Unseen TOS....

[publiusr]

Doing a 33 inch CG model…great.

I hope you also do the AMT as a slightly smaller ship…say as the NCC-1000 Conestoga class Decker’s ship belonged to for a unique take…the 3 footer as Constitution…but maybe with the 11 footer’s lower saucer details so it won’t look so flat…in this set up, all “swan” ships are connies of some sort…in keeping with Lockheed’s elegant plane.

This perhaps is the “classic” timeline that no longer exists due to Voyager’s dabbling. No NX-01. The Prime timeline has that and the SNW Enterprise that turns into the TMP refit.

 

[Warped9]

I think the AMT version is very similar in size to the Enterprise, but with slightly different configuration. Possibly older?

 

[publiusr]

Older and a tad smaller…if you were to hold the AMT up to your eye to where it’s bridge would be the same width as the bridge atop the 1/350…it might be more noticeable. The FJ blueprints have the bridge very wide compared to the rest of the saucer.

On the 11 production footer, the bridge is a tiny button atop a very wide teardrop…less so in the AMT and FJ.

Of course, we never actually got to see Decker’s main bridge, so who knows. Decker’s ship could more easily be 947 feet long as it is closer to the FJ booklet. But I’m flying by memory here…my mind wanders.

 

[Warped9]

As I mentioned earlier upthread my intent is to use Shaw’s drawings of the AMT model as the basis for the Constellation albeit with some tweaks as could have been done when making “The Doomsday Machine.”

- paint the overall hull the same (or very similar colour) as the 11 footer.
- paint the nacelle caps amber to more closely approximate the 11 footer’s nacelle caps.
- paint the navigational deflector similar copper as the 11 footer.
- paint the upper and lower sensor domes white.
- paint windows white (on) and black (off) and slightly smaller than what is molded on the kit (hell, sand the hull smooth then paint the windows). Or paint all the windows black or dark grey.
- while the three “dimples” on the underside could be filled in they could also be made part of this distinctive configuration. I’m inclined toward the latter.
- registration could still be 1017 or something else could be done. I’d be inclined to leave it as is.

After that…you can damage the model.

I’d also like to explore kitbashes of the AMT kit.

 

[aridas sofia]

Look for photos of the AMT kit used for Trouble With Tribbles. I saw that model in Seattle and was surprised by how they detailed it. Things like cutting out those windows… the rectangles were perfectly cut. It was also painted a somewhat lighter color than the 11’ Enterprise iirc.

https://culttvman.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/gswansonEntTV02.jpg

https://flic.kr/p/XrPQuG

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x4hVY4HT...edq_I0myHMYCUowCLcBGAs/s1600/hfstartrek15.jpg

While it is marked as Enterprise, that is how your undamaged Constellation should look.

 

[Warped9]

While contemplating kitbashing possibilities I wonder if kitbashing was even really a thing back in the 1960s. FJ’s designs were thought experiments in rearranging existing parts although the term “kit bash” might not even have been coined yet. I think the idea didn’t really start to spread until after the release of Star Wars in 1977, although I could be wrong.

To that end, even as resourceful as the TOS production team were, is kitbashing even something that would have occurred to them?

And note that kitbashing isn’t just using parts from existing model kits, although thats a primary component, you can also utilize scratch built elements as well.

 

[aridas sofia]

This says to me MJ might have been thinking of kitbashing. That looks to be a ship that could be made from an AMT Enterprise saucer and nacelles, being pulled by some sort of tug.

https://www.subspace.cz/wp-content/uploads/Enterprise-concept-2-by-Matt-Jefferies.jpg

 

[Warped9]

This says to me MJ might have been thinking of kitbashing. That looks to be a ship that could be made from an AMT Enterprise saucer and nacelles, being pulled by some sort of tug.

https://www.subspace.cz/wp-content/uploads/Enterprise-concept-2-by-Matt-Jefferies.jpg

Perhaps. Or maybe thats just part of his exploration of ideas working towards his final design?

Seriously there really isn’t that much you can do with just the components of the AMT kit. You really have to use custom scratch built components as well. The best example of this in perhaps all of the franchise is the Reliant. It’s clearly a kitbash concept yet they used custom pieces to give it a design integrity of its own to make it thoroughly convincing.

 

[aridas sofia]

I could buy the idea that was part of his development of the Enterprise idea- IF that saucer was not so fully realized. That is very much like the final B/C deck, and very unlike the versions of the ship that immediately preceded drafting the construction plans.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/4b/22/854b22e3f9fb812b76637d4ef1ef19b8.jpg

 

[Richard Baker]

This says to me MJ might have been thinking of kitbashing. That looks to be a ship that could be made from an AMT Enterprise saucer and nacelles, being pulled by some sort of tug.

https://www.subspace.cz/wp-content/uploads/Enterprise-concept-2-by-Matt-Jefferies.jpg

That isn't a tug, a number of his concept drawings had a forward hull section attached to the front of the saucer

 

[aridas sofia]

How do you know? I don’t recall any Jefferies designs with a forward hull section attached to a saucer other than this one. Where are the others? It’s kind of ridiculous looking if it isn’t a tug- the saucer is pretty close to the finished saucer. So, he was sketching his finished saucer with this nose on its bow? While it is impossible to know what was on the man’s mind for certain, that cuts both ways. And from a design logic point of view, it makes just as much if not more sense as a kitbashed Starfleet ship pulled by a tug. He drew several dockyard vessels and a space station. Is it not even conceivable to you he also drew a ship being tugged?

