News More Eaglemoss Discovery Starships

[Gepard]

Not really a coincidence if he submitted the same design more than once. Flipped design doesn't make it a coincidence either. The nacelles of the final design do not resemble the unflipped version. They do resemble Mawson.

BTW, for those who bought the Art of John Eaves, I noticed a pic of an early NX concept that resembles a Xindi concept he did later https://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/d.jpg

Eaves does recycle his own work. He also submitted an unused ENT-era Klingon ship design for use as a Kelvin timeline Klingon vessel. (It was rejected.)

I have no trouble believing he may have gone back to the USS Mawson design when his other Shenzeau designs kept being rejected.

 

[Rahul]

I think it's absolutely, 100% fair for concept artists to "keep" designs they think are good but rejected for certain reasons, and re-submitt them for others.

I think ALL concept artists do that. And without it, we wouldn't have gotten for example the Defiant or many of the Xindi-ships.

What doesn't work about the DIS-ships is that they are absolutely not era-appropriate. The design language is simply waaay off, there should be round nacelles with orange caps, eggshell-white hulls, and so on. But I think the blame for that lies on Fuller and his successors - not John Eaves. He follows notes when designing the ship, and his sketches so far show everything from super futuristic to super retro. It's not his fault the designers chose to greenlit the ones that look like 24th century ships.

 

[Dukhat]

I think it's absolutely, 100% fair for concept artists to "keep" designs they think are good but rejected for certain reasons, and re-submitt them for others.

Agreed.

What doesn't work about the DIS-ships is that they are absolutely not era-appropriate.

Also agreed.

But I think the blame for that lies on Fuller and his successors - not John Eaves. He follows notes when designing the ship, and his sketches so far show everything from super futuristic to super retro. It's not his fault the designers chose to greenlit the ones that look like 24th century ships.

While there has been a small contingent of people (Eaves included) who are saying that "Fuller demanded this!" and "Fuller demanded that!," nobody really knows the real story. I can only base my opinions on what I see, and that's that Eaves seems pathologically unable to change his design aesthetic for any race/organization/time period.

 

[Gepard]

I think it's absolutely, 100% fair for concept artists to "keep" designs they think are good but rejected for certain reasons, and re-submitt them for others.

I think ALL concept artists do that. And without it, we wouldn't have gotten for example the Defiant or many of the Xindi-ships.

What doesn't work about the DIS-ships is that they are absolutely not era-appropriate. The design language is simply waaay off, there should be round nacelles with orange caps, eggshell-white hulls, and so on. But I think the blame for that lies on Fuller and his successors - not John Eaves. He follows notes when designing the ship, and his sketches so far show everything from super futuristic to super retro. It's not his fault the designers chose to greenlit the ones that look like 24th century ships.

To be clear, I don't object to recycling unused ideas. I just feel that Eaves makes it very obvious when he has, for the reasons you outlined.

 

[Rahul]

While there has been a small contingent of people (Eaves included) who are saying that "Fuller demanded this!" and "Fuller demanded that!," nobody really knows the real story. I can only base my opinions on what I see, and that's that Eaves seems pathologically unable to change his design aesthetic for any race/organization/time period.

I can understand, and John Eaves certainly has a very strong own style. Like all artists (all Probert-designs also lool like Probert designs - he just didn't create this awfully many starships.

And the designs of his that make it on-screen certainly look like the most John Eaves-designs possible. But the guy is certainly capable of radically doing different stuff: Most noticeably in his concept sketches. In the Eaglemoss collection, especially in the design pages for the DISCO-ships, you can see a lot of alternate designs. And some of them would have been IMO a much better fit for the TOS era, but were rejected probably precisely because of that.

But if given other directions, he can totally design completely different looking stuff. The "military shuttle" from Star Trek(2009) was designed by him - and it doesn't look like an Eaves design at all.

To be clear, I don't object to recycling unused ideas. I just feel that Eaves makes it very obvious when he has, for the reasons you outlined.

Yeah. One thing I find funny, is that the USS Emmet TIll - the ship he designed for the upcoming DS9 documentary - which is IMO a FANTASTIC design, one of the best to come out of Trek in ages - is one of his rejected "Discovery"-designs with 2 nacelles added. Arguibly his most "24th century-style"-version. But I love it!

I just think, he designed so, so many ships for the TNG era, that his signitature-style became a stand-in for 24th century starship design.

But yeah, overall I think a completely fresh approach, by a fresh (but good!) designer to "update" the Star Trek ships faithfully, modernized but not radically, would have been the best approach. But alas, that's not what we got.

 

[F. King Daniel]

That’s just a coincidence.

"Oh shit, I accidently designed the same ship twice."

 

[Tuskin38]

"Oh shit, I accidently designed the same ship twice."

It happens.

 

[Gepard]

It happens.

I swear someone associated with Discovery could accidentally shoot you in face with a shotgun, Dick Cheney style, and the first thing you'd do after waking up in the ER is log onto here and post this.

 

[Tuskin38]

I swear someone associated with Discovery could accidentally shoot you in face with a shotgun, Dick Cheney style, and the first thing you'd do after waking up in the ER is log onto here and post this.

