My Take on the Nomad from "The Changeling"

[Irishman]

Trying to be screen-accurate to a capital ship like the TOS Enterprise can be a real time-suck! So, while working on it at a glacial pace, I decided to try something more approachable and manageable - the Nomad space probe from the Original Series episode "The Changeling".

Here are the fruits of that efforts. Now, just as a way to inform my approach to the Nomad, I've tried to model it with as much faithfulness to the studio prop as the references will allow. Beyond that, I'm using the broad strokes of materials to align with the studio prop (i.e., metals where metals are, and dielectrics (non-metals) where they are). As far as lighting and the like goes, I've not tried to be slavish to the lighting of the show, but rather take more of a physically-based rendering (PBR) approach, utilizing HDRs for a greater contrast.

I hope you like.

This first image is just the basic clay modeling, with no materials or textures added, because, for me, it's quicker this way:

http://irishman20.deviantart.com/art/NomadWIP1-683311864

This next image is where I've begun adding and tweaking materials:

http://irishman20.deviantart.com/art/NomadWIP3-692264518

This WIP image is another shot, this time from an angle we never saw on the show:

http://irishman20.deviantart.com/art/NomadWIP4-692264581

This is - so far - done, with the final self-lighting applied (I realize that we never saw all of Nomad's blinking speaking KITT lights lit up this way at the same time, but I've put all those lights in a separate layer by themselves so that I can choose to light up some or none as I choose):

http://irishman20.deviantart.com/art/NomadWIP6-693066797

So, what do you think?

 

[Atolm]

That's pretty awesome work bro. I like it as it is not typical subject matter Aces!!!

 

[Irishman]

That's super nice of you to say, man!

 

[publiusr]

I'd like to see your idea of the Tan-Ru

 

[Irishman]

I'd like to see your idea of the Tan-Ru

I've certainly given some thought about that! We've seen what the original Nomad earth space probe looked like, as well as the mash-up Nomad that met up with Kirk, Spock, et al. The only thing we know about this "Tan-Ru" comes courtesy of Spock's mind meld with Nomad. I've wondered what parts of Nomad's mash-up geometry were the result of repairs made by Tan-Ru, and which of those parts reveals something about Tan-Ru's structure/geometry.

If I recall correctly, Tan-Ru came from some machine planet, kind of like V'Ger?

 

[publiusr]

I think so.

The thing would have to have a Zed-PM with its power--so maybe the Replicators

 

[Irishman]

With some help from Eric Reinholt in his series of YouTube Blender tutorials (scifieric here on the forums), I've finally gotten some updates to my Enterprise and my Nomad, and have made a funny little shot that we never saw on the series. I call it "Knock, knock...", and it's a combination of my 1479.66 feet Enterprise and the Nomad model scaled to be within 6" of the size of the prop used on the episode. I won't say it's scaled perfectly, because we're nerds and that level of certainty would be dumb, because y'all would call me out.

To be so powerful, Nomad is tiny!

Please to enjoy. https://www.deviantart.com/irishman...t_new=10:1539897399&ga_type=edit&ga_changes=1

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

 

[uniderth]

That shot is awesome. Now just make the separate Nomad and Tan-ru probes, before they got combined.

 

[scifieric]

With some help from Eric Reinholt in his series of YouTube Blender tutorials (scifieric here on the forums), I've finally gotten some updates to my Enterprise and my Nomad, and have made a funny little shot that we never saw on the series. I call it "Knock, knock...", and it's a combination of my 1479.66 feet Enterprise and the Nomad model scaled to be within 6" of the size of the prop used on the episode. I won't say it's scaled perfectly, because we're nerds and that level of certainty would be dumb, because y'all would call me out.

To be so powerful, Nomad is tiny!

Please to enjoy. https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/Knock-knock-768868603?ga_submit_new=10:1539897399&ga_type=edit&ga_changes=1

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

1) Thanks for the shout out!
2) That looks awesome!

 

[Psion]

"Who's there?"