The phaser definitely has a blue hue, but a much darker value than the blue-gray uniforms.
Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)
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The phaser definitely has a blue hue, but a much darker value than the blue-gray uniforms.
Yeah, that sucker is blue. Which I'm actually disappointed about, because if it was pure grey, it would serve to contrast it from the TWOK version I'm modeling alongside this one.
Seems to me in Workbee's second image, if you compare the phaser and tricorder they seem to be the same grey?
I was just thinking that. Dammit.
I thought of that, but the lighting in the foyer/corridor wouldn't be the same as the lighting in the quarters.
It just looks darker gray to me. And as shown in those optical illusions I linked to, your brain can't always accurately perceive the similarity or difference between colors at different parts of an image.
Anyway, this is reminding me of something I've always thought was odd about TMP -- I'm pretty sure it's the only Trek movie in which phasers are never fired. The one attempt to fire ship's phasers is countermanded in favor of torpedoes, and nobody uses a pistol phaser at any point. If someone's only exposure to ST was through TMP, they'd probably have no idea what a phaser even did, except that it was some kind of weapon the ship had. (Though a ray gun is a pretty easy guess for sci-fi.)
The Voyage Home is nearly phaser-less, since Chekov's attempt to use the Klingon phaser literally fizzles out, but Kirk does use his phaser to melt a door lock in the hospital scene.
Doing some tests in my rendering software, the temperature (as in warm or cold hues) of the lights greatly has an influence over the hue a grey object appears as well. Also, I just got up from my desk, looked at the TOS Klingon Disruptor replica I have on my nightstand (I never sleep without a trusty disruptor near my bed 
), and although it's definitely 100% grey, looks blue due to the lighting in my room which is just sunlight coming through my window.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SEE ANYMORE!
), and although it's definitely 100% grey, looks blue due to the lighting in my room which is just sunlight coming through my window.I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SEE ANYMORE!
I think gray things often have a bluish appearance to the eye. I did a little googling, and apparently it's quite easy for gray paint to appear blue to the eye due to a variety of factors, including the color contrasts mentioned above, the hue of the lighting, and the undertone of the paint: https://tbuswellinteriors.com/qa-why-does-my-gray-wall-paint-color-look-blue/
I shouldn't wonder if it had something to do with the color sensitivity of the retinal pigments, like maybe our blue-sensitive cones are more stimulated by gray than the red and green cones are, or the way the sensitivity curves align makes gray look blue. (Sort of like the reason why stars almost never look green to us -- because the interaction of their blackbody curves and our cones' sensitivity curves sort of negate each other so that a star with a peak wavelength in the green band -- like our own Sun, IIRC -- looks more whitish or yellowish to the human eye.)
I shouldn't wonder if it had something to do with the color sensitivity of the retinal pigments, like maybe our blue-sensitive cones are more stimulated by gray than the red and green cones are, or the way the sensitivity curves align makes gray look blue. (Sort of like the reason why stars almost never look green to us -- because the interaction of their blackbody curves and our cones' sensitivity curves sort of negate each other so that a star with a peak wavelength in the green band -- like our own Sun, IIRC -- looks more whitish or yellowish to the human eye.)
It also makes sense to color the "metallic" props the same if you have a lot of one color. Why color phasers and the tricorders different if both of them are both handheld equipment items?
Do we know for a fact the phasers were repainted Donny, or is that based on comparing screencaps?
I really, really miss the Wrath of Khan starship Phasers. Just about every place else in Star Trek they use the TNG single beams. Trek's come close with things like the Kelvinverse films and I think Discovery tried it a couple of times, but it's never the same steady stream pulses. Also I still wonder to this day how the sound effects for them were created.
Do we know for a fact the phasers were repainted Donny, or is that based on comparing screencaps?
I really, really miss the Wrath of Khan starship Phasers. Just about every place else in Star Trek they use the TNG single beams. Trek's come close with things like the Kelvinverse films and I think Discovery tried it a couple of times, but it's never the same steady stream pulses. Also I still wonder to this day how the sound effects for them were created.
Doing some more tests: here's my TMP phaser model (WIP) with a 100% de-saturated grey, slightly glossy plastic treatment:
Under slightly cool lighting:
Under slightly warm lighting:
You can see that the phaser under cool lighting looks as if it's painted blue, whereas under warm lighting it looks brown.
