Well, today was a marathon session to model the Galaxy. Didn't think I'd get it done in one day, but here it is! I was debating on modeling the window alcoves on the bottom of the saucer, but quite frankly it looked weird without actual windows. I prefer this smooth appearance, which fits well with the other ships. One...more...to go....
I haven't modeled the Sovereign yet (I'm not that quick ) but I plopped in a third-party Sovereign model I have access to just to test scales a bit. Here is where I'm sitting at now with the scales of the display models. I reduced the scale of the TOS and A by about 10 percent from previous to further sell their "less advanced" status. The render below is "lighting only" so you can see the forms and scales a bit better. What does everyone think?
Almost any variation of scales will probably look great, but is this the kind of thing you can rig to change between optional appearances? If so, I think it might be nice if you had an option to show them scaled the way they appeared on-screen too.
This seems like a decent compromise to me between real scale, where the ships would all be dominated by the -C and -D, and the "box scale" of whatever fits int he case, where the longer ships are too big and the wider ones are too small. I feel like the -C and -D could be a touch bigger, and the -E a bit smaller. The -Nil, -A, and -B look perfect relative to each other as-is.
IIRC, the E-E model as filmed was stupid-large compared to the others. It would also make sense that particular model is larger than the rest, considering that's the ship they're on. Looks good to me as-is!
I bet if you made the C and D a little bigger the E wouldn't seem so big by comparison, and wouldn't need reduced.
Ok, I did a test tonight and scaled all the ships to each other, keeping the TOS Connie at a length of 22 inches. This resulted in the D being WAY too big for the case, so I had to scale all of them down by roughly 23% in order to have the D fit comfortably. Here are the results: While it doesn't look terrible, I don't prefer this because a) it breaks too far from the canon apperance, and b) it makes the display very right-heavy and thus light and sparse on the left side. Having satisfied my curiosity, and having a better idea of how the ships relate to each other, I then went back to my original configuration and took what most of you recommended into account and sized the C and D up a bit, and the E down just a smidge. Here is my new "idealized" result: I like these proportions a bit better, but if I were to do anything it would be to scale the E back up to where I had it, because now it looks too small, even though that's roughly it's size compared to the D. EDIT: I think I'm going to add a tiny plaque somewhere inconspicuous that reads: MODELS NOT TO SCALE Here is the canon appearance, just for ease of comparison: Thoughts?
Aesthetically your "idealized" one is my favorite. The bad thing is that the actual filmed version looks kinda bad compared to your version. Maybe introduce some nacelle droop to your models to give it a more movie look?
I'd never really appreciated exactly how much smaller the E-nil was compared to the D (the plan view always made the D about twice as long). It may just be the bling (or rather removing it), but your version looks so much better than John Eaves'! dJE
I appreciate I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer this version. The display is obviously not meant to depict the ships to scale, and you might say the intent was to show the ships are equally legendary holders of the name 'Enterprise', rather than diminish the older ships. I really like how you've evened them out compared with the IRL version, which was obviously limited by the models available at the time. That said, the latest version looks fine, though I agree the -E could be a little larger. I'd probably even push the TOS and -A up slightly too.
The scaled version would work but only if the models were rearranged to balance out their sizes (maybe in a bottom-to-top, left-to-right progression like we saw originally on TNG.) I do kind of like the visual sweep from upper left to lower right the size differences create. Like others have said, the idealized version works the best, keeping the display looking full while still delivering on that sense of progress. Great job as always.
A long time ago, I saw some renders someone made of the -C, -D, and -E right next to each other from various angles, and really understood how small the -E is, even though it’s longer than the other two, which is disguised by the normal side-view comparison. It’s like a pencil next to a pancake.
This one shows size comparisons quite nicely: And this one adds the Universe-class Enterprise-J to REALLY put things in perspective: