Whoa! I looked at this and was thoroughly impressed in the quality of the build. I wished I had more naval parts though to do something like this. I merely upgraded the Clipper Model to a small Brig...but I must admit this is something I would like to make.
With that would you be able to give some of us a few pointers or tips?
Yes, I had seen your upgraded Clipper in your photo stream. You did a nice job on it and the stern especially looks lovely! It you have the time and the money, a ship like this is not actually that hard to make. I learnt all the techniques from the masters such as Captain Green hair, Dread Pirate Wesley, and Perfectionist over on the Classic-Pirates forum on Eurobricks.
The ships that they make are very parts intensive, and much more realistic and detailed than mine is. In my version I use their techniques, but in a simpler way and the end result is still pleasing. I am grateful for your interest and would love to give you some tips! Ask away! I also have other LEGO ship hulls, so if you want me to explain some things in the brick, I can do that as well!
For now I can link you to a few pages of shipbuilding that were especially helpful to me!
On Eurobricks Captain Green Hairs Build a Frigate Tutorial is extremely helpful. Be sure to read through it! At the beginning it may seem quite parts intensive but that is because he uses Jumperplates, and tiles to create the slope of the tumble-hole. I got the same slope result but with 1x2 inverted slope bricks.
The way he gets the walls to slope inward, which creates the curved shape of the ship is the same way on mine. (you can see this in his step 3 post, Its with hinge plates.)
Overall it is a great read and one can manage to make a decent looking ship even if you don't use all the techniques.
A second way that one can build a ship and this is on a much larger scale but can still be used in smaller ships, is the way that Dread Pirate Wesely did it in his 64-gun ship of the line project. I highly recommend reading through all his posts in this thread to see how he creates the slope, of the ship, and other important details. His ship is not build in the LEGO prefab hulls but many useful techniques are there especially for creating the masts, cannons, and other details. Its a great read.
Also you can see his complete work on his flickr and in his photo stream, a truly magnificent work of LEGO.
Finally, the master frigate builder, (a frigate is the type of ship I built) named perfectionist has quite a few ships built more in the size that you or I would build them in.
Here is a link to his WIP thread of two frigates that he was working on. Lots can be learned from reading through the various updates. His completed work of Achille is stunning! Also he has many other ships as you can browse through here.
Classic-Pirates has a wealth of resources for anyone looking for detailed shipbuilding. If you are looking for links or more details, just ask and I can try to help you out! I haven't been a member of Classic=pirates, (too young) but have browsed their forums for over 5+ years. I hope this isn't to much overload of information!
Ship-building as I have said is a long and somewhat tedious process with a very satisfying end result. I hope all this info helps you, by reading through the links I put here you will be able to learn a lot about ships, their details, and how to construct them out of LEGO. Thanks for your interest also, the LEGO shipbuilding community is rather small (compared to castle). Once again if have any questions, I would love to see if I could answer or even build some things out of LEGO if you want!
By the way you can also browse through my photo stream and some older pics that I have which show a ship I am currently working on. (The yellow and black one!)
Sir Valiant~