Slowly working the details. You can see the impulse housing and I've begun to detail the anti-grav impulse hardware. There will be more bits going into there. You can also see the lower sensor array on the underside of the saucer. I've also shortened the prow of the secondary hull just a little so now it's a bit less prominent. It's also been tempered by the beginning of detail that will eventually fit into the underside of that area. Oh, and I can say with assurance that there won't be any gridlines added to this.
An early concept for a possible shuttlecraft design. Scale could be a bit off as the new design would be distinctly larger than the familiar TOS design.
Some progression. Gradually adding the bits that flesh the design out. I think it's beginning to look like more realized and less like a concept sketch. If my progression seems glacial it's because I'm now getting into details I hadn't conceived intially and now I want to add things that compliment the design as best as I can without just slathering things on. The approach I'm taking is a reflection of how I saw the TOS Enterprise in my mind's eye all those years: clean, sleek, not overly cluttered and interesting shapes suggestiong advanced and powerful technology.
Taking a bit of a breather from making parts to fiddle with something else: modifying or maybe even designing my own font as well as coming up with something different in terms of a main navigational deflector system. Suffice to say a parabolic dish or variation thereof has been done to death so I'd like to have something that looks at least a bit different. In terms of using a font I don't think the old Airborne or Amarillo USAF fonts would look right on this design. A variant or vatiation of Microgamma (the same font used by Franz Joseph in his drawings) might work or at least be a good place to start.
when i first saw this i thought 'ewww!' that front looks horrible.. but now seeing it evolving i am kind if liking how its coming along
Thank you. I appreciate the encouragement. Here's my thinking for the navigational deflector. It's basically a rectancle with rounded corners with a similar smaller box within but cut into slats. I'm thinking of a glowing element in the centre that could shine on the slats that will be reflective. It's kind of odd because the setup I have for the impulse drive is how I basically envisioned for the deflector while the idea I'm trying for the nav deflector would have worked nicely for the impulse drive. Weird. I'm not sure it was entirely concious on my part, but I do see some interesting things in this design that perhaps one could rationalize. The sturdier dorsal and pylons in addition to a lot less of the secondary hull extending back and the bulk of the nacelles extending forward could be seen as centralizing more of the ship's mass. This could possibly greatly benefit the ship's maneuverability as less mass is hanging out far from the ship's centre. And while I credit the TOS and TMP designs with being made of very advanced materials and very advanced construction techniques the simple fact is you would still be exerting a lot of torsional stress on those slim dorsal and pylons. This wasn't really a concious consideration when I was designing this, but maybe it was there lurking in the back of my mind. I wanted a design that remained graceful while also looking a bit sturdier. Believe it or not my original concept did not have the nacelles tapering aft of the pylons. My original nacelles were more like jet engine pods. It was visually interesting yet also a bit visually unbalanced. The tapering extensions of the nacelles were somewhat meant to evoke the "swooshing" lines drawn in comics when showing an object in fast motion. I then played with the shape and proportions so that they looked more balanced as they sat on the pylons. The tapering nacelles could also suggest the shape of the warp field as "normal" space is theoretically "squeezing" the warp field bubble forward. So the warp field, as seen from the side, might look more like a rain drop rather than a soap bubble. I never really intended for the pylons to connect to the secondary hull at a perfect 45 degrees. They were always meant to connect at a sharper angle. I also found that if the connection point were at 45 degrees than they were set too low on the secondary hull. Also almost from the beginning the pylons were not likely to connect to the nacelles at a perfect 45 degrees, given the unusual shape of the nacelles. seen from the front or back the nacelles are neither ovoid or cylindrical. The outboard sides are half spheres with a short extension between the two halves. The nacelle angles into the inner cylinder directly in line to its radial centre. But with the unusual cross-section this creates the illusion that the pylon meets the nacelle on its inboard side which it doesn't. Trying to connect the pylons to the underside of the nacelles made the angle of the pylons much too shallow. That is also difficult to reconcile given the unusual shape of the nacelle. The cross-section of the nacelles is mimicked with the secondary hull. From the side elavtions the secondary hull