Black sheep, devils and really bad eggs are sailing once again on LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship, so Blocks is getting deep into the creation of the new LEGO Black Pearl with LEGO Design Master Mike Psiaki.
LEGO Design Master Mike Psiaki used extensive reference to make the cannons on the new Black Pearl as accurate as possible when he was finessing the look and functionality of the new 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship.
When creating the Black Pearl for the Pirates of The Caribbean films, initially the props department made a large scale model that could be used in the studio for specific scenes, while the rest was delivered using CGI. However, for the sequels, the Black Pearl was constructed around the hull of a real ship called the Sunset, which allowed it to actually sail in open water. That practical production decision meant that there was an abundance of reference for LEGO Design Master Mike Psiaki to use for 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship.
“They provided me with so much reference. They sent me photos of the scale models from shooting the movies and many production stills from Pirates of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl that showed all of the details.” One thing Mike missed out on though was the scale replica used in Dead Men Tell No Tales, when Jack Sparrow releases the Black Pearl from a bottle, only for it to grow into a ship barely big enough to carry. “I would have loved to see that prop used, which would have been a perfectly scaled replica, but sadly they couldn’t dig it up!”
Upgrade your LEGO hobby! If you take out a subscription to Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine, you’ll get each issue first and at a discount, plus other perks including a free digital subscription and the chance to win LEGO prizes every month.
Yet having an abundance of reference proved to me a somewhat double-edged sword, leading to multiple discussions about historical accuracy and screen accuracy. “We actually debated about whether the cannons would deploy all at the same time,’ continues Mike, pointing out how the mechanism triggers. “We scoured the internet to find sources to support or deny this claim and I eventually found a source that explained even pirates would be well trained enough to deploy all the guns at the same time. That’s how I convinced the team that I didn’t need to make some complex staggered mechanism.”
Even with the cannons deploying at the same time though, the function was the biggest challenge on 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship. “I must have built a dozen versions of that function to try to make it work. There were versions where you’d turn a crate on the deck and how it would trigger. There was a lot of trial and error,” he says with a laugh as he reminisces about building cannon after cannon. He even roped in other design team members to save having to build them all personally.
“I really do not enjoy repetition,” Mike declares. “It was the most tedious part of the development process as there are 16 nearly identical cannons. Every time I made a slight change, I had to do it 16 times and test the function. So I actually enlisted the help of other designers multiple times under the guise of not knowing whether it would work. I’d have them try it out instead and build the cannons. Even then, I probably built at least 300 cannons myself. So that definitely tested the limits of my patience.”
The Black Pearl has 32 cannons, with 18 on the gun deck and a further 14 on the upper deck. Yet the finished model only has 16 cannons. “At the beginning we thought it would be so cool to have eighteen shooting cannons, but there’s simply not space for it inside the ship,” he says, pointing out the single row of cannons. “There wouldn’t have been any place to interact with them and we would have had to slice the ship into so many sections to add more. That would have really affected the stability and appearance of the model.”
Limiting the number of cannons also allowed for some of the interior to be included, while still leaving room for the functions to operate. One of these is the working rudder. “I had been previously experimenting with a working rudder in my free time. On a real ship there’s a rope that comes up and around the wheel, connected to a series of pulleys, that moves the rudder back and forth,” says Mike, who went down a rabbit hole of nautical research. “In the first movie, when Jack and Will commandeer the Interceptor by sneaking onto the Dauntless, that’s the rudder chain they disable. My original idea was to make something faithful to a real ship, but by the time I had a version that worked with LEGO bricks, it looked nothing like that at all.”
If you are in the market for LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship, please make your purchase via our affiliate links so that we can bring you more fascinating designer insights like this.
If you want to get new LEGO set announcements straight to your inbox, sign up to our free newsletter. Of course, if you really want to upgrade your LEGO hobby for the true insider experience, take out a subscription to Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine for fans.