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3DJR WIP Thread

JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
I'm taking a crack at a Romulan Bird of Prey to go with the JR-Prise. In my mind this ship fits between the Romulan BoP from Enterprise and the B'Rel BoP (or whatever the FASA manual calls the Romulan version). In JR-Trek this is the ship in "Balance of Terror," although it could also make sense that this one is the contemporary BoP type and the ship Kirk fights is an Enterprise era vessel that was pulled out of mothballs for the plasma torpedo experiment. In the later case, maybe the warp drive broke down because it is crazy old, but if it is my version of the ship I have a different explanation. Before destroying one of the Federation colonies, the ship landed so her captain could take a Vulcan love slave. The colonists made an attempt to fight back, and succeeded in damaging the ship so that the wings are stuck in the landing position. In the upward position, the warp engines do not have sufficient line-of-sight to operate. Therefore, no warp and the long limp back to the neutral zone.

I'm not terribly thrilled with the overall shape of the ship yet, and I'm struggling with the transition from the organic John Eaves BoP, to the non-organic B'Rel, to the organic D'Deridex. Enterprise had some great moments, but it caused so many problems. It's a struggle to think of Romulan ships as having anything but smooth flowing lines, and yet the B'rel is clearly a Romulan ship. I can't think of any other Klingon ships from the movies or show that have wings, except for the Enterprise era BoP. As an aside, does that ship make any sense? Are the Romulans and Klingons operating unrelated ship types with the same name?

Anyway, I'm questioning the bird head - I think I will keep it and pull vertices around until it works somehow. It's a little nonsensical, but the Romulans are the guys who rejected logic and went with their passions instead, right? They're supposed to be even more emotional and passionate than humans, although that never comes across on screen, but in theory putting unnecessary flourishes on their ships is in character. The D'Deridex has the bird head, but the B'rel doesn't, so that's a little strange. I may not being able to smooth over that one.

Incidentally the head only contains the main deflector, but I may add the shield generator pipe from the B'rel to it later. The bridge is back between the shoulder blades, where it was on the TOS BoP.

The comb on the bird head probably helps form a magnetic barrel for the plasma torpedo. Otherwise the head would need to be lower down, and I didn't like it any lower than it is.

The rear wing is the landing gear in its retracted position. One can only imagine the kind of articulation it will take for that shape to come forward and turn into legs, but I'm sure it can be done.
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BrandenbergJESpsCargile
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Posts

  • The_meshmasterThe_meshmaster1 Posts: 0Member
    Holy crap...Awsome work...
  • StarriggerStarrigger475 Posts: 698Member
    That is one pretty bird!
    Come on over to my place CGI Worlds
  • trekkitrekki939 Posts: 1,394Member
    That is very nice!
  • I love it. :)
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    I'm glad everyone likes it. IMO It's got some not-so-good angles, and doesn't look as good with the wings down, and I'm still questioning the bird head. I may have resolved the inorganicness of the B'rel as a reductionist period in Romulan art. It's like, most Ferraris are styled by Pininfarina, but then there's the odd duck GT4 styled by Bertone. I can picture Romulans having famous stylists who go over the ships once the engineering is done, and sculpt them until they are lustworthy, because that is not the logical way to design ships. It may be why they didn't conquer more than they did. So the norm for Romulan ships is curvy and sexy, but then there's a brief period in the TMP era where shapes get broken down into their basic forms, and there's a move to a more industrial aesthetic. By the TNG era, that art movement has passed and Romulan ships have returned to sensual curves. Is that a fun backstory? I'm going to try knocking down some of the curves in this bird though and see how it looks. Storywise, I'd explain it as the reductionist era beginning to creep in.
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    I found this comment, in an article about the Gabe Koerner Connie being mistaken for the new JJ-Prise, back in 2007 -
    Mazzer

    They’re pretty — but it’s not Star Trek. I think that the more plates and bolts you show, the more you’re getting into the “Jules Verne” aesthetic, where 19th century technologies are used to project futuristic machines.

    I think that a more convincing Enterprise would have a smooth simplicity, like the one from ST The Motion Picture.

