Swan Dutchman
VOC Frigate 'De Ruyter'
After one and a half year of designing and building I am proud to present you VOC ship ‘De Ruyter’. It’s an imaginary frigate from the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company) named after the famous Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
The ship’s build is mainly based on the HMS Surprise and a digital ship called L’Aurore designed by ‘virtual sailor’ Axeonalias. I also used blueprints of other ships and I got a lot of inspiration from other LEGO ship builders (thank you everyone).
The ship’s color scheme is based on the USS Constitution... I just like black, white and red. The hull touching the sea is completely in old brown to make a nice contrast with the red brown deck and masts.
The ship has a fully decorated gun deck and cabin for the VOC governor. They can be easily accessed by removing all the white wall sections and back of the ship. Special thanks to Perfectionist for his ‘removable wall technique’ and Dread Pirate Wesley for his cannon design.
Half the time went into building the LEGO part of the ship... a lot of time was also consumed to make the rigging, the sails, the flag and editing the photos. Many meters of different rope colors and sizes were used to make the rigging and the sails. The sails are sewn by hand and I think my patience has paid off. The edges of the sails contain thin metal wires to give the sails a windblown shape. For the flag I used a cloth printing technique, but the result was horrible: many samples failed and all were too stiff to be sewn and shaped. In the end a paper flag with metal wire in the edges gave the result I am pleased with.
After the ship was finished I made literally 450 photos... I know it’s a bit much... but white LEGO parts are pretty hard to photograph, especially on such a large object. After selecting the best photos I began editing them with GIMP... and the result is what you see here. I hope you enjoyed the photos.
VOC Frigate 'De Ruyter'
After one and a half year of designing and building I am proud to present you VOC ship ‘De Ruyter’. It’s an imaginary frigate from the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company) named after the famous Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
The ship’s build is mainly based on the HMS Surprise and a digital ship called L’Aurore designed by ‘virtual sailor’ Axeonalias. I also used blueprints of other ships and I got a lot of inspiration from other LEGO ship builders (thank you everyone).
The ship’s color scheme is based on the USS Constitution... I just like black, white and red. The hull touching the sea is completely in old brown to make a nice contrast with the red brown deck and masts.
The ship has a fully decorated gun deck and cabin for the VOC governor. They can be easily accessed by removing all the white wall sections and back of the ship. Special thanks to Perfectionist for his ‘removable wall technique’ and Dread Pirate Wesley for his cannon design.
Half the time went into building the LEGO part of the ship... a lot of time was also consumed to make the rigging, the sails, the flag and editing the photos. Many meters of different rope colors and sizes were used to make the rigging and the sails. The sails are sewn by hand and I think my patience has paid off. The edges of the sails contain thin metal wires to give the sails a windblown shape. For the flag I used a cloth printing technique, but the result was horrible: many samples failed and all were too stiff to be sewn and shaped. In the end a paper flag with metal wire in the edges gave the result I am pleased with.
After the ship was finished I made literally 450 photos... I know it’s a bit much... but white LEGO parts are pretty hard to photograph, especially on such a large object. After selecting the best photos I began editing them with GIMP... and the result is what you see here. I hope you enjoyed the photos.