Cyfa's art challenges and other bits & bobs
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^ Just without the adorable little faces. And fangs! (I've just spent far too long going down a wikipedia rabbit hole after looking up mammatus clouds - thank you, @publiusr! 
)
Heres my hastily slapped together final piece for November's art challenge: The Lower Deckers encounter Moopsy clouds!
)Heres my hastily slapped together final piece for November's art challenge: The Lower Deckers encounter Moopsy clouds!
^ Just without the adorable little faces. And fangs! (I've just spent far too long going down a wikipedia rabbit hole after looking up mammatus clouds - thank you, @publiusr!
Heres my hastily slapped together final piece for November's art challenge: The Lower Deckers encounter Moopsy clouds!
Oh thats great! Mind if I post it in Star Trek Shitposting on FB?
~ I did toy with the idea of showing Boimler or Mariner through the shuttle's window, but it was too small an area for me to have made them little more than a blob, nevermind recognisable
~ Thank you! And, yeah, go ahead, just link back here so people know where it came from
Just dusting off this thread to fill in the backlog and post my latest piece for February's Fan Art Challenge. But first, December's piece for "Aliens Stole My Reindeer!": Doctor Bashir presents Martok with a Plum Pudding "Torpedo"
Then, for January's "Transporter Malfunctions", the Lower Deckers got turned into puppets:
We had a Valentine themed week at work and one of the team leaders - who looks quite similar to Rutherford
- dressed up as Cupid. He inspired me to do this quick marker-coloured sketch:
And yes, he really does have a body like that, but wore a bigger toga so as not to cause too many palpitations. The spoilsport!
And finally February's "Wrong Episode Posters": I started the month with the Carry On films stuck in my head, so I knew I was going to end up creating a Carry On poster with an episode or character beginning with C (or K). I really wanted to do Carry On Cargo (as in "Precious") as it's one of my favourite and most watched ENT episodes, but quickly realised that it practically is a Carry On film, so it couldn't be "wrong". Then I toyed with Carry On Cardassians (DS9), before wondering if the TNG episode "Conspiracy" could lend itself to the Carry On treatment. It's been years since I've seen it, so I took a quick trip to Memory Alpha and was overjoyed to discover some joking and laughing right at the start of the episode, but it was Worf's remark that swimming (on Pacifica) is too much like bathing that cinched the deal. I even thought of a (rather long) tag line:
I looked at some Carry On film posters and quickly realised that I needed to spend a LOT of time practicing caricatures (time I didn't have), so I decided to use screencaps in MSPaint instead. (I briefly toyed with the idea of using an online caricature generator, but the ones that produced the best images used erroneously named A. I. and there was no way of telling whose art they appropriated to do so, so that got knocked on the head very quickly.)
TrekCore.com and Cygnus-X1.net both had great screencaps of the characters smiling or laughing (except for Worf, of course
) - although, some of them (Picard, Crusher, Geordi and Data) I had to flip then reposition their rank pips and comm badges. I wanted to include Ursaline Bryant's Tryla Scott as female representation is sorely lacking, but I couldn't find a screencap with a suitable expression, so I included her birthdate in the Big Red Wedge instead (4th November 1947 - lowest two markers). Once I'd put everything together, I used a light watercolour paint filter (in FotoSketcher) over the characters to soften their harshness (and the jagged edges created by Paint's cutting tool).
Anyway, here's my hasty and somewhat slapdash effort: Carry On Conspiracy
[If I had to do this again, I'd spend some time searching for a more similar font to the "Holiday of a LAUGHtime" line, and I'd reposition the Carry On Conspiracy title and Riker to make it seem like the Big Red Wedge is about to probe his rear end
(I might even move that parasite along so it looks more like Admiral Aaron is toasting it).]
As you can see, I based the design and layout on 1972's Carry On Abroad poster:
Then, for January's "Transporter Malfunctions", the Lower Deckers got turned into puppets:
We had a Valentine themed week at work and one of the team leaders - who looks quite similar to Rutherford
And yes, he really does have a body like that, but wore a bigger toga so as not to cause too many palpitations. The spoilsport!
