There is still the 1:4105 Moebius BSG kit, which is probably the most accurate mass-produced Galactica model ever made in any size. Not metal, but still worth it. I have three in storage that I hope to one day get to for various projects. 
Star Trek: Starships Model/Magazine Subscription
- Thread starter trekker670
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Well, one of the ships I got off eBay almost TWO MONTHS AGO finally arrived. It's the Ferengi Marauder (plus another binder, because two was nowhere near enough).
Strangely, the Romulan BOP I ordered a few days before that still has yet to arrive.
The Marauder's an okay model, although the underside is rather bland. I think I mainly got it because it was the lowest numbered ship in the set which I did yet have. (That distinction now belongs to the Bajoran sailing ship, which doesn't really interest me). Both the box and the magazine were in REALLY bad shape, but the model, at least, is unscathed.
This at least gives me hope that the first ship may yet arrive.
Strangely, the Romulan BOP I ordered a few days before that still has yet to arrive.
The Marauder's an okay model, although the underside is rather bland. I think I mainly got it because it was the lowest numbered ship in the set which I did yet have. (That distinction now belongs to the Bajoran sailing ship, which doesn't really interest me). Both the box and the magazine were in REALLY bad shape, but the model, at least, is unscathed.
This at least gives me hope that the first ship may yet arrive.
Can anyone with the original version of the Son'a Flagship magazine tell me what it says next to the renders of the ship on page 17? In the German translated version it says that those orthographic views show Santa Barbara Studios' original CG model. But when I compared them to the older reference renders (https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/factfiles/sona-command-views.jpg) again, I noticed that especially the underside and the four "loops" are shaped quite differently (matching the physical Eaglemoss model). So I think the magazine actually features only pictures of EM's newly reconstructed model.
Haven't gotten that one yet. My Specials, so far, are only up to the Scimitar, which is the one before the Son'a Flagship.
Now, I will say that you're probably correct that there is a discrepancy between the magazine orthos and the model. The XL Excelsior model still had the Greg Jein-designed narrow secondary hull that the smaller model and its corresponding magazine had, but the XL magazine clearly showed a corrected fatter secondary hull that more closely resembled the original ILM miniature. Why the physical model didn't match the rendered image is beyond me, only that maybe they got a better mesh after the physical master had been printed, but before they did the magazine layout. So there is precedence for such wonky model/print disparities.
Now, I will say that you're probably correct that there is a discrepancy between the magazine orthos and the model. The XL Excelsior model still had the Greg Jein-designed narrow secondary hull that the smaller model and its corresponding magazine had, but the XL magazine clearly showed a corrected fatter secondary hull that more closely resembled the original ILM miniature. Why the physical model didn't match the rendered image is beyond me, only that maybe they got a better mesh after the physical master had been printed, but before they did the magazine layout. So there is precedence for such wonky model/print disparities.
I think I didn't express myself well: The orthos in the EM magazine do match the EM model - but they don't look like the screen-used CG ship. So even though the magazine seems to state that the renders are of the original mesh, I think EM only used their own, rebuilt version for both their model and their magazine orthos. Here's some of the differences:
Ah! Yes, now I understand.
IIRC, this was another despicable scenario where the original CG models were lost/destroyed/corrupted and had to be rebuilt by Eaglemoss. In fact, I remember reading at some point how Ben and his research team specifically had to re-create all the Son'a models from scratch for that reason (probably from his Twitter feed), which is why they took so long to get released.
To have them turn around and say they used original assets doesn't track.
The same thing happened to the STFC Norway-class model and, apparently, to many of the original Abramsverse background ship models (Armstrong, Mayflower, etc). It sickens me how the people who worked on these things never heard of backup archive best practices.
IIRC, this was another despicable scenario where the original CG models were lost/destroyed/corrupted and had to be rebuilt by Eaglemoss. In fact, I remember reading at some point how Ben and his research team specifically had to re-create all the Son'a models from scratch for that reason (probably from his Twitter feed), which is why they took so long to get released.
