Rock Island Refuge Opinion

[TomSkippy]

What is the black building material? Is it supposed to be rocks, like a continuation of the base? Is it just a black version of the imperial guard white? 

I'm thinking about making a moc of it and I hate using straight black for buildings (too hard to see details). What do you all think?

[Murdoch17]

16 hours ago, TomSkippy said:

What is the black building material? Is it supposed to be rocks, like a continuation of the base? Is it just a black version of the imperial guard white? 

I'm thinking about making a moc of it and I hate using straight black for buildings (too hard to see details). What do you all think?

Do you have a picture of the set in question? I had to search Bricklink for a picture of the set (which is number 6273, for those looking) and it's too far tiny to make out many details. As to your original question: the color palate  was incredibly limited at that time, and they probably were working with what they could. For example: Dark gray existed, but wasn't really heavily used as a brick color until Rock Raiders came along eight years later. Light gray was used for some castles, but still wasn't that common as far as I know.  So what's the next best color for stonework? Black.

[CaptainMoore]

I've never liked the look of that base, especially because of that color.

I guess it was a pretty restricted choice due to the limited color palette during that Lego era. It needed to have a differentiating main color face to the imperials and ended up black. It's still a building, not natural rock, as show by the prints.

For having a background story, you could imagine it's lava rock, and keep it black but with variations in dark grey and grey. This way you could get better details, and add brown here and there because there's always a wood structure

[Jack Sassy]

4 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

it's too far tiny to make out many details.

Perhaps this can help:

 

Basic masonry or rocks is a good option. I would add a mix of wood for some platforms, mostly for colour contrast. 

4 hours ago, CaptainMoore said:

add brown here and there because there's always a wood structure

Aye, precisely. Perhaps the build would benefit from darker colours - dark tan, dark brown.

[Samarth]

If you see the ruins on Isla Cruces in POTC, I think this set was intended to give off that look (in the limited palettes available at the time)

[SpacePolice89]

I think it is made from some sort of volcanic rock and therefore black. The addition of some brown and light gray pieces and the light gray/green raised baseplate gives the set a good color balance. I prefer the more limited colors used in the 80s and 90s because it provides a cleaner look and it's easier to collect enough pieces in the same color for kids as well as AFOLs.

[Yperio_Bricks]

I don't think the black structures are supposed to be made of volcanic rock. No one would say that the black docks at Eldorado Fortress are made of volcanic rocks too. I don't think the designers had such elaborate thoughts when they designed the set back in the day. They took whatever pieces and colors were available at that time when parts and colors were very much restricted.  White and yellow were already used by the imperials, so there were not many options left and they chose black. The build itself is more of a fantasy build than something that resembles reality. I'd say the original set depicts some ruined buildings or maybe even an ruined fort, but yeah, it's more of a fantasy build. The brick prints on the black panels make it clear, that the whole thing is some man-made structure.

As for a moc i guess one has to figure out how to build the raised base first. If you choose dark grey for the rocks for example, you want to avoid buildings that use the same color. The next question is how much green parts you want to use for the base.

[Mister Phes]

15 hours ago, CaptainMoore said:

I guess it was a pretty restricted choice due to the limited color palette during that Lego era. It needed to have a differentiating main color face to the imperials and ended up black.

You've probably hit the nail on the head here - the colour palette was limited during that era, and brown had only recently been introduced. 

Back then, brown was reserved to accessories and theme specific pieces like ratlines, crows nests, rope bridges, etc, rather than generic pieces.

 

@CaptainDarkNStormy remade Rock Island Refuge last year, honouring the traditional colour scheme while using a brick-built base.

 

[CaptainDarkNStormy]

8 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

You've probably hit the nail on the head here - the colour palette was limited during that era, and brown had only recently been introduced. 

Back then, brown was reserved to accessories and theme specific pieces like ratlines, crows nests, rope bridges, etc, rather than generic pieces.

 

@CaptainDarkNStormy remade Rock Island Refuge last year, honouring the traditional colour scheme while using a brick-built base.

 

Thanks for the shout out! I had so much fun designing this! I’d like to add that originally constructed the entire thing in light bluish grey to give an authentic rocky look, but it was rather bland. The black upper parts look so much better, with some grey “brick” thrown in at random intervals to give a crumbling wall effect.

[BrynnOfCastlegate]

After staring at too many old set boxes during the Pirates contest last year, I believe the black in all classic Pirates sets is intended to be wood. Note the dock in the Rock Island Refuge is black as well, as are the docks in the Eldorado Fortress, Lagoon Lock-up and Imperial Trading Post. All rafts are based in black with only accessories like barrels in brown. (As @Mister Phes pointed out, brown was only used for a limited selection of elements.) All ship masts are black. All these items would have been wood in real life.

This is further indicated by the last wave of classic Pirates in 1997. The new brown wood-effect bricks from the Western theme are freely mixed with black bricks, because the black was always meant to be wood.

The same is seen in Pirates Perilous Pitfall:

Note the dock is still black.

The only exception to this seems to be the bizarre grey docks in Skull Island and Imperial Outpost from 1995. Not sure what's up with them. 

So, it appears to me that Rock Island Refuge is intended to be a wooden structure with stone reinforcing as indicated by the print on the black panels.

 

 

[F1stzz]

13 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

I'd say the original set depicts some ruined buildings or maybe even a ruined fort [...]

That's precisely what it is, castle panels used all over the place are a dead giveaway 

[Yperio_Bricks]

11 minutes ago, F1stzz said:

That's precisely what it is, castle panels used all over the place are a dead giveaway 

But it is possible to build something that is not a castle with these 'castle panels'

[F1stzz]

15 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

But it is possible to build something that is not a castle with these 'castle panels'

Yeah, ofc, but TLG didn't for some reason 🤷🏻‍♂️ When you check the catalogue of sets that were including the 4444 & 2345pb06 pieces, it becomes clearly apparent what exactly they're meant to represent and intended for  

Edited August 27, 2024 by F1stzz

[CaptainDarkNStormy]

I found the preliminary all gray photo. Very bland.

Untitled by Chris Boyd, on Flickr

I really feel like this MOC came into it's own when I remade it with the light trans blue "water" tiles. I'm still quite pleased with how this has turned out and I've displayed it at a few conventions.

Rock Island 2.0 by Chris Boyd, on Flickr

TomSkippy if you have any questions about building your own I'd be delighted to help. Just flip me message!

[Mister Phes]

On 8/27/2024 at 7:10 AM, BrynnOfCastlegate said:

After staring at too many old set boxes during the Pirates contest last year

Staring or admiring?

[BrynnOfCastlegate]

5 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Staring or admiring?

Both! 

[Captain Becker]

Way I see it, its stone keep, that has been ruined and/or burnt down, and is in ruins and charred. Hence the black. Also it just conveys the idea of Pirate evil base of operation better than having it just white or in other colors.