Okay, in all candor I don't think I'm that keen on this as is. I think it looks rather...dopey. Mind you a lot of parts still need to be added, but I'm really tempted to start again from scratch and try to make it look...less dopey. I think the deflector assembly looks...unconvincing. I don't really see MJ and the TOS production crew doing this as is.
It’s supposed to be Cyrano Jones’ scoutship from “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” but it looks like such a throwaway design. I’m going to rethink this. When I tackled the alien pod ship from BTFS it was with an eye to how an actual miniature could look in TOS. I did not get overly detailed in terms of what could be seen when seeing the pods close up because I don’t think it likely we would have seen that in TOS if the miniature were filmed as if from a distance. Recreating the detail seen closeup (the green mottling being slightly recessed from the purple hull surface and all the little windows) would have been a lot more involved and time consuming. Also I did not follow every little curve and waver of the vines as seen in TAS. For Jones’ ship it doesn’t look like something given a lot of thought as seen onscreen. The only distinctive feature tying it to Trek are the twin nacelles. So maybe I can make it look somewhat more TOS like while trying to retain the general concept and overall look. In TOS we have the Class F shuttlecraft which, to be sure, is not the least bit aerodynamic. Obviously other forces, such as antigravity, are at work to allow it to fly within atmosphere. We know it has FTL warp capability and yet it doesn’t have an obvious deflector dish up front. Its deflector system is evidently less obvious and less visibly obtrusive. To that end the Class F shuttlecraft, and MJ’s original shuttlecraft concept, offer us clues to Jeffries’ thinking when designing a small craft meant to operate in space and in atmosphere. So, I’m going to rethink this craft with the above in mind. I think the lines need to be tightened and the nose needs to be rethought while still suggesting there is a deflector system there. This vehicle likely has retractable landing gear since they’re not apparent when in flight. And what we see onscreen doesn’t give us any real sense of scale—is it as small as a shuttlecraft or larger more akin to a runabout? Calling it a scoutship suggests it’s distinctly larger than a shuttlecraft.
Based just on the cockpit window, it does looks larger than a shuttle and Carter Winston's one-man vessel (now stored on the Hangar Deck). SPOCK: We have already checked on the background of Mister Cyrano Jones. He is a licensed asteroid locator and prospector. He's never broken the law, at least not severely. For the past seven years, with his one-man spaceship, he's obtained a marginal living by engaging in the buying and selling of rare merchandise, including, unfortunately, tribbles.I guess his ship needs a strong deflector dish to push through asteroid fields, etc. YMMV.
I have already started remaking the model and so far I like it much better. It is still instantly recognizable, but now looks less simplistic. The devil is in the details. Given its shape I see this as a two deck craft with a main deck above and a small service deck below. It also needs to be somewhat accommodating for extended periods even for one person.
Yes, two decks, possibly one full deck with an half deck up and down. Possible ladder up to a half-deck cockpit. Something like Quill's ship in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Okay, I think this looks better. This is the bare bones of it with some detailing needed to flesh it out: hatches for retractable landing struts, access port, some markings and greebles, etc... I’m still not crazy about this design, but the objective is to try making it work convincingly in 3D. For the deflector I went back to MJ's initial idea of having a dome rather than a dish, but just flattened out a bit.
The more I look at this the more it gives me something of a 1930s to ‘40s pulp sci-fi vibe about it. And suggests something to me. Cyrano Jones strikes me as someone just eking out a living. Consequently his possessions are likely to be well worn and secondhand. His ship could well be old, patched together and barely kept flying. To that end I’d like to try making his ship look somewhat used rather than shiny and relatively new.
If your goal is to be more on-screen accurate, the side view of Cyrano's ship shows it more angular and the deflector dish at a downward angle. Your artistic license my vary.
Yeah, it's evident the two angles hardly match in the least. Good news, it gives one a lot of leeway interpreting the craft. It's funny, the side view evokes the angular design of the Galileo shuttle we actually got, while that three-quarter view suggests the smooth bodied "concept" Matt Jefferies drew. Yeah, I got that impression, too and kinda' expected to see Dr. Zarkov in the cockpit viewport. That and I started to "hear" the theme by Queen in my "mind's ear".
