Ray's TAS shuttlecraft...

Discussion in 'Fan Art' started by Warped9, Jun 30, 2011.

  1. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Jefferies' designs looked like they were well thought out as credible pieces of machinery. The TAS designs don't exhibit that---they were drawn just to look different.

    That said I think I've been able to make the scoutship look reasonably credible and not too much of a deviation from TOS' Starfleet design. I also tried to resist making it too sleek and well integrated. I hoped I could get a touch of ungainliness in it that would give it some measure of utilitarianism to its look.

    When I look at the heavy lander I see something of an aircraft fuselage in it as well as something almost bug like. It certainly deviates from TOS' Starfleet look, but we can also assume that tech and hardware within a "real" Trek universe would have variations in appearance. One could rationalize that Starfleet engineers might not have designed the lander and that they contracted out it to someone else or purchased an existing design adapted to their specific needs.

    I think the aquashuttle is going to be the hardest to adapt. I actually don't like the onscreen version at all and there's absolutely nothing aquatic about its appearance. But I'll make an effort to do what I can to adapt it to something remotely believable.

    I made an effort once to draw orthos of the TAS designs almost exactly as they were presented onscreen. They looked ridiculous with horrible lines and proportions and, of course, way off scale and oversized. The scoutship and lander would make a DS9 runabout look small and at the scale they're shown it would be impossible for crew to get in and out of the craft without some form of ladder or mechanical aid, perhaps like those vehicles with stairs to disembark from aircraft seen at airports where you disembark on the tarmac. The main reason I don't accept the onscreen scale/size of the designs is best shown by how wildly out of scale the hangar deck is shown---it's impossibly oversized to ever fit in the ship we are well familiar with. So what we see onscreen in TAS is a very exaggerated style of artwork. And even the exterior of the Enterprise, while immediately recognizable, is way off in how aspects of it were drawn.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2011
  2. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    Oh, yes, I agree! The TAS drawings were totally unrealistic. Of course, that's what you get from a 1970's cartoon. Very cheesy.
     
  3. JES

    JES Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    To me, the nose of the Class L reminds be of a truck. In fact, the entire shuttlecraft reminds me of the cab of a truck.

    And what would do well against giant saurians? Even if it where armored like a tank, it still would've probably gotten flattened like a pancake. :lol:
     
  4. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Progress. Seems to be coming along better than I initially thought. I think the top plan view looks somewhat odd, but then what can you do with this kind of shape? The top of the fore section, or the "hood," as well as the "roof" are a degree less curved than before. And by pulling the nacelles forward just a tad I get a little better visual balance and a bit shorter length overall down to about 30ft. I also opted for a less curvature in the viewport (as seen from above) to give me a bit more interior space. I rather like the side profiles of this while the front and top views make me think of a truck. The front view has something of a helicopter feel to it. For myself one of the big accomplishments of these adapted designs goes beyond having something that is recognizable with the onscreen versions, but more that these versions could actually fit onto the Enterprise's flight deck even if temporarily.

    Mind you I can imagine a starbase Commodore giving Kirk some grief: "What is it with you, Kirk? We loan you a heavy lander and later an aquashuttle and you manage to lose both of them. What are you, son, some sort of doomsday machine or something?" :lol:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2011
  5. SchwEnt

    SchwEnt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Really enjoying the artwork and attention on making the designs workable. Well done indeed.

    I never really had a problem with TAS shuttles as presented.
    Sure, there are size discrepancies and such, but even latter day ST suffered that problem.

    In fact, TAS never gave us the standard shuttlecraft from TOS, which might have been an easy way out to just duplicate an existing design.

    I appreciate the variety TAS presented, when they didn't even have to. And personally the designs are fine by me. Even better, they didn't really screw TOO much with the established design aesthetics. You could still tell they were ST vessels, which is nice.

    And now with your updates and revisions, it's great all over again.

    (btw i liked the j.w.pepper reference ;))
     
  6. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    I'll have to copy this down when I get home...
     
  7. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Actually if you take a peek at the panning shot of the hangar bay in TAS' "Mudd's Passion" episode on the left side you can see a design that, while poorly drawn, looks roughly like the familiar TOS shuttlecraft. And you can note that it's shown way oversized along with the other designs. So that there gives me another rationalization for scaling down the TAS designs.