    Link

    I've got similar concerns about the way Trek ships are going to age, and how to treat the design of Trek ships. I've avoided "reimagining" Trek, but at some point the Trek design language is going to look like Victorian age depictions of rockets with bat wings and fish fins. Badly dated, whimsical at best. Maybe you would call it greeble-punk. I'm going to start using that to describe the 70's-to-present day design language for sci-fi tech. Greeble-punk. Unless someone's coined a better name for it, but I haven't heard one. Anyway, greeble-punk will look ridiculous in the future. People are going to get used to seeing single piece, 3d printed, generative designs that look like alien organisms. Greeble-punk will be the new steampunk. So how can I future-proof my designs, while remaining true to the source material? I don't believe Trek ships will actually be built of any variation of steel, using rib-and-spar construction and panels. It's more likely the hull would be one piece, 3d-printed from meta-materials that haven't been invented yet. The empty hull of a Connie might be something you could lift. It might not even respond to gravity or inertia. I don't think Trek fans would accept anything as radical as that though, and they wouldn't want to see a generatively designed Connie. Maybe it would be acceptable in a post-TNG era, but it won't take that long to happen in real life. Star Wars might be able to survive the end of the greeble-punk era, it will just become more fantasy than it was before, but Trek has a real problem.
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    I spent a considerable amount of time pulling around the proportions. I'm still not 100% on the shape, especially with the wings down, but It's much better. I'm starting to feel good about it. Good enough to put a few details in. I'm not going crazy on details - I did when I was younger but now, only what the shot needs. It was a little disheartening to see how low-rez the models in the Next Gen movies were, but they worked fine on screen. So did the Christmas tree ornaments on DS9, who knew? If I can have more greebles or more ships, I'm going to bet the latter option is the way to go
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    BrandenbergJESpubliusr
  • RekkertRekkert4037 Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPosts: 2,302Member
    Very nice design! It looks almost like a dragon, very menacing.

    The double neck design reminds me a bit of the Griffin-class from Armada.
    For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    Rekkert wrote: »

    The double neck design reminds me a bit of the Griffin-class from Armada.

    Could be coming from the same place, I wanted to work Probert's double neck design in somewhere. I mean, It's on the D'Deridex in vertical form, but That's a little different than what he had going on when the D'Deridex's wings were vertical.
  • ChanurChanur191 53.33° N / 10.00° EPosts: 305Member
    Pretty cool, you're on a good way with this bird!
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    dct8jyt-9deb9ec1-e34c-4552-925f-620a3b21507d.jpg

    It may not look like it, but I've made a lot of proportion changes in an attempt to make this look better with the wings down. It's amazing how the B'rel BoP has no bad angles, but mine has plenty. I think it's because the B'Rel has one big center of mass in the body, but mine tries to be sleeker in the body while having two big masses on the wingtips. Looks fine with the wings up, but not so great when they're down. I'm sure it would look better with a bulkier body and little guns on the wingtips. I'll get it worked out.

    It's looking pretty sweet in the landing configuration, but I need to cock the nose up to keep the beak off the ground. Or I could leave it as is and say it makes the deflector module easy to service. I wonder if this ship is big enough to have a hallway in the neck?
    BrandenbergJESpubliusr
  • StarshipStarship464 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,976Member
    Beautifull!
    Updates?
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    dcuvngl-724552e9-62c4-4da0-ace8-8681ce272895.jpg

    Back on the BoP again. I'm glad I took a break until I had a better idea for what to do with the wing down position. I'm sure the wing mechanism will have to be excessively complicated to make it swing back as well as down, but I don't think that's inconsistent with the emotional nature of the Romulans. This ship may have taught them a lesson about having too many moving parts, by the TNG era the Romulans appear to have given up wing articulation entirely. You'd think by then they could do Transformers or Macross Battroids.

    The middle wing positin will now be the attack position, and maybe also the normal space cruise position. Or the down position could be both the warp and normal space cruise configuration. I suppose it depends on the mood of the captain.

    Starship - It's getting better but I didn't like the previous wing down position. I think I've finally got it, if I can work out the mechanics of the wing articulation without it being too overwrought.
    JES
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
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    Developing the wing articulation. It's going to have plenty of moving parts, but it's not so complicated that you can't understand how it works. The wing roots tilt up and down, and the spars swing back in forth in the wing root. The feathers rotate on the forward spar to stay aligned with the centerline of the ship. While the wing won't be useful for any kind of storage, it could still work as a radiator or a transmitter, and it's also good for holding the warp engines apart.

