Take a look at how my only Pirates model from 2019 came together in this post!
As is often the case with my Pirates builds, it all started with a sandy beach. I began by toying around with various wedge plates until the shape fit what I had in mind.
I wanted to have the transparent water overlapping dark tan plates near the shoreline, which required building down a couple plate layers from the original base.
The water itself is overlapping 1×2 tiles and 1×2 plates. Which got a bit tricky in some areas (could really use some larger transparent plates occasionally!), so there are just a couple small sections unconnected.
The water was looking fairly good, but these bubbles around the sandy shore added a very nice touch. To get a smooth fit around the wedge plates I just placed all these 1×1 round tiles and plates loose. Rather unusual for me to have so many unconnected parts in a scene, but I think the effect was worth it here.
Next was the fun part! With this small of a base I knew the hideout couldn’t be too big, so I settled on a 10 wide building. The small dock takes advantage of the natural cove in the shoreline.
And finally I found a use for some of our broken reddish brown elements. The whole ziplock bag in the back is full of broken plates and tiles, so it was nice using a few. Likewise the Keep Out! sign is always fun to incorporate.
To make sure there was a smooth fit between the wooden hideout and cliffs, I started on rockwork here. Trying to use lots of rounded parts instead of the usual slopes.
Once the transition to light bley was in place the whole scene was starting to pop. And get infested by crabs much to the low ranking pirate’s dismay, and pirate captain’s disdain.
More rockwork followed, and I made sure to bring the left side back out to support a nice crow’s nest.
The transition between rockwork and wood roof was something I debated for a bit. Eventually settling on this organic looking setup where it seems the pirates built the roof to match the cliff shape.
This placeholder platform setup gave me a good idea of what height the rock should go to for the crow’s nest placement.
First try at foliage atop the cliff, and pirate’s flag added.
Try two at foliage.
Ended up settling on bamboo leafs and the large three leaf plants. Though more densely packed then you see here.
And here’s how it turned out!
I was looking forward for a build log of this MOC, many thanks Isaac for posting it. As always it was a nice read 🙂 The water turned out really nicely although I’m not a fun of scattering parts loosely I must admit that the bubbles do add a nice effect here. I the idea of a crow’s nest placed on top of a cliff is not something that I have seen before, nice idea!
Thanks Lech! Always appreciate hearing your thoughts 🙂