Anybody ever notice the cutaway graphic on the back of theis version of the TOS Enterprise box? You might never believe where it came from... Yep. Me.
Golly! Did they steal it? or ask to use it? How much $ they give you for it? What did your Lawyer say bout it!?? :O
Well, I had it on my now-defunct website without a watermark. It happened to be one of the top images that comes up if you look up Enterprise cross-sections on Google (more often than not, the top one) and the same is true for the watermarked version I have on my DeviantArt account. So if one plus one equals two, then they must have snagged it off there. Maybe they thought it was official? I didn't know for a long time until a fellow board member pointed it out to me. (I don't actually own one.) I've never tried to get anything from them, because the way I figure it, it's fan art and I don't own the Enterprise design. It doesn't seem worth the effort. I am slightly curious if it still appears on the newer-style boxes, though, if anyone knows.
Yeah, that happened to me too a while back. Some of you all may remember the Battlestar Galactica exhibit at the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle. There was this big glass plaque next to the TOS filming miniature replica that had a faint image of a battlestar top-view schematic etched in it. That was mine. I'd know my own work anywhere - errors and all. Saw it with my own eyes when I went to visit the exhibit with my wife a couple of years ago. No credits, no email requests, nothing. It happens. Sometimes out of sheer non-malicious omission, sometimes because if it's an officially licensed and sanctioned event, they may feel they don't have to because they own the rights and, even though you did all the work, the intellectual property and copyrights still belong to them. Nature of the beast, I'm afraid. I've gotten used to it. The NuBSG production crew used older schematics of mine on the show in several of the CIC control panels when they first built everything. Could have knocked me over with a feather when some random fan took photos of them by accident during a set tour, posted them on his blog and I discovered them. The horribly inaccurate nature of how they looked (based on the old 1978 Monogram/Revell model kit - also horribly inaccurate) actually prompted me to do the updated schematics I mentioned above. I guess, at the time, they were the only drawings even remotely close to being right and so they used them instead of taking the time to do it themselves (don't blame them - it took me hundreds of hours to do the latest version). In the end, though, it got around that I was the source of the graphics and I finally got credit for it in the Profiles in History (or maybe it was PropWorx - can't remember) auction books when all the old set dressings and props went on the auction bloc. That's when I decided that, as long as people know, and I have the proof to back it up, the bragging rights alone are worth it.
Exactly how I felt about it. Glad to be in good company, and fine work. It makes me laugh that, amongst all the contention regarding the TOS ship's arrangement, my highly unconventional approach (putting a TMP warp core in the ship) got printed somewhere where lots of people might see it and think that's how it was "really" arranged.
Neat! Going off topic here, but would you mind taking a close-up of the li'l Enterprise B you have? I have several of that series and they're mostly poor models IMO, especially the Enterprise C which I ended up modifying to at least have the damn saucer on straight... Mark
Thanks very much - most kind I actually wrote an article on this back in 2008 for Galactica.tv. And yes, yours is certainly an unconventional view of the internal layout, but as other threads that have recently popped up here have said, not every ship has an identical layout. Who's to say that this wasn't correct for any one of the 12 other Connies in the fleet? A newer model, immediately prior to the refit, trying out a new internal configuration before the Enterprise was brought into drydock? It's as valid as any other cutaway, as far as I'm concerned.
ahh must feel cool then to see something you made as a fan be actually used in Star Trek or in 137th Gebirgs Case NuBSG
It does traverse a range of emotions, much like the Kübler-Ross model of accepting death: Denial (or Shock - there's no way somebody used what I did - NO WAY!) Anger (...that nobody will know or care that I spent hundreds of hours of work on this, nobody credited me for that effort, and nobody bothered to even bloody ask!) Skipping "Bargaining" (There was nobody to bargain with. That also made me angry. ) Depression (Pretty much for the same reasons listed in Anger - I would agree with the relationship between these two emotions mentioned in Sopranos, that "depression is anger turned inward".) Acceptance (It's not so bad, I'm my own best advocate in such matters and the people who count know I was the one behind it. And yes, it is actually pretty damn cool! )
Talk to a lawyer. You may be able to settle, paid in DD starships! You should be entitled to a fleet of ships at least. Great art, by the way. I can't believe how frequently this sort of thing happens. Is everyone in this forum the victim of having their artwork pinched by official rights-holders or low-level license holders? I'm sure they are honest mistakes, but it does uncover a level of surprising sloppiness in the field of graphic designers/art directors. Sure, lets do a google image search and do whatever we want with the results. Again, love the work, very nice rendering. Holy WTF. If I doodle a picture of Princess Diana on my desk does the British Royal Family own my desk?
I see you have some of the Johnny Lightning ships. I'm in love with those. There are always some for sale on eBay and Amazon. Too bad I've got most of them and already have them displayed. :-p I've considered getting some mint and stashing them away in their blister packs.