No

 

[Saul]

"Oh shit, I accidently designed the same ship twice."

Only twice??

Nah, I don't mind if Eaves reuses some of his designs. He even admits it himself. The issue is the producers who pick the more advanced looking designs over TOS (updated look) era appropriate designs.

 

[Tuskin38]

Only twice??

Nah, I don't mind if Eaves reuses some of his designs. He even admits it himself. The issue is the producers who pick the more advanced looking designs over TOS (updated look) era appropriate designs.

Only advanced compared to the Enterprise, which is 10-11 years old at this point.

They look less advanced then the Connie-Refit.

 

[fireproof78]

I swear someone associated with Discovery could accidentally shoot you in face with a shotgun, Dick Cheney style, and the first thing you'd do after waking up in the ER is log onto here and post this.

Yeah, no.

I'd eat first

 

[Dukhat]

Only advanced compared to the Enterprise, which is 10-11 years old at this point.

They look less advanced then the Connie-Refit.

No they don’t, actually. Other than silly super-wide-and-thin deflector dishes, they could all be post-TUC ships and nobody would be the wiser.

 

[Saul]

Only advanced compared to the Enterprise, which is 10-11 years old at this point.

They look less advanced then the Connie-Refit.

It's all from our point of view. As fans can we be as objective? I think they look as advanced as the Refit.
I was looking at the eaglemoss Probert Enterprise C the other day and it looks an awful lot like an abandoned Enterprise E concept (the roast chicken one by Eaves), even though those designs are supposed to be decades apart.

 

[DaveyNY]

EM has the USS Clarke listed on their site now for shipping in January...

And has a description...

"Available January 2019
The U.S.S. Clarke NCC-1661 is a Malachowski-class Federation starship that was operated by Starfleet. In the Battle of the Binary Stars in 2256, it was destroyed in battle against a Klingon fleet. A display of U.S.S. Clarkecan be seen in the mess hall of the U.S.S. Discovery"

Just my opinion, but it would look a whole lot better if the pylons were connected to the nacelles a bit farther back near the middle.

 

[Timo]

...Proof positive that the boxy nacelles are a clumsy retrofit, part of a fleetwide move away from old cylinders and, eventually, towards the TMP style flatter, rounder boxes?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DaveyNY]

...Proof positive that the boxy nacelles are a clumsy retrofit, part of a fleetwide move away from old cylinders and, eventually, towards the TMP style flatter, rounder boxes?

Timo Saloniemi

Well..., if you take the Clarkes' nacelles and rotate them 90 degrees on their side, you've pretty much got The Motion Picture style.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Nah, I don't mind if Eaves reuses some of his designs. He even admits it himself. The issue is the producers who pick the more advanced looking designs over TOS (updated look) era appropriate designs.

This 100%.

Somebody high up, likely Bryan Fuller, maybe even Alex Kurtzman, chose to make up Discovery thusly:

-100% rebooted Klingon makeup and ships.

-Late-24th century Federation ship designs as the new mid-23rd century Starfleet.

-Federation interiors a mix of the Enterprise-E and USS Kelvin.

-All late-24th century tech (replicators, holograms and holodecks, functional warp 10 multiverse/time travel drive) available as mid-23rd century tech.

-Heavily retconned pre-TOS continuity but always refer to as PRIME, a new Klingon/Federation war and new Spock siblings.


The first three are fine, it's the fourth that makes them problematic. And by problematic I mean it makes a total clusterfuck of everything.

 

[Tuskin38]

Late-24th century Federation ship designs as the new mid-23rd century Starfleet.

They look nothing like 24th century Starships.

They borrow a lot more elements from TMP and TOS than 24th century starships

All late-24th century tech (replicators, holograms and holodecks

All of that tech existed in the 23rd century. The TOS enterprise had early holodecks in TAS. The NX-01 also had holographic target practice

Enterprise had protein resequencers which were basically early food replicators. Are you going to tell me that tech stayed stagnant for 200 years?

There is nothing in TOS that says replicators don’t exist. We never see where uniforms are other clothing are made on the ship.

Somebody high up, likely Bryan Fuller, maybe even Alex Kurtzman, chose to make up Discovery thusly:

Bryan Fuller was behind the reinvented Klingon changes (both Make up and ships) and the design directions for the Fed ships according to the Eaglemoss books.

He told the Klingon ship designers to ignore what came before.

Though he seems to have been a bit more lenient on what Fed ships could look like. He just wanted flatter ships, darker hulls and no round nacelles.

a new Klingon/Federation war and new Spock siblings.

Neither if these things contradict TOS.

 

[Dukhat]

They look nothing like 24th century Starships.

They borrow a lot more elements from TMP and TOS than 24th century starships

Not really.

All of that tech existed in the 23rd century. The TOS enterprise had early holodecks in TAS. The NX-01 also had holographic target practice

Then why does everyone in TNG act as if the holodecks are a relatively new invention?

Neither of these things contradict TOS.

No, they're just incredibly important events that affected both the public and the personal, of which we hear nothing about later.