    Speaking of warp engines on a Bird of Prey, I wonder if the B'rel lacks visible warp engines as an explanation for why the TOS Bird of Prey couldn't go to warp? Was the B'rel also meant to be sublight only at some point? It sounds crazy, but the wing articulation was Nimoy's idea, he put some thought into what the B'rel should be. Maybe Nimoy did mean for the B'rel to be sublight, but then everything fell apart as the script evolved.
    JES
  • bosunbosun62 Posts: 0Member
    I'm visualizing how that articulation would look, and it's pretty cool. Will you be able to animate it so we can see it happen?
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    The mockup wing is animated. I can't say it's really great yet. It feels like a needless transformation - needs to be more an easily apparent reason to have the wings in each position.

    I've got a YouTube channel with a few low quality animations - XTIN Film
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
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    Here's the point where this one is officially starting to work for me. The wing sweep animation was bothering me before, but it's much more fascinating now with the negative space morphing as the wing swings. The negative space in the wing matches the space in the neck too, which IMO greatly improves the design with the wings swept back. I'm happy enough with the wings that I can move on to the attachment at the warp nacelles. The wings are going to work. The only problem I have now is that it seems like this could just as well be two different ships. Well, the warp engines have better line-of-sight in the back and down position, and the forward and up position would gather the mass of the warp engines around the center of gravity of the ship and make pitching rotations faster at sublight. I doubt it makes enough difference to justify articulating the wing, but since the wing has to articulate for landing, the forward swept attack position doesn't cost anything. It'd be great if the two configurations more obviously said ""I'm for high speed warp"" and ""I'm for combat"" though.
    JES
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    romulan_bird_of_prey_wip_08_by_jrxtin_dcv49ac-fullview.jpg

    Here's an idea I'm not sure about yet. On the one hand, this definitely looks functionally different than wing-swept-forward mode. I think everyone can get that the wings are changing shape for the purpose of going fast. But is it still a Bird of Prey? Give me some feedback, does this expand the BoP lore in a good way or a not good way? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any Trek ship, other than Voyager, that has to transform before going to warp. I don't think the B'rel has to have the wings in cruise position to go to warp, although it normally would. We don't see a lot of really wide ships in Trek though, I'm not sure if the long ships are necessarily faster but surely it takes more power to warp a wide ship than a long one. Than again, it's a warp ""bubble,"" not a tunnel, so maybe only the total volume counts?

    I've got two versions here, and I'm not sure which is best. Version A has the best line of sight between the warp nacelles, but getting the nacelles into that position won't be easy. The animation of the wings coming forward is kind of interesting, it has sort of an ""up and over"" effect - the nacelles go up and then come down as the wings pivot outward. The nacelles end up over the wings in the swept forward position too, which doesn't look as good as hanging below the wingtips, but is more similar to the TOS BoP.

    Version B has a problem with the wings blocking line-of-sight between the warp nacelles, but it will be easier to design a mechanism that gets the nacelles to this position. One of the nice things about version B is that the swept back wing position from the previous post is still possible. This ship could have at least four wing positions - although with the amount of articulation the wing has, more are possible. I don't know what they'd be good for, but they could be done.

    I'm going to have to reflect on this. It feels like too much, I'm not sure Trek fans will like it.
    BrandenbergJES
  • DannageDannage236 Posts: 634Member
    At the end of the day you have to design for yourself. For me, the only thing I don't like is the large fronts of the nacelles (just behind the spike) but that's just me. The work here is excellent! :)
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
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    Wings finished. I'm not sure this is totally Star Trek, but I'm pleased with the way the action of the wings turned out. On to the landing gear . . .

    Dannage - It's my goal to turn this into some kind of official Trek product. I don't think I can do a lot of animation with the equipment I've got, but I can do a comic. No one reads comics anymore, but who knows, maybe this will be different . . . Maybe you guys will like my ships so much Eaglemoss will have no choice but to pick them up, and I can bundle a comic with the ships . . . So it's good if I'm not the only one who likes the designs.