Unless we can find higher quality images of the hero TMP phaser under good lighting conditions, I think this is going to be up to interpretation.
Under slightly cool lighting:
Under slightly warm lighting:
You can see that the phaser under cool lighting looks as if it's painted blue, whereas under warm lighting it looks brown.
Unless we can find higher quality images of the hero TMP phaser under good lighting conditions, I think this is going to be up to interpretation.
I was quite sure before I started questioning. But now I don't know what to believe. My entire universe is upside-down right now
For instance, under the regular Blu-Ray of TWOK, we see that the phaser looks quite blue (but that print was known to have a bluish color grading)
But on the Blu-Ray Director's Cut of TWOK, which apparently has a "corrected" color grading, we see that the phaser appears greyer:
However, in both shots, the phaser does look much more metallic. We do know that the controls up top were slightly altered, the "ridge" on the front of the phaser was filed down, the hologram/metallic strip added to the sides, and the trigger gap filled in with a cylindrical trigger added instead, so it would stand to assume that the phasers were repainted after being altered so heavily.
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To complicate matters, things were often painted one tone expecting the cameras and lighting to make them look as another tone. I don't know if that that was a thing on the sets, but for the model work ILM painted them with hues of blue so that once the bright, warm studio lights hit them they were seen grey, All the models used at least in the first 3 movies had a slight blue tone to the hull, with bright blue details, which then translated to different tones of grey on film. This is why I always nitpick when seeing fan models use the colors from photographs of the original models, they're supposed to be much more muted versions once filmed.
A lot depends on the film stocks and the type of lights. My Canon digital SLR tends to bias slightly into the yellow, for instance, and motion picture films have similar biases.
The TMP phasers never look right to my eye as neutral grey grey. I've always perceived a very subtle bluish cast to them.
The TMP phasers never look right to my eye as neutral grey grey. I've always perceived a very subtle bluish cast to them.
Which would explain why so many of the movie-era ships from the 1990s Star Trek Micro Machines were really blue:
I guess it would also explain why the Enterprise-D miniature, which was painted azure, tended to look gray onscreen. I always figured it was a color-correction choice. (Although I read once that Probert made it azure as an homage to the TOS effects shots where erroneous color correction made the Enterprise's gray hull look blue-green.)
Or the Enterprise-D being painted blue but not looking blue... ah dang, @Christopher beat me to it.
I was going to point at the D7 and ask what color it should be (Jeffries' color scheme or the grey pattern from our TV screens?)
Yep, haha I still have those, though they're thoroughly destroyed from when I used to play with them as a little kid.
AMT did the same thing with its model kits. I had the Excelsior, which the instructions suggest painting light blue, and even had it that way on the box. My father brought it when I was little and painted it as instructed... I disassembled it and removed all the paint when I was a teen, couldn't see it with that color.
But yeah, personal tangent aside, a lot of misinformation about the ships' coloring persist due to this, heck even Greg Jein when doing the new Excelsior model for Voyager mistook the blue accents for an intended blue color, perpetuating the problem.
I was quite sure before I started questioning. But now I don't know what to believe. My entire universe is upside-down right now
For instance, under the regular Blu-Ray of TWOK, we see that the phaser looks quite blue (but that print was known to have a bluish color grading)
But on the Blu-Ray Director's Cut of TWOK, which apparently has a "corrected" color grading, we see that the phaser appears greyer:
However, in both shots, the phaser does look much more metallic. We do know that the controls up top were slightly altered, the "ridge" on the front of the phaser was filed down, the hologram/metallic strip added to the sides, and the trigger gap filled in with a cylindrical trigger added instead, so it would stand to assume that the phasers were repainted after being altered so heavily.
Here's an actual TWOK phaser prop from the film and its definitely blue (unless of course this picture has improper white balance), also if you look closely only the bottom lip around the emitter was filed off while the top one is still intact.
Fun fact: If you look closely the phaser Ensign Perez has in Ilia's quaters has TWOK style button/controls albeit applied upside down.
And here it is properly color balanced:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187270896@N02/49808178597/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187270896@N02/49808178597/in/dateposted-public/
