Star Trek: A meandering look at an unproductive week...

I haven't been feeling too inspired to work on any models lately. I've been picking at these over the past week, but I can't seem to summon up any drive to work on them for anything more than a few minutes at a time. So, I thought maybe if I posted some pics, it might inspire me to get moving on some of them and replace them with pics that don't completely suck. I apologize in advance...

First up is the Sineus Class, this is meant to be a medium cruiser in the TOS era. I was all gungho about this one for about a week a few months back. Things started to fizzle after I couldn't figure out where to stick a hangar bay. I thought about in the pod slung underneath but I really wanted that to just be about the deflector and sensor machinery there. So then I thought in the strip of hull that the warp engines are attached to. Well that seems kinda cramped what with the warp engines there but I guess it could go there. The warp engines do angle up so they are above the plane of the primary hull. We'll see...

Star Trek: USS Excalibur Update V

Completely rebuilt the warp engines, although the back end is still unfinished, I'll probably throw in some light greeble back there. So these engines being experimental are sort of a merging of both circumferential and linear warp drives. Added a little character to the deflector dish, but it still needs more details. I still have to tear up some more hull plating to give it that under construction look all over but I'm deciding whether to give the secondary hull some more curve.

Star Trek: USS Enterprise 1701-D

Started on my first Next Generation ship, so why not tackle the one I've always wanted to tweak the most, the Enterprise. For whatever reason, this ship just has never sat well with me (no offense meant to those that love her). I don't know what in particular I didn't like, but I'm going to try and build a version that I find more palatable. So here's a start...

Star Wars: Tormentor Class Imperial Battlecruiser Update III

A few more bits here and there and even though I said I wouldn't do it, I started paneling, but no pics of that just yet. A better update next week (hopefully). Also, I've reworked the superstructure and the ventral hangar structure...

Star Trek: USS Excalibur Update IV

Worked a little on the impulse engines. At first, I thought about using one of Andrew Probert's discarded impulse engine designs from the refit from TMP, but as I was working I decided just to take what was done for TMP and dial it back a little so it looks like it's on its way to being the system we see in TMP but not quite there yet. I also tinkered with the warp engine grills, halved the number so they show up and aren't just an interference pattern in the renderings.

Star Wars: Tormentor Class Imperial Battlecruiser Update II

Greebling is still ongoing, it's really just plodding along but I'm almost halfway down the first trench there. I've made some changes to the hull, to help break up some of the plain expanse in the back (also had some bad angles that needed fixing). I'm really wanting to dive right into paneling but if I keep letting myself get distracted, the greebling is just going to take even longer. The big guns are in place now though. But anyway, here's some updated pics...

Star Trek: USS Bold Fury Deck Plans

Did a little more work on this, expanded the hangar a little since the shuttle was just barely fitting before... still getting the hang of inkscape...

Old GE Site Pics

Just added a page full of pics from the old version of the site, check out the page to your right there...

Star Trek: USS Excalibur Update III

Changed a bunch of stuff. What I intended to to was cut out some windows but one thing led to another and I never got to windows. But I did rebuild the bridge superstructure to make look like it was being rebuilt. Also scattered around some open spots on the upper side of the primary hull. Changed the main sensor/deflector dish to look more on the road to TMP version. Also rebuilt the hangar doors and worked on the hull around that area. And now Star Wars calls, probably work on some of that for the next post. Anyway, here's pics...

Star Wars: Tormentor Class Imperial Battlecruiser Update

Starting in on the greebling along the trench. I'm trying to make each greeble individually and not just copy and paste the same 5 or 6 that was my previous effort. So this is taking much longer, lol. The guns are just there as placeholders while I figure out their final placement.

Star Trek: USS Excalibur - Update II - The Wrath of...

More work and reworking done to the warp engines and pylons. After some discussion at TrekBBS I went with some of the suggestions there and ended up with this latest version of the engines.

Star Trek: USS Excalibur - Update

I was looking this model over the other day and I decided I didn't like the engines I had come up with for the refit Excalibur. I wanted something that would indicate that this ship was repaired at a time just before the major advances seen in the refit Enterprise. I wanted this model to show upgrades in their early stages that would be fully realized in the Enterprise.

Star Wars: Tormentor Class Imperial Battlecruiser

This is the latest version of this model that I've been working on for literally years. It's meant to be a bridge between the Venator and Imperator classes. I imagined this as something that would have been brought into service towards the end of the clone wars, and then the prequels came out and ruined the clone wars for me, but I digress... Anyway, this is smaller than an Imperator but bigger than a Venator, I'll get more accurate dimensions later. And yes, I know it hasn't got any engines yet.

Star Wars: Imperial TIE Avatar Update III

Added some brake lights, not sure why they have them, they're probably supposed to be something else but that's what they look like to me. Also started adding some greebling and detail lines here and there.

Star Trek: USS Pandemus - Update

Once again, a small update, just added some bits and did some tweaking here and there. I'll have a more thorough update soon though.

Battlestar Galactica: Galactica Redesign

Did a small amount of work on this model today. Mainly just rebuilt the hangar pods, and worked on the engines a little. Mostly it's just a lot of tweaking here and there to get the shape to look right to me. Since it's a redesign I don't have to worry about accuracy but it still has to look right proportionately. Considering how many unfinished models I have, I really don't have any business tinkering with this one, once you start greebling this is going to be as complex as a Star Destroyer...

Star Wars: Imperial TIE Avatar Update II

Got some more work done to this...

Star Wars: Imperial TIE Avatar - Update I

Got some more work done on this. All the parts have been completely rebuilt now. On to detailing now...

Star Wars: Imperial TIE Avatar WIP

Some people bashing The Empire Strikes Back, the GREATEST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER, motivated me to finally get back to polishing up my old Star Wars models. So here's the progress on the Avatar. This was supposed to be a post-ROTJ fighter, I'll have to dig up the write up I did for it on the original site and post it with the updates. Mostly I've just worked on rebuilding the cockpit and struts, the wings are untouched at this point except for the cannons.

Star Trek - USS Pandemus

There was a discussion over at TrekBBS regarding shuttle carriers and I started sketching some ideas. Well I soon drifted away from a carrier and ended up with this that I'm classifying as a repair ship. The big open bay will have doors eventually and that will be where most of the repair work would be completed. I figure that parts that are too big to fit would likely be repaired in place or the ship would have to be towed to a dockyard. The smaller cut out towards the front of the cylindrical section would be for breaking down debris that can be reconstituted into useful parts. As with all the stuff I post it's still under construction.