Put my "super duper futuristic" starship on hold since I kept beating my head against the wall trying to improve on the design. Came up with this one as I had been wanting to try experimenting with a cutoff saucer shape that I had seen on Disco and in some other fan art renders. If anybody knows the name of the class of ship this is, or what it most closely resembles, please let me know!
I'm also trying to concentrate more on detailing with this one. I know greebling in Trek is a tough topic since some of the canon ships (Miranda class, for example) feature some greebles, but to add too many can quickly steer into Star Wars territory. I've used Chipp Walters KitOps addon for a while now and decided to try adding some of those elements onto this hull to give it a little more detail and dynamic.
Still wrestling with hull panels on this one. I cut some of the shapes using edges in the topology, some booleans, and also some roughness and specular maps. It's a bit of a hodge-podge, but it kinda' works?
Windows and lighting boxes are next. But I've gone pretty hard on this one for the last week so I might take a little bit of a break to rest my brain.
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Thanks! I'm a MN boy.
"yeah, final frontier, doncha know?"
"It's great, but I hear dey got dose Klingons out dere. Dey can be a bit of work."
Seriously though, I LOVE this design, it's simple and looks nice and quick, it's like a stripped down starship. And I love the name too. We have a California class, why not a Minnesota class? I can imagine the backstory to this ship, where they needed a bunch of ships quickly so this was tough little ship was made to fill in the gaps.
Thanks! She's designed as a sort of frigate, engineered for speed and maneuverability with firepower. Based on the scale I'm using for my models, she's about half the size of a Constitution class.
I wondered if it might have been named for Mankato, MN lol. I'm about an hour or so from there
The details in this thing are excellent too. I like the idea that in smaller ships, things didn't fit comfortably inside of the hull, so it would be necessary that they squeeze through and are open to space. I also think your deflector is particularly good.
A thing that irks me is that spot on the top of the saucer, behind the bridge where the things in that equipment bay come really close to the edge. I think they're a bit too close and it would look a little more solid with some space added between the equipment bay and the edge of the saucer, (and maybe even more than in that little paint drawing).
I think your nacelles are interesting too. Sort of a transition between TOS and TMP with round nacelles from the former and saucer and impulse engine details from the latter.
Thanks, man! High praise coming from you!