To have them turn around and say they used original assets doesn't track.
The same thing happened to the STFC Norway-class model and, apparently, to many of the original Abramsverse background ship models (Armstrong, Mayflower, etc). It sickens me how the people who worked on these things never heard of backup archive best practices.
Since a few reference pictures of the original mesh were rendered for the Fact Files, I thought EM had simply used those very pictures again for their magazine; and only used their own, rebuilt mesh to make the physical model (and maybe for some of the cover and in-flight images in the magazine). At least in the German magazine it clearly says "These renders of the original model by Santa Barbara Studios (...)". But yeah, since the new EM orthos and the old Fact Files ones don't match up, that's likely not the case.
Given how frequently that happens, I wonder whether that's an intentional business practise. Like scrapping sets when a production is over.
Or, the production team never considered these materials would be needed again. We think of it as normal to have at least some models of Trek ships; yet the movie staff might move from production to production without bothering to keep a copy of, let's say the French Millennium Falcon from City of A Thousand Planets, or the General's ship from Galaxy Quest.
Maybe so. Having had a long 30-year career in the IT field, I learned very early on to make backups of things in case of catastrophic failure, and things can always be re-used for later benefit.
I think it more likely that there is a high turnover rate for these artists, with inexperienced new people coming in, not yet having been burned by the trauma of critical data loss. Either that or they're more "artists" than "computer people" and they simply don't get it - the computer is a little magic box under the desk that never breaks... until it does.
The Son'a ships and Norway class I could see maybe being considered one-and-done models, even though Akira and her other contemporaries made multiple appearances in DS9 and Voyager long after STFC, and Norway could have easily been included as a background model, had it been preserved. They had definitely planned for several Abramsverse films where their models could have made multiple appearances, clearly potential for future use.
I dunno - it just really frosts my ass to see consistent data loss like this, across multiple houses and multiple generations of people building the models. Maybe I'm just projecting from my own experiences on the matter, but it still seems like amateur-hour to me with some of these shops acting so cavalier over their assets.
I think it more likely that there is a high turnover rate for these artists, with inexperienced new people coming in, not yet having been burned by the trauma of critical data loss. Either that or they're more "artists" than "computer people" and they simply don't get it - the computer is a little magic box under the desk that never breaks... until it does.
The Son'a ships and Norway class I could see maybe being considered one-and-done models, even though Akira and her other contemporaries made multiple appearances in DS9 and Voyager long after STFC, and Norway could have easily been included as a background model, had it been preserved. They had definitely planned for several Abramsverse films where their models could have made multiple appearances, clearly potential for future use.
I dunno - it just really frosts my ass to see consistent data loss like this, across multiple houses and multiple generations of people building the models. Maybe I'm just projecting from my own experiences on the matter, but it still seems like amateur-hour to me with some of these shops acting so cavalier over their assets.
The Star Wars prequel trilogy seems to be a real outlier in this regard: While working on the movies they immediately rendered multi-angle reference pictures of almost every single CG ship and character for future use (in fact there's a huge book with those). And apparently the original meshes were archived as well, since they are still being used when models and replicas and helmets are created. It's probably because they knew it's one of the most merchandise-driven franchises.
But then again, there have also been Star Trek toys and models that could make use of the CG meshes since forever. So I really don't understand why CBS and Paramount were never interested in creating a good (central) archive of these assets.
But then again, there have also been Star Trek toys and models that could make use of the CG meshes since forever. So I really don't understand why CBS and Paramount were never interested in creating a good (central) archive of these assets.
Exactly! That's why I think it's simple amateurish carelessness at the end of the day causing most, if not all, of these losses, as opposed to intentional wipe-out.
Actually, as of last year, both the main ships from Galaxy Quest were decorating ILM, hanging from the ceiling of their offices. Probably not archival quality storage for using them for a sequel, but at least we know where they are.