    I'm not sure what I'll do with the warp engines yet. If this is a TOS era ship, they'll stay about as they are now, but I'm wondering if this is the successor to the B'rel instead of the predecessor?
    BrandenbergsrspicerJES
  • bosunbosun62 Posts: 0Member
    Could start out as the predecessor, and a refit could be the successor.
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
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    This is going to be a little complicated. For some reason I'm getting strange effects when animating parts that are parented to other parts. Really not much fun to work with.


    bosun - who knows . . . I've got to figure out what I need storywise, but I may be stuck on this landing gear for a while.
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
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    I'm happy with the feather pattern, and the gear down configuration looks good from some angles, if it's lit right, but it's also kind of crap. It needs a Michael Bay Transformers level of transformation to be really good in the down position. I could do it, but it's not the art I need the most to get where I want to go. I'll probably never need it at all, I just want to show you, the viewer, that I've put some thought into how this design works. Not enough to call the design finished, but at the end of the day how many times did you see the B'rel in its landing configuration, or Voyager? Only once or twice each. So I think I'll move on to the foot and then try to finish the modelling on this one.
    Brandenbergmerritt258JES
  • DannageDannage236 Posts: 634Member
    Well, it doesn't need to be Trek to have a comic.

    Looking at that penultimate picture, try it with a blue colour scheme instead of the white. Then look at your blue and red ship and consider a ship from my childhood which I believe was called the Pheonix... From Battle of The Planets.

    You could totally kill a reboot of that with this design!
  • StarshipStarship464 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,976Member
    JRXTIN wrote: »
    I'm happy with the feather pattern, and the gear down configuration looks good from some angles, if it's lit right, but it's also kind of crap. It needs a Michael Bay Transformers level of transformation to be really good in the down position. I could do it, but it's not the art I need the most to get where I want to go. I'll probably never need it at all, I just want to show you, the viewer, that I've put some thought into how this design works. Not enough to call the design finished, but at the end of the day how many times did you see the B'rel in its landing configuration, or Voyager? Only once or twice each. So I think I'll move on to the foot and then try to finish the modelling on this one.

    She´s looking very good for my eyes.
    Go ahead! :thumb:
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    Dannage wrote: »
    Well, it doesn't need to be Trek to have a comic.

    Looking at that penultimate picture, try it with a blue colour scheme instead of the white. Then look at your blue and red ship and consider a ship from my childhood which I believe was called the Pheonix... From Battle of The Planets.

    You could totally kill a reboot of that with this design!

    I'm guessing Battle of the Planets doesn't have the same fanbase that Star Trek does. Who owns the rights to it? The advantage to Star Trek was that CBS used to be friendly to fan projects (maybe not so much anymore), the fanbase is like no other, and I know the lore reasonably well. I could learn the lore for Battle of the Planets, but I don't know if there's a big enough fan base to support a BoP comic or if I could get the license. I could draw the art style though, or get really close. I really doubt I could fund it though, I've thrown hundreds of free pages out there to little avail and will not be taking the ""give it away and pray"" route anymore.
    markmassey
  • JRXTINJRXTIN161 Posts: 77Member
    I put the wing pattern on the inner legs in, but I'm having doubts about continuing with this. The parties responsible for Star Trek appear to be in such a state of chaos, I doubt it would be possible to work with them. I was hoping to come to a licensing arrangement that would allow me to raise funds for an official product, but I don't think that's possible now.
  • DannageDannage236 Posts: 634Member
    Yeah, They don't feel like a crew ready to bring smaller talents into the fold. Have you tried approaching some of the publishers who already do Trek comics? Maybe you could find some sort of sub-contracting deal?

    I spent 2018 trying to get people to do stuff for me for free, now I can't even find people who want 'small amounts of cash', looks like everyone wants the big paychecks, but I guess they gotta make a living!

    I still encourage you to get this ship to somewhere you'd consider it done. If they won't get you a comic, maye you could at least get into a Ships of the Line calendar or something? This model is far too pretty to abandon!
  • StarshipStarship464 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,976Member
    Dannage wrote: »
    ... This model is far too pretty to abandon!

    Totally right! :thumb: Dannage, how you doing old beam?

    Please, go ahed JRXTIN!
  • DannageDannage236 Posts: 634Member
    Starship wrote: »
    Totally right! :thumb: Dannage, how you doing old beam?

    Please, go ahed JRXTIN!

    Ah all is well here young Cassio, though the world is a much more... complicated.. place since we used to flood these pages with our works. :) I hope all is well with you and the family.

    As for Jrxtin, I hope this beauty gets finished and ends up in the completed works section with some beauty shots.
    publiusr
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