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The Battle of Wolf 359

I would have said it was impossible to do anything nice in MS Pain.

Excellent job there.
 
Fantastic! Your work is excellent as always. And I'm impressed with the aztek decals. Appropriately subtle.

--Alex
 
wow mindboggling level of perfection, couldnt even imagine u can create something like this, the lights are amazing, great stuff all around
 
My God that's beautiful. Even in my prime model building years, I would never have tried to light something that small and still somehow make it look that good. Well done, sir!
 
Sweet! Would it be too much trouble for you to draw up a wiring diagram for this? I'm curious as to how to do stuff like this myself. Best I can do right now is just attach a lightbulb to a battery. :rolleyes:
 
Outstanding image of Wolf 359!
That Miranda class build simply does not look 1/1000 even before the lighting is turned on...


eh- one question. Didn't Sisko's Saratoga have those antenna pods instead of the weapons pod on the roll bar? There have been several Saratoga, the whale probe Saratoga was the one with the stock roll bar IIRC...
 
^^^ Yes. You are correct that the Saratoga in this thread would actually be the one that was shown in the beginning of TVH. It even has the correct registry number of NCC-1887. Sisko's was NCC-31911. Still an awesomely beautiful build, though.
 
Thanks for the video, your work is beyond awesome. How are the lights projected on the nacelles' reg numbers? Or is that cheated by glowing the inside?

Mark
 
eh- one question. Didn't Sisko's Saratoga have those antenna pods instead of the weapons pod on the roll bar? There have been several Saratoga, the whale probe Saratoga was the one with the stock roll bar IIRC...

Good catch! Yes, as 137th Gebirg noted above, the Saratoga that fought at Wolf 359 was actually the NCC-31911 and it had the two large outboard sensor pods instead of the rollbar. I took some liberties with the historical record obviously but it wasn't intentional. I didn't realize my error until the composite was finished and then debated whether I should even show it afterwards. Still, I was so pleased with how the model looked in the image, I couldn't resist sharing it, even if it's not true to canon.
 
Thanks for the video, your work is beyond awesome. How are the lights projected on the nacelles' reg numbers? Or is that cheated by glowing the inside?

Mark

I used the Raytheon Effect to backlight ship's registry on the saucer and nacelles. It was my first attempt at it and I was pretty happy with the results, if it's cheating, well, so be it. It's a nice effect when done right.
 
Sweet! Would it be too much trouble for you to draw up a wiring diagram for this? I'm curious as to how to do stuff like this myself. Best I can do right now is just attach a lightbulb to a battery. :rolleyes:

Here's the wiring diagram provided by Tenacontrols for the nav/flasher wiring. It's a parallel wired circuit running off a 12 volt wall adapter. You can also run it off a 9V battery. There is a slide switch located in the base where the wall adapter plugs in:

15986612386_45d96b2548_b.jpg


The rest of the window lighting was basically the same type of parallel wiring with some series wiring for stern impulse engines and shuttle bay door lights.

Here's a photo of the power jack cemented into the stern half of the lower saucer and the nav/flasher board placed in the center of the saucer:

15392776263_a4049081d7_b.jpg


Here you can see the wiring for the lower hull formation lights. They flash one second on, one second off. The strobes at the ends of the nacelles and the top of the bridge deck do a fast blink, then one second off:

15611754134_2e23335a83_b.jpg


Upper hull flasher wiring:
16232301051_e86e86f3c8_b.jpg


16048052249_be263792e9_b.jpg


Window illumination was provided mostly by using LED strips lights like this one in the nacelle:

15611752794_6a60daefd5_b.jpg


The nacelles used a strip of white translucent milk jug type plastic to diffuse the glow. A strip of transparent blue film gives them their blue color:

16046781270_e36ccbc4de_b.jpg


Upper saucer strips:

16286910531_cbdea4e720_b.jpg


16288698055_3d95bde72c_b.jpg


15771886443_25610f69d2_b.jpg


Nacelle glow after the ParaGrafix photo-etch grill was painted metallic black and attached using Elmers clear glue:

16390156411_ba9dedef64_b.jpg


Here you can see one of the two LED strips in the lower saucer. I aligned them on each side so they'd be right under the angled windows at the front of the "secondary hull":

16486149136_8d5e8b41a1_b.jpg


Anyway, it looks like a rat's nest in this photo taken just prior to sealing up the hull and, you know, it sort of is. Unfortunately, I don't really work from diagrams preferring to just trim and solder wires on the fly as I go along. It's pretty easy if you just remember the basics of parallel and series wired circuits and know which value of resistor is needed. The main thing was to keep wires from crossing into any of the Raytheon Effect zones so as not to have shadows cast on the plastic from inside. The other trick was to keep window brightness to scale and avoid beaconing by not having LEDs pointing directly at a window. Otherwise it looks like the cabin behind the window is lit like the surface of the sun which just doesn't make sense for anyone to have a room that bright.

Anyway, I've probably bored everyone to tears with this stuff. If you want to see more in progress pics you can find them here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29607470@N08/sets/72157649031293118

All photos have titles and/or descriptions describing what I'm doing in the image.
 
:eek: Wow! That was much more than I was expecting, many thanks! I may never do something like this, but at least I know where to start now.
 
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