Captain April's Enterprise

[BolianAuthor]

Okay... it seems that I personally feel that I need more practice in Illustrator, before I continue work on my Surya/Gemini project. So... I am taking a break from that, to take on a "practice project" in the meantime. I am going to be drawing a set of large, clean, and detailed exterior-only plans for the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 as she appeared right off the assembly line in 2245, when Captain Robert April first took command of her.

I am going by what I have read in the Star Trek Chronology book, that says the Enterprise was 20 years old, when Kirk took command. With this, the book says that the ship was refitted in between five-year missions.

I think I can make this work, using what sources and references I have available, in a way that makes sense, and will be a practical evolution of the design from the end of the Daedalus-Class technology level to where we are at the Kirk TOS-era. I will post a WIP soon.

 

[Patrickivan]

Excellent! Nice tease though. Starting a thread that promisses imagry of some sort, yet provides nothing on the first post...

 

[Blip]

Sounds interesting, but with a caution: This has been done several times before with regards to "early Constitution-class" ships, with a notable one being Dennis Bailey's USS Phoenix.

Assuming you want yours to stand out from the rest, have you considered how you will go about making it unique? Or are you going for more of a conservative approach? (in which case ignore the above!)

 

[BolianAuthor]

Excellent! Nice tease though. Starting a thread that promisses imagry of some sort, yet provides nothing on the first post...

I do try to make everyone happy, lol.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Be sure to include the tab you have to pull out before you can turn the ship on.

 

[BolianAuthor]

Okay, as promised, here is the first WIP... I've decided to start with the warp nacelle...

I am blending the pilot/series version with the original Jefferies concept sketch, to create a "best guess" of what an original Connie nacelle really would have looked like. I did this by taking the key differences of the Jefferies sketch, and integrating them with the things about the nacelle that NEVER changed, from the pilot to the series...

In both the pilot and series, the shape of the nacelle was the same, and the "accordion gills" between the impeller and the nacelle body were there, as were the three little boxes on the underside of the nacelle. But the impeller on the Jefferies sketch is different, and the original sketch did not have the aft "bubble" on the nacelle, and neither did the pilot version. The Jefferies sketch also did not have the little "fins" on the nacelle, so I left those out as well.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'll be watching this thread very intently...

 

[Chaos Descending]

I'll be watching this thread very intently...

Why ever would THAT be? (tee hee hee )

Yes, I am also eager to see this. I like this stuff! I haven't a single nanoliter of artistic talent, so I am envious of you creator types.

 

[Wingsley]

Can anyone post any of the old Jefferies' proto-sketches to correspond with the Bolian Author's drawings? Are they available somewhere for reference?

 

[BolianAuthor]

Thanks, all... I'm glad that some will hopefully enjoy this work.

I am basically going at this from the approach of taking the original Matt Jefferies concept of the ship, and using that as a basic guide, while keeping those elements in line with what the production versions of the ship showed.

I am going to tweak the nacelle a bit, and then do the saucer, and finally the engineering hull.

 

[Warped9]

Hmm... For a moment there I thought this thread was a tip-of-the-hat to CRA.

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

I hope that doesn't mean you don't like it...

 

[Warped9]

^^ Small joke. I thought CRA was launching another thread then I noticed it was your thread. I'm curious to see how your project develops.

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

Thanks... I appreciate that.

Well, I am not totally happy with the warp nacelle the way it is now, so I will redo it a bit. In the meantime, I decided to start on the secondary hull and neck...

Still a WIP, and not done with all the details yet.

 

[BolianAuthor]

A small update, showing part of the newly revised nacelle...

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Nice work so far looking forward to seeing the complete view

 

[Warped9]

aridas did something very much like this sometime ago. I wonder if that thread is still floating around. Or I might even have an image of it somewhere. I'll take a look.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Not sure about the dinky Bussards...

 

[kkozoriz1]

It's not the size, it's what they do with them <grin>

Older ship. Less efficient. Less matter needed for the M/AM system. I can see the bussards as a system that was upgraded at a later time.

 

[Warped9]

aridas did something very much like this sometime ago. I wonder if that thread is still floating around. Or I might even have an image of it somewhere. I'll take a look.

This is what I was thinking of. It's the image on the far right I had in mind. http://home.comcast.net/~aridas/Ent-Con-Val.jpg