I hope you find an elegant solution that meets your artistic goals and fits the overall TOS aesthetic. The praise you are getting here is well-deserved. It looks great AND it really fits the era. This one's a winner. It seems to me that TOS era designs benefit from their simplicity, that pseudo-aerodynamic arrangement of cylinders, saucers and "wings." I like the general shape of the "Deflector Engine" -- it just seems like it should be a slightly simpler shape and a little more aerodynamic -- those bomber old engine pods you reference would not feature large lateral support structures disrupting airflow around the engine and the wing. Those supports would be in line the direction the plane travels in. Nitpicky I guess, but I think you've got a near-perfect TOS-era Miranda there. I think we'll all be very interested to see any updates. Awesome stuff.
Prologic9, THAT, looks REALLY Good. I did a CG kitbash of "the elusive" Miranda as well back in 2004. I was waiting to finish a CG fanfilm before displaying it, but I think I'll post a photo or two shortly since this is a great thread to show it in for comparison. I'll be the first to admit mine's not nearly as elegant a design as yours.
A fantastic model - and your renders are a particular joy to look at. All around great work! BTW: Didn't you use to post at Foundation3D.com? - Your unfinished recreation of the Enterprise-D 6-footer is still being tinkered with by some there.
Did David Mack ever see this design? I'd be curious to know his thoughts on it. This is the best TOS era Miranda class I've ever seen!
Hi, message to Prologic9, would you have any issues if i were to use your amazing design for a TOS based RPG? please let me know.
I like this ship, a lot. I've long wanted to build a physical model of a TOS era Miranda. Yours is the best I've seen. Oh, I still like the Copernicus, but yours is more aggressive looking. Maybe an intermediate stage between the Copernicus-style and the Reliant-style. It is simultaneously credible and incredible!
Prologic9, I liked this design so much, I took it upon myself to build a 3-view image of the Bombay. I hope you find it somewhat accurate to the original. Enjoy!
Good goddamn. That's a beautiful ship. Had to check twice to make sure I wasn't looking at a physical model.
I'd make the roll bar just a tad bit higher so the deflector dish clears the bridge bubble. The captain might be too old, but maybe the helmsmen would still like to have kids some day!!
Yeah, that struck me too. As did the fact that having the impulse engines on the roll-bar wouldn't work. They're too far 'off center' to efficiently push the ship along, they'd tend to make it forward roll. I have to say, however, it looks utterly fantastic - nice job.
Love the design. I've always been a sucker for the Miranda class design. I really love the TOS retrofit you've done. Great job.
Greetings! After I'm done immersing myself in the TOS aesthetic with the Enterprise, I'm going to do one final pass on this ship and call it "finished," and then go on to alter it drastically for other purposes. Until then, here's a... very small look at 10 years of WIP; So this was an idea for the "Deflector Pod" that was based on those roof extensions vans have sometimes. I spent years coming back and fiddling with this and don't have a single render of the ship with it on because the design never ever worked with the rest of the ship, lol.