Renaissance Class

[Andymator]

Another thread gave me a fun idea; to try and flesh out that elusive Renaissance Class starship from the infamous TNG Season 4 observation lounge okudagram.

There isn't a whole lot of on-screen reference to go on, some names and registry numbers appearing here and there, and a couple of lines of dialogue about the USS Aries.

As for licensed tie-in material, apparently the ship is mentioned in the TNG Technical Manual (which I don't have), but also makes an appearance in two issues of DC's TNG comic (which I fortunately do have).



I slapped together all the reference I could find in the comics. It's kind of ugly, and it's also inconsistent from panel to panel, but the goal is to try and be faithful to the basic idea of the ship while hopefully making it feel a little more... "pretty"?



Anyway, I did a quick 15 minute sketch of a front on view just kind of eyeballing it. I tried to reconcile as many of the features with the stuff shown in the comic, while streamlining some stuff and trying to add some appeal to the shapes, etc...

I'd love it if anybody else who's got ideas for how to approach this would throw in a sketch or a rough render or whatever. What do you guys think?

[Kaiser]

I always concidered the comic version as a Cannon design for that class and Good drawing there

[Blip]

Nice! I would recommend either updating the saucer rim a bit (I'm thinking of the Tobias Richter/Andrew Probert Enterprice-C, here) or backdating the deflector - right now the two seem to a bit anachronistic when compared with each other...

I'm glad someone is finally tackling this properly though; I think the only other attempt I'd seen was essentially an Ambassador-class kitbash with very little modification!

[Andymator]

Thanks guys. I agree about updating the saucer, that's just a super rough start I've got so far. The finished version would have to be much more fleshed out. I'll try to play around with some shapes if I get chance this weekend. Maybe I'll come up with something cool... who knows?

[Atolm]

you know it could be analogous to the Voyager developmental ship:
http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/images/idl-1.gif
Nice work btw

[Mage]

Atolm wrote:

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you know it could be analogous to the Voyager developmental ship:
http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/images/idl-1.gif
Nice work btw

Wasn't that a Nova class development ship?

In any case, looking forward to this. I liked the Renaissance as seen in the comics, so I'd love to see you flesh that out and make it your own.

[Blip]

Nope, it was part of the design lineage while the Intrepid-class was in the development stage (the image is part of an article that IIRC was written by Rick Sternbach).

Atolm, I agree -- maybe that if that design was devolved a little towards the Ent-C era it could work.

[Mage]

Blip wrote:

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Nope, it was part of the design lineage while the Intrepid-class was in the development stage (the image is part of an article that IIRC was written by Rick Sternbach).

Atolm, I agree -- maybe that if that design was devolved a little towards the Ent-C era it could work.

Ah, my mistake. Do you know if that article is online somewhere? I'd love to read it.

[Blip]

Sorry, no idea offhand. If you drag and drop the image into Google Image Search it may come up with a location though (I'd be more helpful if I wasn't typing from my mobile! )

[Mage]

Blip wrote:

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Sorry, no idea offhand. If you drag and drop the image into Google Image Search it may come up with a location though (I'd be more helpful if I wasn't typing from my mobile! )

Thanks, I'll give it a go.


*EDIT* Found it, interesting read. Thanks for the tip.

[Atolm]

here you go mate:
http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/intrepid.html

[Andymator]

I spent an hour or so playing around with some shapes and trying to see what works and what doesn't. Still pretty basic, but it's kind of starting to make some sense heheheh. I should be working on storyboards for Star Trek Triton but a little fun now and then never hurt anybody!



That Voyager concept looks very close! I should take a few cues from that...

[Wingsley]

The ultra-thick neck you're using looks more like a VOY or post-VOY design to me. YMMV.

If you are aiming for more of a TNG or pre-TNG-era design, you might want to examine some views of the Ambassador-class orthos shown here.

[Bell'Orso]

Actually, having a neck at all seems like a rather significant departure from the template. It looks to me like the saucer sits right on top of the secondary hull, almost like on Voyager.

As far as using a neck goes, I must say the one you currently have is way too thick either way. On a more fluently shaped design it might work, but not here, I'm sorry. The rest, however, seems like a solid start.

[Andymator]

Bell'Orso wrote:

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Actually, having a neck at all seems like a rather significant departure from the template. It looks to me like the saucer sits right on top of the secondary hull, almost like on Voyager.

As far as using a neck goes, I must say the one you currently have is way too thick either way. On a more fluently shaped design it might work, but not here, I'm sorry. The rest, however, seems like a solid start.

Really? I honestly see a short and thick "neck" in the vast majority of panels in the comic! I guess that's the thing about working from these vague sketchy references heheheh; everybody is going to see something different.

To anybody who has a different interpretation - please feel free to post a sketch or image manipulation of what I've posted or whatever showing what you're thinking! In the meantime whenever I get a chance I'll try to come up with some refinements to the "neck" area.