LEGO designer reveals three LEGO Black Pearl could have beens
LEGO designer Mike Psiaki has revealed three features that almost made it into 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship.
The goal when designing LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship was to create a big, displayable, LEGO Icons-scale Black Pearl. When working on such a large scale and aiming to achieve that level of detail, there are always going to be a lot of ideas floating around that don’t make it into the final set.
Speaking to LEGO Fan Media in a roundtable, LEGO designer Mike Psiaki outlined his design process, touching on three almost-features that didn’t quite make it into the final version of 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship you’ll soon be able to buy from September 12 for LEGO Insiders or from September 15 for general release.
Dual-moulded hat for Jack
Captain Jack Sparrow was easily the standout minifigure in the eight-strong line-up, but he could have been even more valuable. A dual-moulded hat was considered in the early stages of the minifigure’s conception.
“Funnily enough, when we were first discussing what we would do for Jack Sparrow, the original thought was to do something as a dual-moulded solution,” Mike explained. “In the end, it just made a lot more sense because the dual mould wouldn’t get us to the end result we wanted anyway.
“We wanted to do the bandana, we wanted to do some of the details in his hair, so we thought it actually turned out to be a better solution to just make a single moulded element and then do all of the extra colour and decoration. It’s produced in a very similar way to how the original one was produced, but it’s actually a totally new sculpt.”
Pintel and Ragetti
Mike noted that ‘one of the hardest things to decide was which characters we include with the ship’. With so many to choose from, you could easily end up with dozens of minifigures – and still have some left over.
After deciding to recreate the Black Pearl as it’s seen at the end of the first movie, the minifigure line-up fell into place.
“You need to have Barbossa, just because he’s such a great character and he’s so linked to this vessel,” said Mike. “We can’t leave out Will and Elizabeth, because they’re such main characters.
“After that, you could easily just keep adding and adding characters until you have a crew of 20, maybe even 30, pirates on this ship. They would all make sense to be there, and they would all be great minifigures to have.
“It was almost arbitrary to say, okay, we need to stop at some point with these characters. Pintel and Ragetti were definitely strong contenders to be included in the ship, but they didn’t make the cut this time. You never know, there’s always room for future LEGO sets.”
While that shouldn’t be taken as confirmation of another future LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean set, it does offer some hope that it’s not the end of the line for minifigure versions of Pintel and Ragetti – even if we aren’t getting them just yet. Ragetti’s glass eye alone would make for a quirky face print.
A realistic way to move the rudder
The idea for the working rudder was sparked by Mike’s love of the scene when Jack and Will commandeer the HMS Interceptor. One of the men calls out that they’ve disabled the rudder chain – a mechanism that allows the wheel to rotate and move the rope that operates the rudder (which makes the ship turn).
“On a real pirate ship, you actually have a system of pulleys where the rope comes up around the wheel and then down into the hull,” explained Mike. “It makes an inverse T-shape, and then the rope pulls the rudder back and forth.
“I had a version of that mechanism build – but just to make it work, it kept getting more and more complicated, to the point where I’d lost the original idea. I wanted to make something faithful to what is on a real sailing ship. By the time I had a version of it that worked, it looked nothing like the real thing.”
Mike turned to a coworker from over in LEGO NINJAGO, Niek Duco van Slagmaat, who came up with the idea of using the steering wheel through a series of connected gears that lead to the rudder mechanism, resulting in the working contraption that is seen in the final set. Not only is it a fun addition, but it also solved an ongoing issue for Mike.
“At the same time, I was struggling with not having enough space to make a passageway that makes sense for minifigures to go through into the captain’s cabin. The functionality of the rudder required that I block off that access, so it was a perfect way to justify it by saying I need to use the space for the rudder function.”
LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship will retail for £299.99 in the UK, $379.99 in the US, and from €349.99 in Europe, from September 12 for LEGO Insiders and from September 15 for everyone else. Hear more from Mike on other innovative building techniques in the set here.
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