Oh wow, this early TOS Movie Era Klingon space station is from the same comic as the USS Gallant I linked above. I found it terrifying the first time I saw it, crawling with Klingon battlecruisers. I love the early Klingon esthetic closer to TOS and I think the BoP bridge from ST III. I think they dropped the ball when they kept going back to the Klingon well and making it homogenous regardless of era, and ever more Tolkien-like. This reminds me of the Warbird Moonhawk also linked above. The D'deridex is such an unusual ship, and I've always wondered how Probert came up with it knowing only TOS BoP for the Romulans. This ship needs work, and I can't say it'd be pretty even with work, but interesting to me from an exotic design perspective. Shots like this are also interesting to me. We usually see ships gleaming and new (fresh from the proud designer), but what about ships in repair, or repurposed by foreign governments, or older classes now used by civilians, or pirates? Obviously things can get silly pretty quickly, straining one's suspension of disbelief or undercutting one's admiration of a design in the first place. But sometimes, it also just makes the realism of the universe pop and can inspire the imagination...WHERE is the saucer here? Is this an old piece of junk that now flies like this on limited missions? What if you saw a Romulan BoP with Klingon markings on it...was it part of a tech trade or was it captured and infuriatingly embarrassing to the Romulans?
Agree with Forbin's nit-pick on Jackill's seeming obsession with arboretums in EVRY single class of ship no matter the size of function. And I would add I find some of the ship classifications to be questionable. Some of them get way too specific. Would Starfleet really get that pigeon-holed on type classifications?
Hydroponics 17:01 "THOU SHALT NOT BESMIRCH THE ARBORETUMS!" Really, I really liked them as a kid. They spoke to humane nature of the fleet, and they fit what I see as the purpose of the saucers -- to make being on these ships, away, as bearable as possible. Let the Klingons get trigger-happy in their nasty conditions, or the Romulans long for peace from their nature...the Feds are one with themselves and all. Knights of the Federation, "at home" at home or away. Made me want to understand this "Star Trek" of theirs more. Sorry, who's Sasser? I'd love to take a look at his work.
He's just fine as far as I know. I spoke with him on the phone a couple of months ago and he gave me some good advice about self-publishing while he was barbecuing dinner. He's on facebook all the time, not only with his personal page, but with the SF blueprint group. If he's got any health issues, he doesn't talk about them.
Just checked his FB page to make sure. There's pix of him having a good time at Wonderfest looking fine.
Does anyone know where I can find an image of Jackill's Clemenceau Class Through Deck Cruiser online? I'm looking for something like this, but I'll take anything. (The Clemenceau in the linke isn't correct -- different shuttlebay.)
Erik has a bunch of new things on his site that I really would like to get, but I can only seem to put 1 thing in the cart before PayPal goes into a weird mode and won’t accept any more items. Tried it with multiple browsers and they all have this problem. Anyone else had this happen to them?
I would if I had a FB account. Maybe I'll email him directly. I think I still have it in my archives somewhere.
I've got pdfs of the three volumes Jackill produced that I found online, and can agree that they are stunning pieces of work. If I were slightly more of a TME fan I'd probably pick them up, but right now TOS has most of my attention. Do like his Taurus-class Transport/Tug and Daedalus-class Cruiser. As for the arboretums, consider them cargo bays occasionally turned over to recrational use or botannical study.
Those would work better as cargo hatches than the big-ass "Shoot Here for Explosive Decompression" windows,