Pirate Stories - LEGO MOC

 

Reading (or building) adventure stories can really open up your imagination!

 

Last month's LUG meeting had "Pirates" as one of the prompts for this months' build challenge. Ever since I got the Aztec Warrior (or Ancient Warrior) in CMF Series 7, I wanted to combine it with the pirate minifigure I'd had since I was a kid. I'm pretty sure he's from 1992's 6258 Smuggler's Shanty or possibly 1993's 6237 Pirates Plunder—since I have two of him, it might have been both. I wouldn't have even been a teenager at the time, so I don't rightly remember.

Either way, I wanted to do a build that would honor both old world and new world, old LEGO and new LEGO. I even added a little sand castle based on 6276 Eldorado Fortress, as a nod to the micro-builds I've done of the Yellow Castle, set 375 (for example, in the LEGO version of Wanderer above the Sea of Fog). As a side-note, I actually put the sand castle in backwards and didn't notice until after I'd taken the pictures; the picture below is the correct orientation, with the white clip representing the crenelations on the top of the actual fortress, and the different SNOT pieces showing the different spaces enclosed by the fortress's walls.

The original idea was to have the sand castle be the only nod to a larger LEGO history, beyond the two minifigures. The rest of the scene would show a bit of jungle and a bit of beach, just enough set dressing to give context to this meeting of old and new.

But then I found a new container that showed promise, and a new minifigure that gave further inspiration.

Like the 8x8 cubes (which sadly have been out of stock for a few years now), this clear acrylic box is also from the Dollar Tree. Its lid is a bit loose, and has 6 holes in it (it's technically a flower vase), but the flat sides and right angles make it excellent for creating a larger build box. The baseplate is 11x18 studs, with a little wiggle room—unlike the 8x8 cubes, where clearances are particularly tight.  The minifigure is the Pirate Fan from 2025 Q2's Build-A-Minifigure selection not only has a thematically-appropriate shirt, but comes with a dramatic "painting" of a pirate captain standing amid the smoky ruins of a ship under attack.

This image, as well as the bigger build space the larger box permitted, prompted me to create a more elaborate setup. I was also inspired by the amazing artwork of James Gurney (specifically this image) as well as the antique history books I've been reading. 

The idea that resulted was that of imagination unbounded: a young man squirreled away in his attic crow's nest, reading his favorite book of pirate stories, as the mental images burst through the attic wall as he envisions a meeting between the old world (and old LEGO) and new. So I made a quick sketch, gathered all of the printed tiles I thought would be useful for attic details, and began blocking things out.

I had also recently re-organized my LEGO storage. Part of that process (to be discussed in greater depth in a future post) involved thinking about how I built, as well as what I built. To that end, I decided to gather up all of the bricks I had with masonry profiles, divided by color, and grouped with other one-stud-wide and one-brick-tall bricks. This resulted in 17 ziploc bags, containing standard bricks, masonry profile bricks, as well as log and fluted profile bricks; in short, everything needed to build walls. Corner bricks and SNOT bricks, however, I am keeping in their own categories.

Because of this, I was able to complete the entire build in an hour and fifteen minutes. I learned a lot in building my Urban Jungle MOC, for example gathering together the types of parts I'd need ahead of time, for increased efficiency.

I used colored plates and tiles to indicate the different areas of the build, and began tucking little details into the attic space. This is the most constrained area, and so I needed to put extra attention into the angles and positions of things.

I put a vent fan in the gable, and used a mix of brick types and colors to indicate the un-lived-in state of the attic. A sticker from 75953 (applied to a tile instead of the inside of a wall piece) serves as an ancestral portrait, while on the opposite wall a Charleston BeatBit tile could be a picture of his parents or grandparents. Scattered around and behind him are a tile with LEGO City Set 60419 Police Prison Island Box Art (the closest LEGO set tile I had to a pirate fortress), a stack of 2x2 plates and jumper plates to represent a stack of old newspapers, and a barrel full of long implements...including an old pirate cutlass. There's also a map and sleeping bag on the floor, as well as a dubloon-looking coin (which is actually from the Disney 100 Prince John CMF).

Another thing I learned from the Urban Jungle build helped me design the roof's structure. Using tiles of different lengths, I suggested a full roof, but left it open enough that light could still shine through. Adding a window in the back wall also helped keep the back corner from becoming too dark and hard to see, and 1x2 slope tiles held the roof "beams" in place.

The imaginative part was much more free-form, with only the 2x2 tile with a carved stone sticker as a definite item. I had plenty of lime-colored pieces, including plant parts, left over from the Urban Jungle build (gathered into my "to sort" bins, but not sorted as yet), which also sped up the build process.

Layers of pieces and elements form the suggestion of a jungle butting up against a coastline, just the sort of place one might expect a pirate and native warrior to meet up. I also used different sand green pieces to break up the line of the wall, adding a cloud plate and a feather piece to suggest thought a bubble, bursting out into the wide world of the boy's imagination.

As you can see, it all fits well within the new style of box, and keeping the top (with its six holes) under the baseplate makes it more dustproof. I'm very happy with how it turned out, especially since it was far more elaborate and richly-narrative than my original idea would have been.