One thing that's kicking my butt right now is this angled filler piece that the warp field controllers attach to on the wings at the back. In the pictures, all the faces appear to be planar, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how. The face that each warp field controller rests on can't possibly be planar, given the shape of the triangle you can see at the back edge of the wing. For obvious reasons it would be nice to solve because it would clarify the angles to set the Warp controllers. They are of course, tipped up - but they are also angled / tipped toward the back edge. Oh, and one more sweet little fun thing is that the warp controllers are not greebled the same. YAY! I guess I have to thank some guy and his new glue gun.
I had that same experience with the Constellation class. It's a pain working from photo references.
Chris, are you telling me that's what I have to look forward to when I do the Constellation?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. (I knew that would tickle your fancy) Most of the greebles are from a Macross VF-1 Valkyrie model kit, and you'll have decent images and screen caps on some of it, but for others you'll have to rely on blurry images and bad angles to get a clear look at what's there. And then there's the part between the impulse engines. That part was removable, for motion rig and wiring access, and it's not in any of the still images of the model from after the series completed. Unfortunately, the HD remaster of the episode Peak Performance, which has a lovely shot of the back of the model, isn't even as a good a reference as you'd think. That shot couldn't be found when they did the series in HD, so it was redone with a pretty inaccurate CGI model. Your only other somewhat decent shot is when the Hathaway engages its warp drive. The DVD caps are almost useless as they're too small and blurry to make out the details.
So, yeah, lovely ship to do. I almost started another one a couple months ago, but I decided against it due to the amount of guesstimation that's involved in the build. (one reason I shy away from canon stuff in general, besides liking to design my own stuff)
Your description just makes the loss of that model all the more tragic. Was there a fire or theft? You said you had backups.
Fortunately I have all your Constellation renders from here. Gosh it was a sight to behold.
I did the rat maze dohicky extending from the warp controllers. Here is a better angle on it. Also added, was some other fine detail on the controllers. Still haven't cut in the engine area in the stern since I'm still working out main hull body problems.
Your description just makes the loss of that model all the more tragic. Was there a fire or theft? You said you had backups.
Fortunately I have all your Constellation renders from here. Gosh it was a sight to behold.
I didn't have that model backed up and I had a hard drive foul up.
Update: Completely redid the bridge. Mine was wrong. I then finally got the main body like the movie model. It turns out Chris Kuhn did have that portion right so I retract a former comment. Having fixed those, I was able to cut in the area for the engines. Lots to do on this area still, but thought I'd post an update.
Looking great, Brandenberg. It's always a relief when you realize you had something wrong early on and fix it, as opposed to finding out later, when things are more detailed and get a bit trickier to modify.
but looking at it now those wings are at a pretty odd position!
You mean on the box cover? I suspect that position was a symptom of the motors no longer working correctly. That was the position they were in in the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise." I always thought it looked odd, especially since the ships were attacking the Enterprise-D. Whenever we saw the BOP in battle previously, the wings were down.
@japetus@evil_genius_180 Wasn't that the position for the iconic BoP saving the whale from the whaling ship scene? Did you notice the shadow on the water? Not the BoP. However, one of my favorite shots in all of Star Trek.
I just realized the extra "suitcase" structure is on the bottom in this photo. It must have been the add on for the tank for George and Gracie.
@japetus Yeah this is going to take a while. Thanks though.
BTW Mike, I essentially grew up in Seattle. Lake Forest Park specifically. My brother and one of my sisters still live in the area. My oldest son lives near Mukiteo.
Looking great, Brandenberg. It's always a relief when you realize you had something wrong early on and fix it, as opposed to finding out later, when things are more detailed and get a bit trickier to modify.
@japetus@evil_genius_180 Wasn't that the position for the iconic BoP saving the whale from the whaling ship scene? Did you notice the shadow on the water? Not the BoP. However, one of my favorite shots in all of Star Trek.
Yeah, but it wasn't originally supposed to be a fighting position. Also, we try to ignore that that the BOP is way too big in that scene.
So the Lightwave version of Chris Kuhn's model is helpful. However, there are still accuracy issues. Of course I currently have my own accuracy issues. I am getting closer, but have to redo the underbelly on this bird again. Getting very familiar with the BOP
There are lots of pictures of this, but the drawings are way off and there are no orthos. If I think I get close enough, I'm going to post some orthos of the pieces to it as well as the ship itself. For shapes, I'm working off of fairly good photos of the bottom and top and side. Not exactly orthos but somewhat close, given how flat the bottom is. It will be possible to get pretty close.
Any of the BOPs are a PITA. The original is the worst as it is a model altered from the original one. Romulan to Klingon. If you can find decent images of it prior to being turned Klingon it might help with some of the planar issues you mentioned earlier. That one section of wing has all sorts of planes intersecting with it.
Worse is she was available for decent photos but nothing has gone public for them. So large areas are who knows or captured but in grainy moried up magazine scans.
Then ad din all the off plane bits you either have to have clones for squared up for easier modeling or have to live with it not being square to the world. YUCK. >_> Only thing I ever modeled off this were the wing guns for one of my other models and the ENT bop when all there was were the augment screen caps. I do not even want to open that mesh now we have more than a blurry 720p screen cap.
Then again that is part of the fun I guess. . . . . . . .
Yeah it was because ST3 was suppose to have Romulans instead of Klingons. The script change meant a change in the prop. So on went a load of greebs and green paint. AFAIK the photos are of the actual prop and not a early prototype. Someone else will probably have a link to the source etc. I think it was talked about in one of the making of books (not the illustrated ones) As I remember reading about this back in the late 80s in a used book store.
and no I have long forgotten where the images came from.
