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Leaving the Dark Ages behind.

1995 or thereabouts

After using technic as an excuse to play with LEGO as an adult, I began the drift to system - and minifig scale - in 1995 or so.

One of my first projects was to build a minifig scale commuter jet out of bricks in my (predominantly basic) connection.

Here are some pics: Loading passengers (gotta love those 20x10x1 bricks as wings!), and with the lid off, showing the spacious accomodations (note the separate cockpit, 1st and economy cabins, and even toilets).

It was certainly big and boxy, but I quite liked the curve of the fuselage. I remember being dissappointed at the time that I didn’t incorporate cargo hold doors.

1997 onward - the Pirate Era

Way back then, I had very few pirate sets (2 Imperial Bastions, the smallest armada set, and one pirate minifig set IIRC), but quite a few basic bricks.

My first pirate era project was the Imperial Harbour, which featured the first of many lighthouses. While the harbour was not big, it was not a major problem as I had nothing larger than a rowboat to moor in it.

The pics are here and here. They give an idea of the size of the lighthouse - which I thought was pretty big at the time...

After a few weeks (or was it months?) I decided that the imperials needed something a bit more substantial. Thus, Castle Lighthouse was born.

Castle Lighthouse used up almost all of my white, yellow and red bricks, along with all my minifig sized doors and most of my windows. It was big and solid, although the lighthouse tower was removeable so it could be transported around the house.

After Castle Lighthouse, I went berserk with the vertical dimension and came up with Lighthouse Tower , which pretty much speaks for itself. It was tall.

After Lighthouse Tower practical storage considerations took over, and I built Pirate Bridge.... tall twin towers linked by a bridge that my first pirate ship could sail under, and armed with two cannon. Pirate Bridge also featured a working elevator on the south tower, which could transport people from the small dock to the deck level of the bridge. Looking at the photo, it seemed it was garrisoned with Imperials and US Cavalry. Unfortunately, there was only one photo taken.

Of particular note though in that photo is the ship, that’s my first brick-built pirate ship, the Revenge. The Revenge was built with no pirate ship parts - the masts & bowsprit were technic beams, the hull 100% traditional bricks and the sales were printed on paper on a colour printer (the skull-n-crossbones was a wingdings ‘n’ from memory).

Finally, I found a single photo of my most ambitious pre-French Squadron pirate project, the second ‘Revenge’.

It’s beam was 24 studs, and although it never got rigged, it was going to be a brig. I still think it looks pretty good, and now I’ve acquired a few real ship parts I’m think it could look very convincing... hmm....

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