    [​IMG]

    In that panning shot there's another shuttle design on the right at the front of the row. It has an unusual ovoid shape to it and we never see anything of it in the series but that glimpse in that one shot. I'm thinking of trying to work something out from that.
     
  8. TIN_MAN

    TIN_MAN Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Isn't that shuttle on the front right row a smaller version of Carter Winston's ship? Seems I've seen some attempts at that from around the web, It's not a bad design from what I recall?
     
  9. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    There is some resemblance from what little we see of Winston's ship in "The Survivor." But since we don't see much there's quite a bit of room for interpretation. From what I can see they basically drew something of the same thing but with the nacelles reversed in the direction they face. In other words the back of the ship we see in the image above looks pretty much like the front view of Winston's ship. It isn't high on my list of "things to do" but I wouldn't mind giving it a try to see if I could come up with something.

    Between bouts of working out the heavy lander I'm still sketching out ideas for the aquashuttle. I think I'm getting closer to a version I can live with even though I still think it doesn't work well conceptually for what it's supposed to be.
     
  10. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    I've been thinking about a TAS design that is only glimpsed in the one panning shot we have of the flight deck in the episode "Mudd's Passion." It's something of an ovoid shaped craft and I've been musing whether I could turn this into another class of auxiliary (shuttlecraft): a cargo shuttle. I'm going to start sketching and see what I can come up with.

    [​IMG]
     
  11. SchwEnt

    SchwEnt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    !!! I knew about that single-frame background glimpse of TOS standard shuttle in the hangar bay. But only one image in a quick panning shot was enough for me to say we didn't see it in TAS (insofar as we saw shuttles in general in TAS).
     
  12. SchwEnt

    SchwEnt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Also Warped9... have you seen Mandel's versions of TAS shuttles and ships in his "Enterprise Officer's Manual"?

    Comments? Observations? Ideas?
     
  13. 137th Gebirg

    137th Gebirg Admiral Premium Member

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    I'm curious if any of the original artists and animators of that show may be still alive and give us an idea of what these one-off shuttles might have looked like from all angles. Probably not, but one can hope...
     
  14. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    I used to have that book. And I do recall Mandel's drawings. They were essentially straightforward recreations of the TAS designs albeit cleaned up. But there was no effort to make them more credible in the "reality" of the TOS universe. They were still rather wonky looking and way oversized. They were nicely drawn, but they still looked like drawings with the simplicity of animation.
     
  15. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    FWIW, here's Kris Trigwell's take on the combined "Mudd's Passion" shuttle / Winston's private yacht.

    [​IMG]

    The scale works in relation to the shuttle Mudd ended up taking; it's supposed to be a design that sacrifices interior volume for greater speed and endurance while retaining the deck footprint. The Copernicus doesn't seem to make any volume sacrifices, so I'd like to see it as a somewhat larger craft.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  16. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    ^^ Interesting. It isn't too different from what I've already been configuring in some sketches.
     
  17. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Details, details. A little more ways to go, folks...

    [​IMG]

    I've got a spar like piece to add to the bow, some detailing to the sloping upper aft section, the hatch access control, the Starfleet pennants to the front and top views and then finally the bottom plan view.
     
  18. Ensign Ro-

    Ensign Ro- Commander Red Shirt

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    I'm actually digging this design. Kind of the AMC Gremlin of shuttlecraft. :-)

    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cartype.com/pics/1158/full/amc_gremlin_side_74.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartype.com/pages/1881/amc_gremlin__1970&h=969&w=1280&sz=285&tbnid=wbiMCgvVqDHvVM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=146&prev=/search%3Fq%3Damc%2Bgremlin%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=amc+gremlin&usg=__g3xVBnlhgk-DTsoRaqcXgMH7Ya4=&sa=X&ei=GJIfTpukFqHl0QGrq6m5Aw&ved=0CC8Q9QEwAg&dur=1460
     
  19. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    There's a possibility here that has never been explored: a Federation fighter/probe craft. This shape, taken in a smaller scale than what you suggest, would lend itself beautifully to a kind of TOS version of the NX-Alpha prototype, folding warp wings and all.
     
  20. SchwEnt

    SchwEnt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well the Gremlin and this shuttle were contemporary designs, so who knows?