Clean Slate: Uniforms!

[Blue Squadron]

I like those! Subtle use of the Cage-era branch colors and I particularly like the simplicity of the rank insignia - nice! - and they would work well as larger pins on epaulettes or smaller pins on collars (or wherever!).

Were the jackets intended to be the general day-today uniform or are they a formal uniform?

 

[Cepstrum]

BlueSquadron,

to answer your question: my main thoughts are that you and some others here are highly talented graphic artists. You whip these great-designs out so fast. I cannot even draw basic shapes. I stick to coloring books with my nieces and nephews, hehe.

so: good work!

 

[kkozoriz1]

Looks great. The belts were the only element I was having trouble with.

I do miss the 1-1/2-1 stripes for Captain. Call me a traditionalist.

 

[Blue Squadron]

Yeah, I agree; they were only done this way because the thread initially suggested using the contemporary pattern of officer sleeve markings. It would be easy enough to revert the officer cuff insignia to the TOS/TMP pattern and amend the shoulder insignia accordingly.

That being the case, I'd change the warrant officer insignia to single stripe / single stripe + broken stripe / two stripes but continuing to use their unique style of lace.

Actually, to be honest, if I was doing it the way I would prefer then I'd ditch the warrant ranks entirely for Starfleet (I just don't think it's really necessary - the Starfleet way is that they'd hold ordinary officer grades) and if Starfleet has to have non-commissioned grades then I'd reduce the number to match those established by costume designer Robert Fletcher for the TWoK movie uniforms.

 

[kkozoriz1]

In TMP the belts were there just to hold the perscan devices. Not really necessary without them.

 

[Venardhi]

I like those! Subtle use of the Cage-era branch colors and I particularly like the simplicity of the rank insignia - nice! - and they would work well as larger pins on epaulettes or smaller pins on collars (or wherever!).

Were the jackets intended to be the general day-today uniform or are they a formal uniform?

These were the bridge officer uniforms. I used to have the standard duty uniform, away team and dress variants but I lost most of my old stuff in a power surge a few years ago that wiped out both of my computers. Only reason I still have this is it was uploaded on my web-space.

Duty uniforms were basically Cage-style tunics in gray with department colored ship insignia on the breast, as well as department colored rank stripes on the shoulders.

Away uniform was a bit longer jacket, darker gray with slight reinforcing on the chest and shoulders and had a belt.

Dress uniform looked like something in between what you see there and a West Point uniform. Department colors were used more heavily on the jacket and rank was displayed more clearly on the shoulders, with black stripes on either side of the dept. colored one on the pants.

I may recreate them some day, as they were designed for a fan film project I still hope to do one day.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I like Blue Squadron's designs, but find the over use the Starfleet arrowhead to be distracting, especially on the enlisted uniforms.

Thanks - and interesting you should say that...

The Starfleet insignia is only present as a feature on the "belt buckles" (not that there are any real belts per se...) as this was suggested in the description waaaaaay back in the thread that inspired all of this. Personally, I could quite happily ditch the whole belt buckle thing from ALL the versions of this uniform.

As to the NCO insignia, my original intention was to have some form of unique identifying emblem for each CPO grade, which would appear on their sleeve insignia and then also be used as a stand-alone rank marking for the shoulder-strap insignia (thus avoiding the need to have USN-type insignia with a sequential progression of further additional stars). Using the Starfleet insignia (or variations thereof) seemed to be the obvious choice and eliminated the need to add in yet another feature.

What I posted above sort of achieved this objective but I wasn't entirely happy with the way it looked. With insignia, I always feel that the simpler you can make them the better they look - less is very much more and these were just a bit too fussy for my liking. Follwing my update of the shoulder insignia a few posts back, I went back and had another look at the whole scheme for NCOs. Instead of an emblem for each grade, we now have a simple design that indicates "CPO" and simply add chevrons to show seniority. The only exception to this is MCPOSF who does get the Starfleet insignia - but this seems reasonably appropriate for his unique role (and also reflects the similar use of the Starfleet insignia within the rank marking for ADMSF).

Anyway, this is what I came up with - I think it now works better as a standardised sequence but still retains some of the "look" of the original. Any thoughts...?

Very nice. Exactly the sort of "changes" I was thinking of.

I really like the use of TOS colors on these. I hade a similar idea a while back but never went anywhere with it.

OTOH, I'm not too keen of the rank straps on the upper sleeve. Seems to disrupt the flow of the design. Shoulder tabs or dare I say it, collar tabs would look better.

 

[Blue Squadron]

Hi - thank you. Yeah, as much as I like the sleeve bands as an idea that's just a bit different I would agree that continuing to use the shoulder straps is aesthetically the better option for these jackets (see my comments in post #68, above). I'd still keep them for working uniforms such as overalls, flight-suits, etc.

I guess what I was actually thinking when I did this was that there would be occasions when it was appropriate to wear more formal / subdued gray shirts with branch colors shown just on the shoulder straps (+/- behind the Starfleet insignia) but that at other times this could be reversed to have gray shoulder straps on colored shirts of the same design. I like the primary colors approach for at-a-glance role recognition when embarked on a ship. The other great thing about this sort of uniform is that is sure brightens things up for people working for months and years at a time in a big tin can floating in a vacuum - it breaks up the visual monotony of everyone wearing the same drab colors all day, every dayObviously the actual allocation of colors in this particular scheme is different to those from TOS but the basic principle is much the same.

Collar insignia would definitely be one option but probably not with this particular type of collar designs. I did play with colored collars at one point but (a) they didn't quite look right on this style of uniform or the design of the utility overalls and (b) part of the idea that I was working to was to have the basic components of the uniforms as standard and "uniform" as possible so that they were all the same with the exception of specific components that would be added on to indicate branch and grade - hence the shoulder straps. Following the same principle, that was why the original versions of this used only the lighter shade of gray from the center section of the coat for the contrast trouser stripe instead of the branch color (or off-white for flag officers and none for junior enlisted in the plain darker gray uniforms). The formal blue uniforms, however, do have specific branch-colored detailing as well as the additional insignia.

Obviously this is less of a problem if uniform items can simply be replicated to a specific requirement...!

 

[Thomas Kenway-USS Cygnus]

Good morning Blue, I'm quite a fan of the uniform designs you've created. I am running a TOS/TMP era sim ship and would like to use those uniforms as the ones my crew wears. I'm unable to get a clear picture though of the designs and would like your help please. Thanks

 

[1001001]

Good morning Blue, I'm quite a fan of the uniform designs you've created. I am running a TOS/TMP era sim ship and would like to use those uniforms as the ones my crew wears. I'm unable to get a clear picture though of the designs and would like your help please. Thanks

Hello,

First, welcome to the board.

Second, please take some time to acquaint yourself with the posting rules, located here.

This thread has been inactive for over 9 years. Time to rest.