I'm not sure why data loss in VFX is so common (well, I mean, discounting cases where the studio goes out of business, but I don't understand how ILM lost the Kelvin kitbashes, especially since one of them made it into Beyond), but I do know that it's not uncommon for artists to make personal backups, either to work on at home, for their portfolio, or simply out of pride. But since it's generally not allowed to, you know, steal your clients' confidential intellectual property, it usually doesn't come out until years after the production is dead, and even then, it's usually leaked anonymously. In the last five or so years, a lot more Babylon 5 CGI files have been found to still exist than seemed to when the last B5 production was filmed in 2006, and I believe the re-done DS9 scenes from the documentary were built from "unofficial" backups.
My only guess is that if you don't make data hygiene and organization a priority from the beginning, it's easy for it to fall by the wayside, especially in a high-speed production environment where you can end up being more concerned with just clearing out the last project to make room for the new one than with putting everything away nearly, especially if things are at all disorganized to begin with.
I used to wonder why Eaglemoss used non-screen-used models of the Enterprise B and E even though ILM built good CG versions of these ships for Generations and First Contact. But since it turns out ILM can't even find the finished Kobayashi Maru model or the other background ships from the Kelvin movies, I guess it's unlikely that models from 25 years ago will ever turn up again...
I was really hoping on learning more about the background ships from the JJverse, the starships and the shuttles. It is sad to know that these models have been lost.
Even if you're organized, it's still possible to "lose" data just through technology marching on. We've got bin and bins (and bins) of tapes going back 15 years where I work, but about six or seven years' worth of that is at present unrecoverable simply because we lack hardware that can read tapes that old -- we started off with LTO2 tapes, and are now up to LTO6 and anything before (I think) LTO5 our drives don't recognize. I actually ran into this last week when management wanted data unarchived from a feature we did around 2010; we loaded up the tapes into our oldest machine and it couldn't read the data. In theory we could recover it, if we rented or bought an obsolete tape drive and swapped it with one of the ones in our current bays, but nobody wants to take the time or trouble. As far as I know, the clients were told we simply don't have that data, and everybody's moved on.
I do wonder just how many of the "oh, we lost that data" stories are something similar.
True, but I don’t know many places that use tape archives anymore. I started using CD-R’s for backups back in the mid-late 90’s, DVD-R’s in the 2000/10’s and have recently moved to BRD-R’s just last year. However, all the current BRD burners are fully backward compatible with older data CD’s and DVD’s without loss (outside of normal disc rot). I still have data discs dating back to 1994 that load on my new drive. And since they’re not that expensive at all, and haven’t been for some time, I’m not sure why some of these high-tech houses like ILM never invested in decent archival systems. For the kind of massive high-quality work they do, I’d think it would be mandatory.
Honestly, I can’t wait for data crystals and/or holographic storage to be mass-produced as affordable archival systems. Those things (conceptually) are positively amazing.
Honestly, I can’t wait for data crystals and/or holographic storage to be mass-produced as affordable archival systems. Those things (conceptually) are positively amazing.
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Thank you for sharing this! I've googled NSEA Protector images so many times over the years but never came across this. Seeing these huge models is amazing. The Protector looks like its elegantly swooping across existence. I hope Eaglemoss has really good reference material like this when they make the ship.
They green, organic Sarris ship with that gigantic maw looks even more menacing here than in the movie.
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Something completely different. The Starfleet tug USS Zimmerman was delivered. It's a Helios-class support vessel, 164.37 meters long, and according to designer William Budge and a clever calculator over at Facebook in-universe this Frankenfleet ship is to scale with its mother ship-components.
Images and comparison: https://twitter.com/MarkoNolan/status/1265641213169991682?s=20
So I received an email from Eaglemoss which does not bode well for this and other collection lines:
I didn't think it could be possible, but it sounds like things are going to get much worse than they already have been with them.
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