M'ress appreciation thread

[Methos]

m'ress?



heh

M

[Forbin]

Heeeeeere kitty kitty!

[Redfern]

Trying a "new" hair prop with my Aiko 3 based M'Ress mesh. I place the word "new" within quotes because I've had the geometry for a few years even though I've just now posted it. An on-line friend shared the digital "wig" she originally modeled for another figure. She cautioned I'd probably want to modify it to better capture the design presented in the original Filmation animation cels. Alas, at that time, I had next to no skill with wireframe "deformers" to properly reshape the object. but recently I've had moderate success with another model, so I took a whack at it. Yeah, there are some deviations from the cartoon drawings, primarily the sideburn "locks". In the cartoon, they draped behind the shoulders. But the "deformers" or "magnets" as they are labeled in Poser, started to interfere with the geometry of the large "fall" of hair as I tried to pull the locks backwards. I simply gave up and decided to drape them forward. And while different from the cartoon, I liked the effect I achieved.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Redfern]

Nothing really fancy or intriguing about this composition. I just wanted to depicted a full body portrait of M'Ress in standard uniform doing her job.

One thing I do ponder. If we assume a Caitian's ears are flexible in a fashion similar to that of terran felines, would it be a tad more difficult for those ear-piece receivers (like the ones Uhura and occasionally Spock wore) to stay in place? You'd think their natural reflex to twitch their ears might pop free those devices.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Methos]

oh those are very cool... poser I take it? very nice

M

[Redfern]

Yes, using DAZ's Aiko 3 as the base figure.

And thanks for the kind assessment.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Methos]

interesting... what's the feline style mesh you've got on?

i've only worked with the victoria models in poser before, always saw Aiko as more an 'anime' style model...

M

[Redfern]

I'm a little confused. Are you asking if I've fitted additional geometry over the A3 mesh to make her look feline? Well, I added a jointed tail prop (with an appropriated tufted tip), but as far as her face shape and ears, that actually the A3 geometry, just heavily morphed. There's a vendor named Beth Capsces who has supplied add-on sets for many base figures, giving them hundreds of additional shaping controls. Several of those sets have controls to stretch the lower face into a "muzzle", puff out the cheeks, stretch the teeth into feral fangs, etc. I used those "dials" to turn Aiko's default anime styled face into something "kitten-like".

The lower legs resulted from a morph set by another vendor JENelson (aka Achronicity, depending on the site). One of the selections in that set stretches the arch of the foot and plumps up the toes to resemble the digitigrade hide foot of a feline or canid. I tweaked those settings to make the arch longer and the toes fatter to my liking.

So, no, she isn't wearing conforming body parts. It's all the A3 wireframe, just heavily warped and distorted to get that cat-like appearance.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Methos]

yeah i meant the morph lol... i'll have to play around with Victoria 5 and see if i can give her a Caitian appearance lol

M

[Tazzy]

Therin of Andor wrote:

---

It was actually rather one-sided, with M'ress doing the purr-suing:


M'ress and Sulu at Konom's wedding by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

During the controversial contractual renewal hiatus, M'ress was redrawn as the rather, umm, "horny" M'yra - and she tried to win over Sulu, but she had competition from an Asian crewwoman, Kathy Li.

I have been scouring the internet to find the female Caitian character who was in a relationship with Chekov in that comic. Wow, memories can be funny things.

[Lipton]

I'm fascinated with the whole cat species as well.

Have you heard of Curt Danhauser? He did some fan-made TAS cartoons. They're so realistic, people wondered why he was dubbing over different voices on old cartoons!
And M'Ress is supposed to befeatured a little more prominently in this series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5w1q8Q06Fw

Not much M'Ress in this particular short, but there is some at the beginning. There is also a full episode on his channel, in which M'Ress is part of a landing party.

[Redfern]

Yep, I've known about Danhauser's site for a number of years as well as Kail Tescar's site. I think both poeple were interviewed for the DVD release.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Lipton]

Uh huh. They're cool. They released the Animjated series on DVD, huh? Cool.

Speaking of M'Ress, has anyone ever written any fanfics involving Animated Series characters like M'Ress or Arex?

[Redfern]

Using the right key words I suspect a search engine will retrieve some intriquing examples. Just be aware a percentage of them will be "rule 34" fantasies.

Some of the better examples (in my admittedly biased opinion) came from the late Paul S. Gibbs. He created a site in 1997 titled simply "Two Star Trek Novels". Gibbs wrote a 500 page manuscript he tried to submit to Pocket Books. Needless to say, it was rejected for several reasons. It didn't focus upon any of the leading characters; it used material from the animated series, namely, M'Ress, which was in a state of legal flux due to Filmation being bought by a European holding company, and conditions were not reverted to the status quo by the end of the story. Rather than hide the material within a desk drawer, he opted to post his material and see if anybody might be curious.

In brief, the first story depicted M'Ress growing frustrated aboard the Enterprise, suspecting her position in communications might not let her advance in rank. So with Kirk's reluctant blessing, she transfers to a smaller, older ship as part of the science division using her studies in archeology. Alas, she discovers she she has landed in a nest of human supremicists and her tour of duty becomes a living hell.

That narrative and its follow-up no longer exist on-line in their original form. Gibbsbecame almost obsessively frustrated over Pocket Books' rejection, not for quality, but for not adhering to (what he considered arbitrary, limiting) guidelines. I suggested if it bothered him that much, just drop the Trek references, create a new backstory and try submitting it to other publishers. He was reluctant at first, saying he was more comfortable "playing in someone else's sandbox." Finally, in desperation, I sent him a drawing of felinoid in a jumpsuit very different from stuff we normally see in Trek, wearing an ocular positioned readout device and scanning apparatus worn as a glove. The next day, he replied, "OK, so, what should they use instead of 'warp drive'?"

Thus he started a several month project where he created a different galactic community that used naturally occurring rifts in space/time to "displace" their ships from system to system. Her captain was an older Lloyd Bridges type personality. Her best friends hailed from India and a low gravity planet, and the chief engineer looked like an elephant with a head like Cthulhu. M'Ress became Ehm'Ayla and her species became Sah'aarans.

And though we lost Gibbs some ten years ago to pancreantitus (because he felt he didn't have the money to afford a doctor), his material lives on at the...

Sah'aaran Embassy

While it's no longer a Trek story, 90+ percent of that first story in terms of motivations and goals is based upon the older manuscript. His second story required more reworking to excise the Trek elements and the material that followed was all his own, owing nothing to Roddenberry's creation.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Lipton]

Wow, very fascinating. You seem to really be on top of the animated series stuff. Sah'aaran Embassy, huh? I've now marked that for reading. Thanks.