I've tried before to make my own take on the Ambassador class Enterprise-C, but with so-so results. The latest version was more personalised, but there were issues with the impulse engine location and the pylon curves and their projection. So I've spent a few hours this week rethinking it and I came up with something closer to the design from the show but with more... me to it. Notice that the paint scheme is a TNG gray rather than my usual TMP white-ish. The deflector looks particularily neat on this one, I think. I'm entirely satisfied with this one, at long last. That now covers all canon Enterprises. Except the J but who cares, right?
Nice! That said I will say that I have long thought one of the weaknesses of the Ambassador design (onscreen version) has been the nacelle pylon supports with a right angle bend in them--looks just wrong to my eyes.
Directly from the front, maybe, but if you see the ship from various angles they don't look that squarish because of the fact that they're swept backwards. I tried to have the upward portion of them angled to the sides but it wasn't that great, either.
My main issue is that I much prefer Probert's original Ambassador design which, to my tastes, should have been the Enterprise-D rather than the one we got.
Beautiful work as always @Belz... The pylons for the onscreen version were straight from the Excelsior school of design lineage. So not terribly out of place. The original Probert version was more at the Galaxy end of the spectrum. Depending on when Starfleet started changing their designs, either one would have worked really well.
Not sure I understand your question about layers. The shuttlebays are both just large bays for small craft. There are no levels to them, if that's what you're asking. What you see in them on the top floor are observation decks like on the original Enterprise.
If you crash through the windows, sure! I guess there could be variants of this class where it's a shuttlebay or cargo bay instead. But otherwise two bays should be enough. The one in the saucer's fairly large, and in Star Trek you usually don't need shuttles.
Bit of an update to this lady today. I mainly improved the profile of the engineering section's "nose", and put in quite a bit of work to improve the cutaway view. Merry... er... 9th of July!