Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador kit!

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Probert said:
The actual original length of that painted ship itself is about 3 INCHES. It was hastily put together to be used (rejected) for a scene in a first season episode.

So your illustration was originally intended to be photographed as a matte element for a visual effects sequence? It is certainly a beautiful and evocative render (much like your unused Velara III matte painting from Home Soil), but the execution is I think just a touch too impressionistic for it to have easily passed as a photographic miniature, particularly if the planned shot was to have included stock elements of the Enterprise-D.

TGT

 

[The Vorlon]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Updated Again.

http://www.probertdesigns.com/Folder_STORE/Folder_CONCEPT-KITS/ART/AmbassPROG.jpg

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Woohoo! The forward torpedo tubes are now equipped with - wait for it - actual torpedo tubes!

TGT

 

[FalTorPan]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

The God Thing said:
So your illustration was originally intended to be photographed as a matte element for a visual effects sequence? It is certainly a beautiful and evocative render (much like your unused Velara III matte painting from Home Soil), but the execution is I think just a touch too impressionistic for it to have easily passed as a photographic miniature, particularly if the planned shot was to have included stock elements of the Enterprise-D.

TGT

Since TNG was edited and composited using professional-grade video -- as opposed to film -- I would imagine that the format's limited resolution and color depth would mask any impressionistic characteristics of the painting. (For what it's worth, I think the painting would have worked very well.)

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

^ That may very likely have been the case. My knowledge of ST:TNG's visual effects practices during the first two seasons was limited to reading my long since discarded copy of Cinefex #37. BTW, are you keeping up with archiving all of Andrew's WIPS on your website? You appear to be two or three images behind the curve.

TGT

 

[Manticore]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Um...why do I need a password to access probertdesigns.com now?

 

[Probert]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Manticore said:
Um...why do I need a password to access probertdesigns.com now?

Refresh and try again.

Andrew-

 

[Probert]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

The God Thing said:
So your illustration was originally intended to be photographed as a matte element for a visual effects sequence? It is certainly a beautiful and evocative render (much like your unused Velara III matte painting from Home Soil), but the execution is I think just a touch too impressionistic for it to have easily passed as a photographic miniature.
TGT

The ship's width was less than a forth of the frame so, actually it would have worked quite well. Matte paintings are VERY impressionistic to the naked eye but film grain blends it all together.

Andrew-

 

[FalTorPan]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

The God Thing said:
BTW, are you keeping up with archiving all of Andrew's WIPS on your website? You appear to be two or three images behind the curve.

TGT

I've archived the two images (but not the animation), and I'll update the page later today, time permitting. Been busy with work, MBA studies, being an uncle, and trying to have some semblance of an ordinary human existence.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Well, if the model of this is 14" long or smaller, I'll definitely be picking it up. (If it's a 3' long monster, I probably won't... no need to spend a lot of money for another monster that I won't have anyplace to put and will just end up sitting in a box!)

Another thought... Andrew, have you considered making your DIGITAL MODEL available? I'm not sure how you'd deal with this (there are channels for doing so... Turbosquid, places like that...) and I'm sure that SOMEONE would end up using it without pay at some point (but nobody with any honor or integrity, and MOST of us have that!).

I'd be very interested in having the digital model available.

Just a thought.

 

[FalTorPan]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Andrew mentioned "upthread" that the digital model is off-limits, in the sense that he doesn't want people to create products directly from his work which would compete directly with Federation Models.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Probert said:
The ship's width was less than a forth of the frame so, actually it would have worked quite well. Matte paintings are VERY impressionistic to the naked eye but film grain blends it all together.

Ah! I am very happy to stand corrected.

FalTorPan said:
Been busy with work, MBA studies, being an uncle, and trying to have some semblance of an ordinary human existence.

What is this "Ordinary Human Existence" and from where can it be downloaded?

TGT

 

[FalTorPan]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

The God Thing said:

FalTorPan said:
Been busy with work, MBA studies, being an uncle, and trying to have some semblance of an ordinary human existence.

What is this "Ordinary Human Existence" and from where can it be downloaded?

TGT

It's not all that it's cracked up to be, and I'm not even sure if it can be digitized.

 

[aridas sofia]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Probert said:
And a side note to everyone who is comparing the painting (too closely) to the (evolving) final model: The actual original length of that painted ship itself is about 3 INCHES. It was hastily put together to be used (rejected) for a scene in a first season episode. The side profile, refined for the history wall, is what I'm following more closely to develop what you're seeing as a WIP.

Andrew-

I am actually quite impressed that the model is as close to the painting as it is. I assume you did that painting using freehand perspective, as opposed to graphically (or orthographically) constructing the scene. To get such a complex shape that close is pretty remarkable. And that's not even getting into the small size of the painting.

Pretty remarkable, at least to me.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Yeah, I agree with Aridas. This is a special skill that, even in the engineering fields, remarkably few people REALLY have. The ability to actually think in 3D.

I've got it... and that's why I chose to do what I do for a living (and why I chafe when I get pushed off into other areas that I'm just "average" in, at work). Aridas seems to have the same, and so do a number of other folks here... but I'd say that maybe 1% of the population (possibly less?) can REALLY think three-dimensionally as their native way of seeing the world.

This is what always has impressed me about Andrew's work... and which seems to be so utterly absent in so many other latter-day Trek designs I've seen. And Andrew, if I'm off-base here, please jump in and call me all wet, I won't mind. But I think that he's like me in this regard... he designs the thing inside his head, first, fully-3D... and THEN "translates" that into an image, or a model, or whatever.

That's why his designs always seem to "work"... whereas many other Trekkian designs are just designed to "look cool" it seems. And why he's one of the two Trek design guys (the other being M.J. of course) whose work I really tend to admire.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Probert said:
The ship's width was less than a forth of the frame so, actually it would have worked quite well. Matte paintings are VERY impressionistic to the naked eye but film grain blends it all together.

Andrew-

Just as an example, I took the scan of the painting and did some simulated "Quantel Harry" work to plop it into a TNG effects shot. Ergo, it might've looked something like below...

And HERE without the glow effects added.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

^ Well, I'm certainly convinced! Thank you for the demonstration, DS9Sega. :thumbsup:

TGT

 

[USS Mariner]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

That would have been sick. Especially if he could have stayed long enough to build the model in scale with the E-D.

I'm pretty sure we never would have seen the NX-2000 again, except in a dumpster.

 

[Tallguy]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Mariner, I'll disagree with that, just because TNG is when they finally figured out how to make the Excelsior look alright.

Andy, just have to say (again) thanks for sharing all of this with us. I think this is just about unprecedented.

Even if you're not going to make YOUR 3D available to us, will you give us nice orthos for the intrepid among us to make ours?

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Andy Probert releases prelim plans for USS Ambassador ki

Mariner Class said:
I'm pretty sure we never would have seen the NX-2000 again, except in a dumpster.

Call me a despicably vindictive SOB, but I would have much preferred something a little more symbolic such as, say, Gene Roddenberry presiding over an Excelsior-burning (using Harve Bennett as the accelerant) religious ceremony in the Paramount carpark one evening after business hours. An autographed photo of the resulting puddle of molten plastic and aluminum could have then been sent to Bill George c/- ILM as a token of The Great Bird's appreciation for services rendered.

TGT