Hi,
It's been several years since I've done anything trek or posted here but now I have some free time off work and I've decided to build something I've always wanted.
The last we see of brand new movie era technology starships is the launch of the Refit-Excelsior class "Enterprise-B" in "Generations" and then we skip ahead (chronologically) to the TNG era where we see a lot of different TNG designs and in a few occasions we get a glimpse at past ships that were in between, like the Soyuz class or the Constellation class.
Now we know that the Ambassador class is the direct successor of the Refit-Excelsior and suppose to bridge the gap between the "Enterprise-B" and the "Enterprise-D" but the gap between the launch of the "Enterprise-B" and the "Enterprise-C" is nearly 50 years.
A lot can happen in 50 years and I want to explore that time period of technological development and try make a ship that would fit closely in between but closer in time to the movie era styling.
My goal is to take familiar parts from movie era starships and upgrade them to look a bit closer to TNG aesthetics but without loosing that movie era mechanical feel.
I don't have a finished concept in my head so I'll be just making this as I go along so if you have any suggestions or ideas I would love to hear them, though I can't guarantee taking all of the advises you give.
Posts
The Refit-Excelsior was the first to show bussard collectors with movie era nacelles but they were blue and barely noticeable.
To move that design further in time I made the bussards orangy/red and made blue grills that cover the warp coils underneath.
Lilith17.jpg
Lilith16.jpg
Lilith18.jpg
Lilith23.jpg
Lilith24.jpg
Lilith19.jpg
Lilith21.jpg
Lilith22.jpg
Really like the concept, and I'm already a big fan of your "evolution" of the Excelsior-class nacelle design. It has a "purposeful" look to it that recalls TMP-era design really nicely.
If I was going to call out one element that currently doesn't (to my eye) sit well, it would be your implementation of the secondary hull. Given the "integrated" nature of the rest of the design, the secondary hull looks a little "stuck on", hanging off the bottom as it does. It also looks like backyard step from the blended style started with the Excelsior and then carried forward to the Galaxy, Sovereign and Akira classes. I think I expected to see something a little more "integrated"- that said, there could be a good explanation for why the secondary hull is set apart from the main structure, and I just don't know it.
As for keeping the secondary hull apart - well, I wanted to retain the Constitution class appearance a bit but now that you mention it I have another idea and I will try it out soon.
For now, impulse drive is online!
Lilith29.jpgLilith28.jpg
Interesting ship!
PhilArt - I was beginning to think so myself but because I wanted to keep things up to scale with ships of the era I made the deflector dish the size it is on the Excelsior class (Considering the Excelsior is 467m) but to my surprise I found that there are few debates about that size and the real size is thought to be closer to 700m. With that in mind I've corrected the dish size and now it's more appealing, at least I think.
Samurai - I've added some more struts to the secondary hull to make it more fluid with the ship lines - tell me what you think about it now.
Lilith30.jpgLilith31.jpg
Lilith32.jpgLilith33.jpg
Lilith34.jpgLilith35.jpg
Aft torpedo launchers...
Lilith36.jpgLilith37.jpg
Very cool. I really like how you handles the innermost tube on the launchers, the actual tubes. Those phaser pods look great from that angle. The shapes on this thing are just cool. Very stylized; you're definitely pushing the bounds. Do I understand this ship is from the era after the original motion Pics but before Next Gen? That's my favorite era. The tech of the ship seems to all fit.
Lilith40.jpgLilith41.jpgLilith42.jpg
Lilith43.jpgLilith44.jpg
Lilith45.jpgLilith46.jpg
Lilith48.jpg
It took a great deal of effort to tweak the materials and lights to fit with what I've done thus far but I'm pretty satisfied with the results I got, apart from the noisy renders I get when I render the dark parts of the scene, I'll appreciate any suggestions from the Corona ppl here.
Lilith49.jpgLilith50.jpgLilith51.jpgLilith52.jpg
Lilith53.jpgLilith54.jpg
Lilith55.jpgLilith56.jpg
I've thought of similar concepts for phaser strips before. Maybe you want to put two turrets on, keeping the emitter count the same as the Connie that way.
Lilith58.jpgLilith59.jpgLilith60.jpgLilith61.jpg