And finally February's "Wrong Episode Posters": I started the month with the Carry On films stuck in my head, so I knew I was going to end up creating a Carry On poster with an episode or character beginning with C (or K). I really wanted to do Carry On Cargo (as in "Precious") as it's one of my favourite and most watched ENT episodes, but quickly realised that it practically is a Carry On film, so it couldn't be "wrong". Then I toyed with Carry On Cardassians (DS9), before wondering if the TNG episode "Conspiracy" could lend itself to the Carry On treatment. It's been years since I've seen it, so I took a quick trip to Memory Alpha and was overjoyed to discover some joking and laughing right at the start of the episode, but it was Worf's remark that swimming (on Pacifica) is too much like bathing that cinched the deal. I even thought of a (rather long) tag line:
"Swimming? On Pacifica? Will anyone throw Worf a LAUGHline to rescue him from dishonor? Or, even worse: Bathing!
Fortunately, yes. A hostile alien race 'saves' his day!"
Fortunately, yes. A hostile alien race 'saves' his day!"
I looked at some Carry On film posters and quickly realised that I needed to spend a LOT of time practicing caricatures (time I didn't have), so I decided to use screencaps in MSPaint instead. (I briefly toyed with the idea of using an online caricature generator, but the ones that produced the best images used erroneously named A. I. and there was no way of telling whose art they appropriated to do so, so that got knocked on the head very quickly.)
TrekCore.com and Cygnus-X1.net both had great screencaps of the characters smiling or laughing (except for Worf, of course
) - although, some of them (Picard, Crusher, Geordi and Data) I had to flip then reposition their rank pips and comm badges. I wanted to include Ursaline Bryant's Tryla Scott as female representation is sorely lacking, but I couldn't find a screencap with a suitable expression, so I included her birthdate in the Big Red Wedge instead (4th November 1947 - lowest two markers). Once I'd put everything together, I used a light watercolour paint filter (in FotoSketcher) over the characters to soften their harshness (and the jagged edges created by Paint's cutting tool).Anyway, here's my hasty and somewhat slapdash effort: Carry On Conspiracy
[If I had to do this again, I'd spend some time searching for a more similar font to the "Holiday of a LAUGHtime" line, and I'd reposition the Carry On Conspiracy title and Riker to make it seem like the Big Red Wedge is about to probe his rear end
As you can see, I based the design and layout on 1972's Carry On Abroad poster:
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For March's "Retro Rockets" art challenge, my original idea was to paint a picture of Kimolu in the Art Nouveau style of Alfons Mucha, but that would have meant buying some new paints (as my old tubes have long since dried up) and doing a lot of practising. As the month neared its end putting paid to any practise time, I remembered an idea I had four years ago (?!? How can it have been that long??): Stellar (sic) Botanica.
I had grand plans for an ornate and colourful (using watercolour pencil crayons) 17th-19th century style illustration of one of the giant machine plants (and associated "wildlife") from the Lightspeed Lagoon Nebula which are harvested for parts to make starships and the like. Needless to say, those grand plans were whittled down to something a lot simpler and less time consuming considering the time constraints:
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I looked at botanical art & illustrations by the artists Pierre Jean François Turpin, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Maria Sibylla Merian:
I based my illustration on Turpin's waterlily, included wildlife as Merian did in some of her art, and labelled it like Ehret's Magnolia.
I had grand plans for an ornate and colourful (using watercolour pencil crayons) 17th-19th century style illustration of one of the giant machine plants (and associated "wildlife") from the Lightspeed Lagoon Nebula which are harvested for parts to make starships and the like. Needless to say, those grand plans were whittled down to something a lot simpler and less time consuming considering the time constraints:
I looked at botanical art & illustrations by the artists Pierre Jean François Turpin, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Maria Sibylla Merian:
I based my illustration on Turpin's waterlily, included wildlife as Merian did in some of her art, and labelled it like Ehret's Magnolia.
I thought I'd better make a start on this month's art challenge - Inspired by Laura - before the month runs away with me again. I'd already picked three of @Laura Cynthia Chambers' starship designs (Starships 57, 58 & 52), but found another one today that piqued my interest (31) and started sketching:
At the top is #57 - I envisage this "stuck with plungers" ship with a spherical hull bristling with sensor antennae.
