mavek

Here is a fun digression. I love a good blueprint and have done a 2d version of the Cassiopeia in inkscape, like this for example:



But it is so unforgiving, every line has to be drawn and redrawn for every view, I always wanted to have a 3d model version to pull views off, from any angle. A little tweak of the toon work results in this:



Need to do a rotation for the model, and then this is going in the background of a bridge display

I would like to share some of my work in progress. I have been toying with an idea for a Star Trek show fan film for years. I was always interested in a trek cartoon, until last year that hadn't been heard of in 40 years.

Any way, I have been playing around in Blender for years, but never modelled any thing. I wanted a toon looking trek ship for ages. There are some interesting shaders and using freestyle to get a fun look. However trying to back convert an existing mesh into something freestyle friendly is almost as much work as starting from scratch, so I did that instead.

My in world head canon is that there was a trek cartoon tv show attempted in the early 90s, after Star Trek VI, called Age of Warp. It is set between the movies and next generation, because I love those ship designs. The goal is to acheive a toon look that is consistent with what cartoons were like then (as opposed to now) so Ulysses31, G.I Joe, Transformers, Batman Animated series etc etc. The main ship is the Cassiopeia, which is a Constellation Class Starship. I am starting with that ship, but hope to get a free more ship sized asset together before moving to internal sets.

This is about 60% done, but in a state I think is ready to share.

Thanks for the compliments guys.

Two updates, mirror, mirror, mirrored all the nacelles, added a lot of greebles and some reverse view. I think the constellations is one of the most greebly trek/federation ships

I spent some time on working on the interior, I really want to get stuck into doing the bridge, but felt it better to experiment in the corridor, here is a fairly cool place to play with shapes and material. This, in blender, is modelled to actual size.

I decided to take a break from greebles and do a quasi-speed model. The Type5 shuttle craft, slightly updated.

I have been wanting to do this model for years. It is actually a great one to start with to practise modelling skillz!

I wanted to redo the Cassiopeia as a cartoon at warp. This is all done in blender. The stars and streaks were done via a particle system, I am very happy with how it turned out

So this is Chris Khun's model of the EnterpriseC/Ambassador class. I wanted to see how easy or hard it is to convert a mesh over to the toon style. Chris works in blender too, so that meant that things like the edge loops were still preserved, which makes it very easy to select edges you wish to mark. That all been said I still have to do some significant rework, the whole saucer is redone and never all the textures had to be reselected and reassigned, but I think it turned out great.



If you are interested here is the same model in the same position, but rendered in cycles, which took over 8 hours to render, the toon image comes in in under 4 minutes, with freestyle edges to boot:

OK, I knuckled down and finsihed off the constellation class. I have been working on a few side ideas, mainly to try and find a way to unify the style, to make it look more cartoon like. I will post the others later. Here though is the finished Cassiopeia:

Time for an update. I don't know about you, but my year has been busy. Any way, inspired by the UK release of the Ships of the Line calendar January 2021, I tried to recreate a scene of the Cassiopeia leaving Spacedock in the Cartoon style:



I was convinced to complete this image because I wanted to test out the halftoning shader released last week to see if I could make the scene look like a page from a 80s-ish comic books:



All models by me.

Here is a re-texture of a MAX mesh imported into blender of Vanguard station by David Metlesits.

I figure that the TOS built infrastructure would still be in use in the era post TOS movies, even if there was some re decalling.