 

[publiusr]

That bow extension might look good as a sublight ship in its own right…say the vessel whose pilot flew towards his Star to rid himself of the neural parasite.

I could see that backing up to the Refits main gangway—but it probably was meant to be a sonar-dome type thing.

 

[Starscape]

That module was also drawn as the Command Centre on one of Jefferies' Ring Ship designs. I always assumed it was meant to serve the same purpose attached to the saucer.

 

[Warped9]

That module was also drawn as the Command Centre on one of Jefferies' Ring Ship designs. I always assumed it was meant to serve the same purpose attached to the saucer.

Right. Which leads me to suspect he was just exploring an idea as part of his working toward his final design for the Enterprise. I’ve done the same thing—reuse a particular component to try making it work until you jettison it because you realize it doesn’t work the way you hoped.

Design is an exercise in experimenting with different ideas until something coalesces into a coherent and integrated whole.

 

[aridas sofia]

It’s a similar design but different. I used to think the same as you. But the fact that saucer is so close to the finished design disabused me of the notion. You could slap that ship together from an AMT kit and the wings from a jet fighter model. It is an easy scratchbuild if you can figure out how to hold it all together.

If you were serious about showing a dockyard with the Enterprise being repaired, you might want little auxiliary craft - including a tug pulling another ship. I suspect the sketch above is from later - during the series. He was maybe just reusing the shape from this ringship.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bc/2e/32/bc2e326f341725679dc67edaa6d2b178.png

 

[Warped9]

If you were serious about showing a dockyard with the Enterprise being repaired, you might want little auxiliary craft - including a tug pulling another ship.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bc/2e/32/bc2e326f341725679dc67edaa6d2b178.png

I must be serious considering the effort I’m putting into it. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother at all.

Sure, TOS era workpods and tugs should exist (and I’ve thought about it), but would we necessarily have seen them onscreen? You start adding little vehicles moving about a larger vehicle and construct with 1960s television production resources and you are ramping up the complications.

In the broader sense, though, designing TOS era workpods and tugs fit perfectly within the idea of Unseen TOS. But I think they’re more like the thought behind designing Romulan War era ships and the old Valiant in that we do it as a fun exercise although they never would have appeared onscreen in physical form. But I tried to design them to look authentic, like something Jefferies or Wah Chang might have designed and the post-production crew could have built even if they might have been glimpsed only as an illustration onscreen.

The other aspect of this project is an added, and difficult, constraint—being mindful of what influences and resources were available at the time and ignoring anything post TOS simply because those things would not have been a consideration to the original creators—those later influences did not yet exist.

 

[aridas sofia]

Jefferies said he wanted to do them. He was designing them for a reason. I think Court Martial was the impetus. The script said the ship was at starbase undergoing repair, and it was up to him to figure out how to show that. We got the simplest version - nothing visual at all. Reused “ship in orbit” shots. But he drew the support craft, and in an interview describing them, explained how he thought they’d be filmed. So they are far beyond mentioned Romulan War ships - these were designed and planned out for shooting. It just didn’t get done, almost certainly for time and money reasons.

The question is about that “scratchbuilt” ship and whether it is being pulled by a tug. That is definitely much more of a stretch. But Jefferies’ dream would seem to be something like that, with smaller craft, and that station he designed for Trouble With Tribbles. A busy dockyard. We never saw him speculate on a drydock though I think it’s arguable he saw what Mike Minor came up with to house his Phase II redesign, and that a cage structure at least didn’t repel him. That assumption is the biggest stretch of all however, because we never saw him draw anything.

I don’t want to distract you from what you are doing- just point out actual possibilities.

 

[Warped9]

I could certainly design a tug and/or workpod and insert them into the image. The Enterprise wasn’t without power so it would not likely need to be towed. Workpods could be awfully small in relation to the dock and the Enterprise.

 

[Warped9]

 

[publiusr]

Wonderful!

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bc/2e/32/bc2e326f341725679dc67edaa6d2b178.png

The arrowhead looks best there. A real warp craft would have to look like this.

Since it doesn’t look to hold many…I see this as a ship used by the Kelvins or the Eyemorg from Spock’s Brain….I could see Scotty’s adoration for that design over either the silver rocket or what we got with TOS-R. That should have been a Pakled ship.

I believe you had a very short version of the ringship you called a Clipper, right? The first I saw of it was on your silhouette chart.