The three middle sketches are of #58. To me, Laura's design looked rather Oberth-like, but she mentioned that this is a top-down view. So, rather than having a secondary hull/sensor pod overshadowing the saucer, I made it part of the primary hull (as in the USS Kobayashi Maru) with the central ridged part a 'greenhouse' dome (as this could be a botanical crusier).
At the bottom right is a head-on sketch of # 52 - As I said back here: "I imagine this is the side view, with the grey ovals on the left being the front of the ship, and the six vertical bars are large, exposed warp coils (or small, in-line warp rings like the Vulcans use)."
And bottom left is #31 - what I interpret as its undercarriage. My sketch next to it is how I imagine a side view to look.
[Ignore the fishy Excelsior on the right - that's an idea for MerMay]
I think I'm going to work on 57 or 58 for my final piece, but we'll see.
At the top is #57 - I envisage this "stuck with plungers" ship with a spherical hull bristling with sensor antennae.
The three middle sketches are of #58. To me, Laura's design looked rather Oberth-like, but she mentioned that this is a top-down view. So, rather than having a secondary hull/sensor pod overshadowing the saucer, I made it part of the primary hull (as in the USS Kobayashi Maru) with the central ridged part a 'greenhouse' dome (as this could be a botanical crusier).
At the bottom right is a head-on sketch of # 52 - As I said back here: "I imagine this is the side view, with the grey ovals on the left being the front of the ship, and the six vertical bars are large, exposed warp coils (or small, in-line warp rings like the Vulcans use)."
And bottom left is #31 - what I interpret as its undercarriage. My sketch next to it is how I imagine a side view to look.
[Ignore the fishy Excelsior on the right - that's an idea for MerMay]
I think I'm going to work on 57 or 58 for my final piece, but we'll see.
YES!!! I love all of this! This is exactly the kind of art I had in mind when I came up with this. Love all the directions you have taken the designs, but I think the most fascinating design might be the one based on Laura’s #58, i.e. the one with the greenhouse dome. Looks so cool in your sketch! But also, that ring design (#31)! So cool!
Hope to be able to start on my own ideas as well soon. Seeing this reminds me of how much fun this is!
Hope to be able to start on my own ideas as well soon. Seeing this reminds me of how much fun this is!
Ah, thank you, @Michael
I did another sketch of the botanical cruiser (#58), but I just can't quite transfer what's in my head onto paper properly (I'm thinking it's a California-class variant). And it doesn't help that "stuck with plungers" (#57) keeps popping into my thoughts. While I like a spherical hull now and then, it's just not working in my sketches, so I tried something different:
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I much prefer this slanted-saucer version, and I think it's the design I'm going to work on. I think. Maybe.
I much prefer this slanted-saucer version, and I think it's the design I'm going to work on. I think. Maybe.
Wow, it looks so cool that way! I didn't picture it slanted, myself; I thought the nacelles would be attached on the saucer end, but that's awesome.
Attached at both ends of the folded nacelles, like it's pinching the saucer between tweezers.
Ohhhhh... How novel! As cool as warp tweezers sound, I'd better continue with what I'm doing as it wouldn't look good to have help/assistance from the source artist 
(Not to mention that I'd need at least another weekend to work on them!)
I've been having a bit of mind-boggling fun coming up with the front view for this design. I'm not sure if the secondary hull really works with an oval cross-section, so I might try triangular with chamfered edges (I think triangular would better suit the three nacelle pylons, too).
As for what's going at the rear, I haven't thought too much about it yet. Maybe a couple of impulse engines spaced between the three pylons under the saucer edge, and a shuttlebay in the undercut?
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A thought I had about the antennae is that they're manoeuvrable. The forward-facing position they're in above is for when the ship's at warp and/or for tight-focused scanning. Then they can stand upright for general scanning/comms while at rest, or fan out for wide-angle consumption of all that delicious interstellar data either at rest or sublight speeds!
