigham) Gabarro is ambivalent - neither good guy nor villain. He just does his job nevertheless who pays him.

Second - yes I used building techniques from the Dino Island subtheme as @Slegengr spotted correctly. The crane and the rusty roofs are from set 5987. The large bricks where used as bases in different Dino Island sets as well as in various Castle and Harry Potter sets of that time. The problem is that neither the Desert subtheme nor the Jungle subtheme feature "civilian" buildings and structures. So it is difficult to deduct a certain Adventurers' style for MOCs. Actually set 5987 is the only set which has a "civilian" or modern building which seems to be the Adventurers' HQ. That's why I try to copy its building techniques for my MOCs which are a kind of crossover between the Jungle subtheme and the Dino Island subtheme. My aim is to build MOCs could have been original Lego sets in that time. I hope you like them!

Edited April 30, 2024Apr 30 by The Reader

Oh that's a nice build! I like that! Before my inner eye I can easily picture the trading post at the shore of a muddy river that runs through the dense jungle. Suspicious boxes are being loaded onto a small riverine steamer while sinister characters stand guard.

2 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Oh that's a nice build! I like that! Before my inner eye I can easily picture the trading post at the shore of a muddy river that runs through the dense jungle. Suspicious boxes are being loaded onto a small riverine steamer while sinister characters stand guard.

Thank you! Yes, you nailed it - that's the setting and the backstory ...

On 4/30/2024 at 4:50 PM, The Reader said:

@Murdoch17 @lifeinplastic @Slegengr Thank you all very much for your kind feedback and your input.

First I have to correct the names: Gabarro and Rudo Villano. While Rudo Villano IMHO obviously is a villain and a sidekick to the main villain (like Mr. Cunnigham) Gabarro is ambivalent - neither good guy nor villain. He just does his job nevertheless who pays him.

Yep, that is how I understand the characters.  Rudo Villano was also called Max Villano (which seems to be the more common name used online, though the original name was Rudo, at least from what I saw in the Mania magazine and set information in the Shop at Home catalogs of the time), but Gabarro was switched to "Gabarros" online by mistake and has permeated erroneously throughout online references.
Hopefully my corrections do not come across as too critical... the Adventurers theme just happens to be one of my favorites that came out during my peak LEGO age (6-12 years old), so I know quite a lot of details about the theme!

On 4/30/2024 at 4:50 PM, The Reader said:

Second - yes I used building techniques from the Dino Island subtheme as @Slegengr spotted correctly. The crane and the rusty roofs are from set 5987. The large bricks where used as bases in different Dino Island sets as well as in various Castle and Harry Potter sets of that time. The problem is that neither the Desert subtheme nor the Jungle subtheme feature "civilian" buildings and structures. So it is difficult to deduct a certain Adventurers' style for MOCs. Actually set 5987 is the only set which has a "civilian" or modern building which seems to be the Adventurers' HQ. That's why I try to copy its building techniques for my MOCs which are a kind of crossover between the Jungle subtheme and the Dino Island subtheme. My aim is to build MOCs could have been original Lego sets in that time. I hope you like them!

The reference is obvious and your "set" would fit right in somewhere on Dino Island as a connection point between the 2 subthemes you mentioned.
Though this build is fairly simplistic and might be improved with the addition of more plant pieces, I think you did a nice job of accomplishing your goal to create what could have been an original set.

13 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Yep, that is how I understand the characters.  Rudo Villano was also called Max Villano (which seems to be the more common name used online, though the original name was Rudo, at least from what I saw in the Mania magazine and set information in the Shop at Home catalogs of the time), but Gabarro was switched to "Gabarros" online by mistake and has permeated erroneously throughout online references.

I think Max Villano was simply the name used in the UK. The Adventurers characters have so many different names in different countries!

Edit: found the reference, on page 12 of this magazine:

https://archive.org/details/BricksNPieces-January1999-Miniland/page/n11/mode/2up

Edited May 2, 2024May 2 by BrynnOfCastlegate

4 hours ago, BrynnOfCastlegate said:

I think Max Villano was simply the name used in the UK. The Adventurers characters have so many different names in different countries!

Edit: found the reference, on page 12 of this magazine:

https://archive.org/details/BricksNPieces-January1999-Miniland/page/n11/mode/2up

There it is!  Thanks for pointing this out.  Of course, I should have realized that Max was likely the UK/European name.  Being from the USA, of course I learned the character's names from USA versions of LEGO Mania and Shop-at-Home magazines.

19 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Hopefully my corrections do not come across as too critical...

Not at all. No worries.

19 hours ago, Slegengr said:

The reference is obvious and your "set" would fit right in somewhere on Dino Island as a connection point between the 2 subthemes you mentioned.
Though this build is fairly simplistic and might be improved with the addition of more plant pieces, I think you did a nice job of accomplishing your goal to create what could have been an original set.

Thank you very much!

Edited May 2, 2024May 2 by The Reader

This feels like it could have released in the 90s. So good. 

Oh my gosh, I like this one! Very nice build. 

On 6/19/2024 at 1:15 PM, Lion King said:

Oh my gosh, I like this one! Very nice build. 

Thank you very much!

On 6/17/2024 at 11:50 PM, PaleozoicBricks said:

This feels like it could have released in the 90s. So good. 

Thank you, very kind. (BTW - I like your your YT channel.)