thanks guys!
There are many things we can appreciate about each different custom. Besides aesthetics, there is also ingenuity to consider, originality, craftsmanship, and technique, and labor to name a few.
Macgayver's Dolphin and Unicorn were indeed inspirational in my initial customizing ideas, not to mention his own Pirates of the Caribbean photostory series ala Playmobil.
Some of us customize using mostly or purely Playmobil parts only. Others enhance our playmobil toys with parts from other in-scale brands or raw materials and parts.
Sometimes we like to switch playmobil parts so we have a unique combination of playmoparts, almost like an exclusive playmobil toy.
I'd say the ingenuity and labor of Macguyver's ships is outstanding indeed. My ship may not be as extensive a mod as cutting and joining several hulls together into a huge huge multi-masted ship on a large scale, but believe me, I have a lot of micro detail that makes it noteable all on its own, even at a smaller scale of work.
I'm most proud of my functional rigging, actually. There are literally dozens of lines strewn about the ship, and every single one of them has a functional purpose, be it to brace or provide support to the masts as standing rigging, to act as sheets to brace the yards aft or tacks to provide support forward....I have lines to hoist the jibbs and the staysails...lines to furl and unfurl each of the squaresails, and counter lines that are eased as others are made taut. My sails are all lashed to the yards by hand...the clews are sewn in by hand as well....I devised a working pulley system for the lines to work on, using the real playmobil clews and blocks. And I use the genuine playmobil belaying pins to secure the lines.
I love my custom sail plan, especially since the original masts and yards only accommodated one sail per mast....I was able to accommodate three sails per mast.
I like the mizzen mast with the lateen sail lashed to a genuine playmobil yard arm turned parallel to the ship's beam. I had to design the attachment points for the mast base which took some ingenuity.
I like my faux cannon insert frame design and the skill it took to cut extra gunports and make them match the stock playmobil ones flawlessly.
I am proud of the research it took me by exploring many many different non-playmobil pirate ship toys to see which ones might have useable parts I could fit or modify extensively TO fit the 3286 hull which I did do a lot of hacking up on with dremel and hack saw.
Meticulous detail work went into planning the lighting system, from wiring plan, to installing the stern lights, soldering the micro-thin wires together at each wiring joint, and finding a place for the battery pack to reside (I had to cut and measure a lot).
The Black Pearl is heavily ornamented, but aside from the the purely-aesthetic purpose of the stern ornaments, all details of the ship are fully functional, not simply decorative.
And, on top of all that, I am very happy that this very realistic working model is still very play-with-able and can still interact with our beloved clickies as it was meant to be.
I love tallship models, but they are often static models that cannot float. And despite the hundreds of hours it took for them to do the meticulous rigging, for all it is worth the model tallships' sails and rigging are fixed into position and cannot be adjusted, furled, or unfurled.
I am usually a very modest and humble sort of chap, but in this case, to toot my own horn, even I'd have to say:
This is one awesome model/toy/custom!!!! It is a labor of love, just as any of our customs are I'm sure. Five years in the making.
My daughter asked me today if I would ever sell my ship. If someone walked up to me right now and offered to buy it from me, I'd have a hard time parting with it. I think I want to be buried with it, lol (just kidding....I want my daughter to keep it as a memory of me one day, and maybe pass it to her kids when they're old enough to take care of it too).
There are many many small details I can't even begin to list about the ship and all the thought and study it took for me to impliment them.
As far as "Greatest of all time" custom, lol..... to me, I'll just say I am very proud of it. The other customs posted in the other pirate ship customs thread are very beautiful as well. My number one favourite custom ship of all time? Probably the Dolphin totally beats mine in sure grandiose wow factor wow wow wow.
Of all the custom playmobil ships I've seen online so far, though, I'm not aware of any with similar levels of realistic functional micro detail as on the Pearl. Sadly, a lot of the detail on my ship is lost to the eyes because the almost all-black scheme hides it all (along with its imperfections, lol).
I'm working on the queen anne's revenge next. I already have an HMS Interceptor (Lady Washington). If I do an HMS Suprise, I think I will use a 4290, or perhaps a combination of the two.
For my future plans, I want to do the HMS Victory in playmobil style using a Zizzle Black Pearl hull (non playmo) furnished with playmobil masts, yards, rigging, cannons, deck ornaments, longboats, gunport hatches, and of course clickies.