When once building the rocketship from the classic Flash Gordon serial I had the thought it could possibly be tweaked and repurposed as an old Romulan ship from the Earth/Romulan wars.
Now looking more recognizable while I slowly add details to flesh it out. I'm thinking of making two versions of this: a flying version and a landed version with landing struts and gangway extended. Although theClass F shuttlecraft had no external lights there were evidently some idea of adding lights to the exterior mockup. The Impulse engines on the fullsize mockup did not light up like it did on the small filming miniature, but there was some idea of having the nacelle domes lighted (perhaps similar to the spinning domes on the 11 foot Enterprise, which would have been cool). There was also some notation of the two small rectangular details on the lower forward hull as originally being landing lights so perhaps some thought had been given to lighting those as well. To that end I'm pondering what kind of lighting I could add to this design other than the impulse engines. I'm thinking there should also be some registration number on the hull. And does anyone think Cyrano Jones might have given his craft a name? Perhaps the Galaxy's Friend. Or maybe something else? I have one small regret over this design. It’s minor and no one would notice, but when I made the main hull I should have left it perfectly cylindrical in cross-section as opposed to widening it slightly by ten percent thus making it slightly ovoid in ctoss-section. I thought the ship looked a bit better as a cylinder rather than ovoid which, of course, makes it look more like the onscreen version.
This is a cool idea for a thread. I'd love to see a realistic image of the anti-matter universe. The strange one which had time going backwards.
You know, when you really look at this thing the main hull is essentially a distorted take on the Enterprise’s secondary hull. It wouldn’t surprise me if thats where the TAS artist got the idea. And look how many subsequent interpretations of Matt Jefferies’ original design have played with the original proportions.
So many TAS ships are a perspective nightmare. Many are clearly just quickly executed and fairly inconsistent between the angles we seen them. I'm looking at the two views of the Jones ship and man it's hard to reconcile them. Even when it gets damaged there's no much to parse about the geometry. I honestly wonder if the ink and paint people xeroxed some sketches with some lines that should have been erased and this causes some of the confusion. Are there any pencils of this thing in that TAS book? @Reverend had his own take on it a while back. It's a nice try given the ship is so wildly inconsistent. I took the side view and did some perspective analysis. The ¾ front view clashes with this in any number of ways, but this was fun to look at. This is but one possible interpretation. I'd do the other one but it's 2 am and zzzzzz. Click to embiggen.
There is nothing extra to be seen in the TAS book. And I have seen the Reverend schematic and it helped as a guide, but ultimately I went with my own judgement. A lot of the TAS ships come across as seemingly throwaway stuff with little thought put to them. The robot freighter and the freighter Huron look to be the most detailed and most consistent in execution, but little else. Thats somewhat easy to understand given the artists might have thought it was something that would be seen on a smallish television screen then likely quickly forgotten. They likely had no inkling that their work would be scrutinized by fanatics for fifty years and counting. Cyrano Jones’ ship is shown to us with two inconsistent views so in the end I’m trying to interpret how it could have appeared on TOS if the production crew had had the time to work something up. I believe there was talk of a followup to “The Trouble With Tribbles,” but ultimately that went nowhere until TAS. Jones’ ship is a glimpse of a civilian part of Federation society in space. At this point either Jones had, at least at one time, been wealthier than he appears presently or obtaining an interstellar spacecraft isn’t that difficult in the 23rd century. Unless, of course, he stole it like Harry Mudd might do. Also what does it mean when referring to a “one=man spaceship?” It has to mean more than something that can hold only one occupant like a small aircraft. A craft like this would need to sustain an individual for flights that could be easily days to weeks in duration. It’s not likely the average person could take being strapped into a cockpit for such lengthy periods of time. I envision something more like a modest apartment with sufficient living space and amenities that also happens to be FTL capable to get you to other star systems. Thats a fantasy from our standpoint, but apparently not uncommon in Trek’s 23rd century.
A small TOS-style deflector dish was clearly intended in the art...which is missing from your designs. Seems an important feature discarded by both your's and Reverend's concepts. To me, the TOS deflector dish feature fundamentally makes it "TOS/TAS", and later became an important re-design feature starting in TMP. The dish may look ugly, but it was intended to be on the ship.