(Not to mention that I'd need at least another weekend to work on them!)I've been having a bit of mind-boggling fun coming up with the front view for this design. I'm not sure if the secondary hull really works with an oval cross-section, so I might try triangular with chamfered edges (I think triangular would better suit the three nacelle pylons, too).
As for what's going at the rear, I haven't thought too much about it yet. Maybe a couple of impulse engines spaced between the three pylons under the saucer edge, and a shuttlebay in the undercut?
A thought I had about the antennae is that they're manoeuvrable. The forward-facing position they're in above is for when the ship's at warp and/or for tight-focused scanning. Then they can stand upright for general scanning/comms while at rest, or fan out for wide-angle consumption of all that delicious interstellar data either at rest or sublight speeds!
I'd gladly comment on other people's entries, too, if I had anything to say. 
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Thanks, @publiusr - Laura's designs really fire up the old imagination, and this one is no different
I've been having the very devil of a time over the past week trying to work out exactly what the rear and underneath of this ship look like. I have a general idea, but found it difficult to put it down on paper - or MSPaint, as it were. It hasn't helped that I keep dithering between having a triangular or oval cross-sectioned secondary hull - or a combination of both! Plus, the weather has been amazing for the last few days, so I've been sorting the garden out rather than working on this.
So, as producing a full range of orthos has been nixed by dithering and weather, I've tidied up the side views displaying the different positions of the comms & mapping antennas and added a very basic cutaway MSD:
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As you might be able to tell, there are two different gravity envelopes going on. The primary hull/saucer section is mostly all cetacean navigation and cet.ops so the gravity (& decking) follows the plane of the saucer to allow for a lovely big air bubble (the blue bit) for the whale & dolphin crew to breathe in. The light grey part of the secondary hull has gravity & decking following the plane of the nacelles - this part of the ship is mostly given over to shuttle & work/repair bays, and probe/relay manufacturing/drop bays.
Each nacelle houses two sets of warp coils and its own M/ARA and is accessible by both cetaceans and humanoids, but they're highly automated so won't require a physical presence except in extreme circumstances. The ship can run on one, two, or all three nacelles depending on requirements, and can descend to and traverse the K-layer* - a deep subspace domain - for piggyback signal concealment, "matter switching", and defensive manoeuvring. There are two impulse engines at the rear of the saucer situated between the nacelle pylons.
The Chambers-class is lightly armed with one forward-facing probe/torpedo launcher, and four phaser arrays (two dorsal & two ventral).
* From the DS9 Technical Manual.
I've been having the very devil of a time over the past week trying to work out exactly what the rear and underneath of this ship look like. I have a general idea, but found it difficult to put it down on paper - or MSPaint, as it were. It hasn't helped that I keep dithering between having a triangular or oval cross-sectioned secondary hull - or a combination of both! Plus, the weather has been amazing for the last few days, so I've been sorting the garden out rather than working on this.
So, as producing a full range of orthos has been nixed by dithering and weather, I've tidied up the side views displaying the different positions of the comms & mapping antennas and added a very basic cutaway MSD:
As you might be able to tell, there are two different gravity envelopes going on. The primary hull/saucer section is mostly all cetacean navigation and cet.ops so the gravity (& decking) follows the plane of the saucer to allow for a lovely big air bubble (the blue bit) for the whale & dolphin crew to breathe in. The light grey part of the secondary hull has gravity & decking following the plane of the nacelles - this part of the ship is mostly given over to shuttle & work/repair bays, and probe/relay manufacturing/drop bays.
Each nacelle houses two sets of warp coils and its own M/ARA and is accessible by both cetaceans and humanoids, but they're highly automated so won't require a physical presence except in extreme circumstances. The ship can run on one, two, or all three nacelles depending on requirements, and can descend to and traverse the K-layer* - a deep subspace domain - for piggyback signal concealment, "matter switching", and defensive manoeuvring. There are two impulse engines at the rear of the saucer situated between the nacelle pylons.
The Chambers-class is lightly armed with one forward-facing probe/torpedo launcher, and four phaser arrays (two dorsal & two ventral).
* From the DS9 Technical Manual.