One thing that I seem to feel is there is a change of scale, well intended scale. Note those port holes. Not so sure they were that large in the final Klingon version of this. Really did love how they had actuators on those guns to look like they could aim. Also appear there are hinged on the tips too. Anyhow the studio model is a hot mess fo panels as you can see intentions in these photos that did not remain in the final iteration. As well as how panels added sorta made a mess of knowing what goes where.
Funny. My thought was always that the ship was rather small to be a practical whaling ship. It's more like a fishing boat.
No doubt. The "whaling" ship is all wrong and the Bird of Prey is too big. Whether or not it's the right type of ship, that's still a real world ship and we can see people in that shot, its size is easy to guesstimate. Based on the beginning of the film, the size of the bridge and the size of the head of the BOP when the crew abandons ship at the end of the film, it seems to me that the head shouldn't be any wider than the "whaling" ship. But, it clearly is. My best guess is that ILM had it properly scaled, showed it to Leonard Nimoy, and he wasn't impressed with the BOP's size, so it got enlarged. While it's a cool scene, it's clearly not correct on many levels.
@MadKoiFish - so what happened is that the first time they created a "Bird of Prey" it was supposed to be Romulan. I can see that because of the Romulan ships from TOS with the wing pattern painted on them. However, they changed the script to the Klingons and the rest is history. Like you say, they had to grunge and greeble the ship to make it appear more Klingon.
@evil_genius_180 Oh yeah, the scene in the water with the whale swimming by. I always thought that people felt that set piece (the bridge area in the abandon ship scene) wasn't big enough. But you are right, the people on the "Whaling ship" are way smaller compared to the bridge portion of the bop in the "block the harpoon" scene than Kirk and crew are in the water scene.
The bottom of this thing is making me crazy. Grrrrr. So another top shot. I reshaped the covers between and in front of the cooling grills so that they exactly match the model and added things to the back on top. There are also accuracy changes to the engine. I'm essentially undoing inaccuracies from using one of the drawings for lack of anything else at the time.
Posts
Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. (I knew that would tickle your fancy) Most of the greebles are from a Macross VF-1 Valkyrie model kit, and you'll have decent images and screen caps on some of it, but for others you'll have to rely on blurry images and bad angles to get a clear look at what's there. And then there's the part between the impulse engines. That part was removable, for motion rig and wiring access, and it's not in any of the still images of the model from after the series completed. Unfortunately, the HD remaster of the episode Peak Performance, which has a lovely shot of the back of the model, isn't even as a good a reference as you'd think. That shot couldn't be found when they did the series in HD, so it was redone with a pretty inaccurate CGI model. Your only other somewhat decent shot is when the Hathaway engages its warp drive. The DVD caps are almost useless as they're too small and blurry to make out the details.
So, yeah, lovely ship to do. I almost started another one a couple months ago, but I decided against it due to the amount of guesstimation that's involved in the build. (one reason I shy away from canon stuff in general, besides liking to design my own stuff)
Fortunately I have all your Constellation renders from here. Gosh it was a sight to behold.
I didn't have that model backed up and I had a hard drive foul up.
Does that mean you lost the render images too?
You mean on the box cover? I suspect that position was a symptom of the motors no longer working correctly. That was the position they were in in the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise." I always thought it looked odd, especially since the ships were attacking the Enterprise-D. Whenever we saw the BOP in battle previously, the wings were down.
@japetus Yeah this is going to take a while. Thanks though.
BTW Mike, I essentially grew up in Seattle. Lake Forest Park specifically. My brother and one of my sisters still live in the area. My oldest son lives near Mukiteo.
This is soooo true.
Yeah, but it wasn't originally supposed to be a fighting position. Also, we try to ignore that that the BOP is way too big in that scene.
The two stripes are the axes of the wings.
I don't know how to get them away in LW, sorry.
Worse is she was available for decent photos but nothing has gone public for them. So large areas are who knows or captured but in grainy moried up magazine scans.
Then ad din all the off plane bits you either have to have clones for squared up for easier modeling or have to live with it not being square to the world. YUCK. >_> Only thing I ever modeled off this were the wing guns for one of my other models and the ENT bop when all there was were the augment screen caps. I do not even want to open that mesh now we have more than a blurry 720p screen cap.
Then again that is part of the fun I guess. . . . . . . .
Bah cannot locate the images online so Ill upload em.
linkafied below vs inlined.
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/1.jpg
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/2.jpg
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/3.jpg
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/4.jpg
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/5.jpg
https://madkoifish.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/6.jpg
OK I googled it https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bird-of-Prey
and no I have long forgotten where the images came from.
One thing that I seem to feel is there is a change of scale, well intended scale. Note those port holes. Not so sure they were that large in the final Klingon version of this. Really did love how they had actuators on those guns to look like they could aim. Also appear there are hinged on the tips too. Anyhow the studio model is a hot mess fo panels as you can see intentions in these photos that did not remain in the final iteration. As well as how panels added sorta made a mess of knowing what goes where.
No doubt. The "whaling" ship is all wrong and the Bird of Prey is too big. Whether or not it's the right type of ship, that's still a real world ship and we can see people in that shot, its size is easy to guesstimate. Based on the beginning of the film, the size of the bridge and the size of the head of the BOP when the crew abandons ship at the end of the film, it seems to me that the head shouldn't be any wider than the "whaling" ship. But, it clearly is. My best guess is that ILM had it properly scaled, showed it to Leonard Nimoy, and he wasn't impressed with the BOP's size, so it got enlarged. While it's a cool scene, it's clearly not correct on many levels.
@evil_genius_180 Oh yeah, the scene in the water with the whale swimming by. I always thought that people felt that set piece (the bridge area in the abandon ship scene) wasn't big enough. But you are right, the people on the "Whaling ship" are way smaller compared to the bridge portion of the bop in the "block the harpoon" scene than Kirk and crew are in the water scene.