is basically a rocket like nose cone (or Starfleet delta) with parts chopped away to make the fantail, the hangar cutout and the nav deflector section. Seen from the bow or stern the secondary hull is a cylinder cut in two with a small extension between the two halves, just like the nacelles. And considering where the dorsal connects to the secondary hull there is comparatvely little of said hull extending fore or aft of the dorsal. Again this can be seen as less of the ship's mass hanging out far from a central connecting point. Also the secondary hull needed to be widened to look visually balanced with the tickened dorsal as seen from the bow or stern. A consequence (or possible benefit) of a wider support hull means more available space in the shuttlecraft hangar area. Shuttlecraft could be berthed to each side of the flight deck rather than underneath and thus freeing up that space for something else. Although the bridge does still reside at the top of the saucer it does not sit right under the topmost dome. That shallow dome is not literally the Bridge's ceiling. There is meant to be at least a half deck worth of structure and mechancicals between the outer surface of that dome and the Bridge's ceiling. The Bridge is more in the centre of what could be seen as the A/B Deck structure atop the saucer. The sleekness of the design also speaks to the remote possibility of the ship having to go at fast relativistic. If you're going at ninety percent light or better then you're finding the vacuum of space isn't really all that empty. Even with a navigational deflector you're still going to be cleaving through interstellar dust and whatnot. At ninety percent light the interstellar medium can exert a pressure on the hull equal to the Earth's atmosphere at several miles altitude. Under these conditions sleekness pays off. In that light the old V2 like rocketships of the 1940s and '50s sci-fi coincidentally start to make a lot of sense if they were travelling at high relativistic. I haven't completely decided the arrangement of the ship's phasers yet. There are rings on the top and bottom of the nacelles that can allow for six phaser banks (or emitters), three below and three above, which allow for covering 360 degrees and nearly all angles of attack. I could also opt for the rings to be similar to the phaser strips as seen on the TNG E. There will also be phaser emitters on the secondary hull as well as fore and aft firing torpedo launchers. The aft firing launcher will be near the base of the fantail. I haven't decided where the forward launcer will be: either under or above the nav deflector or near the base of the saucer above the lower sensor array. My idea is to adopt the TOS approach to weaponry: the ship's phasers are the most used armament while the torpoedoes are the heavy hitters. They seemed to reverse that in TNG. The torpedoes can also be used at warp while phasers are strictly a sublight weapon. This was muddied a bit throughout Trek, but my reasoning is a phaser is an energy beam and as such shouldn't be able to go faster than light. A torpedo could have a compact warp field generator to enable warp deployment. It doesn't have to sustain the warp field for long because the torpedo isn't going very far relatively speaking. Also a torpedo could be deployed without an antimatter warhead depending on its purpose.
I was able to dig this up from several years ago. What you see is the original concept sketch for the current design You can see it has less familiar TOS elements to it. It seems more a mixture of TMP and TNG design elements. The nacelles are much more extreme than what I eventually used. That said I find myself thinking about a design that hews more closely to this concept. It could be interesting.
I've begun to add a little colour with the Starfleet pennants. Still lots of detailing to do, though. I also want to try to smoothen where the pylons meet the secondary hull.
So far this looking to be an amazing version of the enterprise, I am wondering if we shall see some interior work done, bridge, captains quarters, engineering, medical bay and such
I am toying with trying my hand at some interiors, particularly the hangar area since I'm playing with ideas for a companion shuttlecraft design. I also have ideas for a Romulan warship as a counterpart to this Enterprise. The more I think of this the more I'm tempted to flesh out more detail and model it. I think it takes the basic Matt Jefferies' concept and pushes it in a different direction than what was done in familiar Trek. And if you were to re-imagine TOS then this would be more of a departure than what I'm doing presently.
Warped9 you and I usually disagree on pretty much anything Trek related, but I must say, I've been having similar thoughts lately about pretty much exactly what you're creating here. And while some of the creative decisions that you've decided upon are not quite what I would do, I like seeing an effort where essentially you're taking Trek back to its most basic elements. I hope to start doing some similar design explorations soon. In the meantime however, I look forward to what you're bringing to the table.