Tallywhacker

[Warped9]

Fascinating where inspiration can come from. Weren't the forward grills on the TMP refit's nacelles inspired by the front end of a 1940's era Ford? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

Yesterday I was wandering by the furniture department of a Sears store and came across a chair that made me instantly think of Kirk's command chair in TMP. The child in me instantly wanted that chair although I did resist the impulse for such a needless purchase. It was a pretty comfortable chair, though.

ssosmcin wrote:

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Thaty may explain the excessive shine of light reflected off the neck in those shots. It always screamed out "MODEL" whenever I saw it.

The issue in recreating any of these ships as models is how to paint them. If you paint them as the studio models actually were then the colours can come across as too intense or garish. The alternative is to paint the model to recreate how it looked onscreen, which for me is generally the preferred way.

The blue on the dorsal was likely more apparent on the model under normal lighting than how subtly it appeared onscreen. Another example is the green colour on the TMP refit's secondary hull. It's hardly visible onscreen, but quite apparent on the actual filming miniature.

[Forbin]

^That's why I painted the neck on my 2nd pilot version of the PL 350 kit the same as the hull. First I tried to find or mix a blue that didn't look ridiculous to me. Could do it. So since I'd never even noticed it until Gary revealed it during his research for the kit, I just painted it hull color.
http://www.inpayne.com/models/350e2p1.html

[Forbin]

If you can find the color photo of Richard Datin & Co delivering the ol' girl to the studio - the one where they're standing on the sidewalk and the ship is in a cradle - you can see that the neck is metallic blue.

[Warped9]

^^ Did you augment the gridlines in some way? Or is it the lighting?

My intent is to build an idealized Pike era version. For the dorsal I was thinking of painting the dorsal with the same hull colour but with a suggestion of blue added to it.

[Lance]

I'm interested now. Did this gun turret thing ever make its way into subsequent models, or was it isolated to TOS? Was it ever there on the lower dome in the refit version seen in the movies?

[Warped9]

Lance wrote:

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I'm interested now. Did this gun turret thing ever make its way into subsequent models, or was it isolated to TOS? Was it ever there on the lower dome in the refit version seen in the movies?

No, as far as I know it was only on the series production version of the TOS E and now the Round2 1/350 kit of the TOS E.

Does anyone know if the lower dome of the 11 footer was ever replaced? And if not could the little thingy still be there?

[Carcazoid]

Warped9 wrote:

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No, as far as I know it was only on the series production version of the TOS E and now the Round2 1/350 kit of the TOS E.

Does anyone know if the lower dome of the 11 footer was ever replaced? And if not could the little thingy still be there?

No space weenie in this pic.

click


Or this one:

[plynch]

This is all very surprising, I must say.

Now, what's this about little antennas around the bridge? Sticking out in which direction?

[Warped9]

plynch wrote:

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This is all very surprising, I must say.

Now, what's this about little antennas around the bridge? Sticking out in which direction?

They are more like elongated bulbs on both port and starboard sides of the series production bridge.

Here is a pic of the 11 footer prior to its 1991 restoration. Note the little red thingy on the lower side of the bridge dome.



There's one on the other side as well. They look like they could be lights but there's no indication they were ever lighted.

[ZapBrannigan]

Forbin wrote:

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If you can find the color photo of Richard Datin & Co delivering the ol' girl to the studio - the one where they're standing on the sidewalk and the ship is in a cradle - you can see that the neck is metallic blue.

I scanned this pic from the April 2005 issue of the STAR TREK COMMUNICATOR, which makes no mention of the blue tint on the neck. And I have not altered the photo in any way:

[Forbin]

Warped9 wrote:

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^^ Did you augment the gridlines in some way? Or is it the lighting?

I think the too-many coats of clearcoat may have "piled up" on the surface of the saucer and made the grid look deeper! Otherwise, I streaked dark gray chalk pastel weathering backward from each radial gridline. I added the circumfrential seamlines around the 2ndary hull and nacelles to add a little extra visual interest. Those were NOT on the original, but I like them. I tired to keep the pastel work subtle and unMeireckie-like.

[CaptainDave1701]

More can be found here in this discussion....http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=32018&page=10

[Robert Comsol]

This is a difficult issue. Let's see if there's something I can contribute.

The original and unlit 11' VFX model for "The Cage" just had a somewhat transparent lower dome.

After the upgrades on the regular series model the dome was lit and had a nipple or something added to it. The best VFX close-up footage became available in "That Which Survives" and "Let That Be..."

I'll have to join the chorus of the skeptics. While we can clearly see that there is an opening or a dark dot on the nipple (the phaser bank/s in "The Doomsday Machine"?!), there is no visual indication for this tallywhacker. Don't let me be misunderstood: I won't categorically deny it might have been there, but the aforementioned Season Three close-up footage could indicate it had fallen off by the time this footage was shot.

Unfortunately, the close-up shots of the 11-footer in the Smithsonian are inconclusive as apparently the lower sensor dome had gone missing, too, and was replaced. At least the nipple would have to be there, but it's missing, so it's just another replacement part.

Bob

[Robert Comsol]

Warped9 wrote:

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Here is a pic of the 11 footer prior to its 1991 restoration. Note the little red thingy on the lower side of the bridge dome.



There's one on the other side as well. They look like they could be lights but there's no indication they were ever lighted.

I strongly believe these were intended to be lights and my firm belief stems from the fact that we do have one identical red thingy or "cone" on the upper engineering hull just ahead of the hangar dome.

Notice that the red translucent cone is surrounded by two circular windows. On the WNM pilot model the center objects of those "triumvirate" windows were lights (saucer bow, saucer underside port and starboard) but for a reason I do not know they decided not to turn the cone on the engineering hull into a light and decided to use the hangar dome instead as a running light.
When they prepped the 11-footer for the regular series they turned the hangar dome into a constant light and placed the running lights port and starboard, the cone remained unlit.

Curiously, TOS-R turned these running lights into ion pods and now turned the cone into a running light.

"In-Universe" I believe these cones to be subspace radio transmitters (looks to make sense to have such transmitters in close vicinity to the bridge, IMHO).

Bob

P.S. Note the little miniature train accessory people. If I'm not mistaken their international scale is 1:87 which might suggest the original model to have a scale of 1:96 or smaller if the turbolift extension is a reference for scale.
P.P.S I find the stern windows of the teardrop to be most perplexing. I had thought these to be circular.
P.P.P.S @Warped9
May we trouble you to tell us the link where you got this pre-"restoration" shot from?!?

[ZapBrannigan]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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P.S. Note the little miniature train accessory people. If I'm not mistaken their international scale is 1:87 which might suggest the original model to have a scale of 1:96 or smaller if the turbolift extension is a reference for scale.

I like to think the Bridge faces forward, and the external feature that looks like elevator housing is something else. This would make the ship a little bigger, but that's actually a good thing (up to a point; I'm not a JJ man).