I did a quick drawing of the new Pike Enterprise uniform from the Discovery preview, and have it next to some TNG/DS9/VOY-era drawings I've done previously (all on the same model. What do you guys think? Am I missing something?
Very nice! Perhaps you should add the ENT era uniforms so you can see the design evolve from ENT to nuTOS.
What I notice is that the one on the show has more asymmetry in the collar than what you have at the moment: Is it me, or are the Discovery series uniform insignias in general mounted considerably higher on the uniforms than in TOS?
Rank stripes in the nuTOS uniforms should be silver. Collars on the DISCO and nuTOS are too symmetrical
Rank stripes and badges for the NuTOS uniforms are color dependent still. So Command - Gold, Science/Med - Silver, etc. Visible in the elevator shot. Also agreed the collar needs to be more asymmetrical.
There we fo, a little more offset, and I mocked up what Pike wore in the cage for comparison. What a difference!
Not a fan of the collar. I get what they're doing with it as it's a pre-cursor to the TWOK uniforms but it looks over complicated. The lines around the arm joints look unnecessary as well. Is that for extra strength so they don't rip as often? You should do the Odyssey uniform from Star Trek Online. My favourite out of all of them.
I assumed it was just to match the standard DSC collars. The original Cage collars are closer to the Twok turtlenecks.
The collars on both the Discovery and the Disco-prise uniforms are much more assymetrical than in your drawings, and also I think much thicker than on the TNG/DS9/VOY uniforms. For the record: I like your version better. IMO the uniform should have been more symmetrical, with the zipper being in the middle, and the collar less pronounced. That would look better.
No, they just figured out a way to keep them from messing up. The perfect zipper, mankind's greatest achievement.
Seeing your image makes me remember how much I love the DS9/VOY uniforms. I don't mind the DISCO or DISCO-ENT uniforms, but as with many outfits in screen these days (see all superheros) they seem over complicated just for the sake of it. Plain fabric just doesn't cut it in the HD age I guess!
That asymmetrical collar looks so terrible. Like it belongs on some weirdo hipster artist from France. Fix that and you may have a decent uniform. We've posted manips of the uniform with a gold collar and it looks better.
I had another quick look at the S2 trailer and the same things leapt out at me as when it was first released. The truth is that there’s no amount of retconning or throw-away one-liners in (?semi-) canon novels that really makes sense of why the crews of the Enterprise and the other Constitution Class vessels should have a separate uniform to the rest of Starfleet. I think it’s just one of those things that we simply have to notch up to the fact that they were just going to do this regardless and accept it and move on. I didn’t mind the DSC blue uniforms as an evolution from the ENT era jumpsuits and the use of gold / silver / copper was actually quite clever. My biggest bugbear was the gratuitous over-use of the Starfleet arrowhead (the side panels of the uniforms, the clasps on the boots, every last piece of equipment...) which I detested on the pyjama tops from the original JJ-verse uniforms. The things that struck me: - on balance, however, it makes sense within the DSC continuity that they kept the same overall design as the S1 blue uniforms. - the new version of the Starfleet arrowhead badge Is different in shale to the S1 version and is a nice nod to the shape to the fabric/embroidered versions on the Cage / TOS velour tops (yes, those badges also evolved but the overall look was much the same). - The rank cuff stripes actually have some “depth” and texture to them and look like they might be slightly different to the very flat, iron-on silver cuff stripes from the JJ-verse uniforms, including the updated version in Beyond. - Pike’s uniform definitely has gold cuff rings instead of the silver seen on the Science lieutenant. He also has gold piping either side of the front opening along the zipper line. I can’t see clearly enough to tell if the female Operations Officer has copper rank stripes or silver the same as the Sciences Officer. Copper would be a nice touch, to tie in with the other DSC department colours, but I have a feeling that her cuff stripes are silver. - neither of the other Enterprise officers have the metallic piping up the front of their uniforms. My best guess is that this is specific to the Captain’s version, in the same way that Georgiou and Lorca had additional gold detailing on the shoulders of their blue uniforms; this may also be why his cuff stripes are gold and theirs are silver. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with other more junior officers from Command division in the Enterprise uniform. - I *still* wish they had used proper TOS-style dashes / broken stripe for the centre of the captain’s insignia (and also lieut-commander) instead of the thin stripe used on the JJ-verse costumes. It would have helped to set them apart. - I wonder if, in time, we will see the DSC asymmetric collar evolve into a more TOS-like symmetrical V-collar in black. I suspect not, however, as this seems to be an integral part of what the costume designer wanted so I can’t see her easily moving away from it. The bottom line is that I kinda like these and, frankly, they are really what the big-screen versions of the TOS uniforms *should* have looked like in the JJ movies. There is no amount of intellectual gymnastics that can sensibly explain why they should be so different to the other uniforms in the DSC continuity, nor why they are clearly so different to the costumes from the TOS pilot episodes — and I don’t really care; it’s a TV show not life-and-death so I just can’t get that worked up about it. It’s meant to be fun; if I like it then I’ll watch and keep watching; if I don’t like it then I won’t...!