USS Grandeur - One... More... Time!

[DakotaSmith]

sojourner wrote:

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The floodlights on the dock don't look right. Too much grey? It' doesn't give the impression of lighting. Maybe some rays or -dare I say it- lense flare?

Hm ... I think I finally figured out where Abrams' love affair with the lens flare originates.

Apparently Abrams was up late one night watching the SNL "Cowbell" sketch with Christopher Walken:

"Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription ... is more lens flare!"

Dakota Smith

[reanimatedfish]

This is one of my favorite Fan Trek designs. Not as high up there as your Enterprise-F design which is a bit more unique, but this is an excellent example of just how flavorful a good Trek design can be.

[B.J.]

I'm guessing that at some point you're going to give this pic some signs of life? Don't get me wrong, it's great as it is, but it seems a bit empty without some people on the hull and some shuttles/workbees flying around.

[Vektor]

Yes, there will be shuttles, work bees and the like by the time I'm finished, but I'm not gonna kill myself adding really small-scale stuff that won't even be visible at print size.

[StarTrekGT]

I love this ship/design!!!!
The USS Grandeur should be the focus of a new ST TV series set in a post-ST:Nemesis world.

[Vektor]

A small update to the book cover image. I've made about a thousand little adjustments to the lighting and shadows on various parts and pieces, color tweaks, lens flares, etc, etc. I certainly can't call it perfect, and this project has brought home to me just how much I still have to learn in the way of various techniques and approaches to realism, but I think continuing to rework it would be counterproductive at this point.

I'm going to finish adding some work bees and other signs of activity and then I'm going to call it done, hopefully within the next couple of days.

[bullethead]

Those lens flares coming off those bracket lights look weird. It's like they aren't angled properly, even if they were tractor beams or something.

[Vektor]

Lens flares are a function of the camera lens, not the orientation of the light source in the image. Every lens flare and light streak in the station image is perfectly horizontal, so I have maintained consistency with that on the rest of the image.

[publiusr]

One thing you might do would be to have multiple overlapping fans of energy--multiple tractor beams showing how the foating nacelle has been levelled out so well. Of course, once the beams are turned off, the alignment remains perfect...

[DRACO]

I'm glad to see this project is still going.

[Tom Hendricks]

I think we have a decade or more before its finished. Then as he approaches being done, he will scrap it and redesign the entire thing.

[Vektor]

Just FYI, I've been working on some enlarged paintings of some workbees from various angles and other construction-related vehicles and objects to further populate this scene. I'm drawing them separately because it's much easier to work on them at a larger size than they would be in the main image file. When they're done, I'll just cut-and-paste them and scale them down to the correct size.

I was hoping to post a preview of those elements some time today, but it looks like I have to go out of town on business until Friday, so probably nothing before the weekend. Just thought I'd let everyone know that this project is still very much active.

[Titan Designer]

This build never stops amazing me.

[Vektor]

Some vehicles, containers, construction pallets, etc:



Some of you may recognize Andrew Probert's Sphinx service vehicle, which I've always liked and thought would be most appropriate to this scene.

Now to shade and color these so they can be inserted into the master scene. They don't have to be highly detailed because they're going to get scaled down a lot, so hopefully I'll have more to show before the night is out.

[Kaiser]

Nice Sketch