What I've Been Up To...

[JES]

Hey all! It's been forever since I've been on here! How is everyone, with the virus? I hope everyone has been well!

I've been trying to work more on sketching and in Illustrator and Photoshop, and I'm posting my results so far! As always, feel free to post C&C!

First is the TNG Destroyer, which I've been working on in Illustrator. I've actually burned out on this project for the moment. She is intended as a TNG equivalent to the Saladin class.


https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/TNG-Destroyer-WIP1-Part-1-837876714




https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/TNG-Destroyer-WIP1-Part-02-837879011



https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/TNG-Destroyer-WIP1-Part-03-837879611

Next, we have a design that started as a small sketch at work. Rather than having the engineering hull blended together, the shuttlebay and lower engineering hull have been deconstructed into a "figure 8". She is a Light Cruiser equivalent to the Andromeda class.



A total design of my Sparrow class:

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/What-I-ve-Been-Up-to-Part-II-858520414


For the previous incarnation, see here:
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Prelimary-Detail-Sketches-539188704
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Dorsal-539220205
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Side-539222720

A TLE Medium Cruiser, using components based on the Joshua and Ingram class. Practice for helping me get better at Illustrator.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca8...56sf-38317a06-aaf7-4c71-b252-b577d599e9c1.jpg?

Finally, a result of binge watching DIS. I felt that the lifting body design works better for TLE.
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/What-I-ve-Been-Up-To-Part-V-858529657

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/What-I-have-been-up-to-Part-1-858504144

 

[Atolm]

These are all spectacular ideas bro!
Keep them coming.

 

[Masao]

I like that triangular Excelsior. I always thought that the Enterprise C should have been something like that.

 

[BorgMan]

Yeah, I'd probably skip on the saucer impulse engine. I like their position on the pylon-wings a lot in this configuration. But I get that it makes the aft of the saucer look a bit bland. Maybe going even more Disco-like and let the neck flow over to a superstructure to the top of the saucer, perhaps with an observation deck in it?

 

[JES]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Masao: you've never made a design outside of the late 23rd Century. I think everyone here would be very interested in seeing you add a starship for the 24th Century to the Starfleet Museum. Go on, I dare you.

Borgman: I get that the impulse drives does mess with the lines of the saucer, but I still want to retain the saucer's impulse ability. This appears to be a major oversight for many designs that have hull separation ability, namely the Ambassador class, which compromises the primary hull's ability to get free of the engineering hull in the event of a warp core breach in time, which is the main reason to have hull separation in the first place.

For the impulse engines, I've been playing around with the idea of blending the neck and the bridge superstructure, and sinking the impulse drives down into that (think Legacy class), or placing the impulse drives along the side, similar to the Ent-B/Lakota, and/or blending them into the saucer (think Carolina class, another design near and dear to my heart).

Other designs elements that are undecided is the neck (standard Excelsior neck, blend between that and the Crossfield, or if there will even be one), the shape of the shuttlebay (standard, on top like the Excelsior and Ingram class, or stretched and integrated, like a Miranda class), and whether she will be based off of the Excelsior class, or the Ingram class. I did some thumbnail sketches last night while cleaning at work, since progress on the Illustrator vector art has kind of been going slowly, but nothing worth posting.

The only thing I've really nailed down for this design is that the nacelle pylons will share the same shape as a space shuttle!

Another design I've been working on is this Light Cruiser.
The Kearsarge class is a Light Cruiser. The Saber class is a Light Cruiser that looks nothing like it's predecessor. And I was looking at Dan Uyeno's fantastic reworking of his USS Balmung, and thinking how the sides of the secondary hull and the shape of the main deflector appears to have a curvature not unlike the Saber class. I highly recommend giving his thread a looks-see here: forums.scifi-meshes.com/discus…

And so I started sketches of this apparent missing link between the Kearsarge class from Starfleet Battles and Saber class.

The laptop that has my Illustrator and Photoshop has not been working well (overheating problems, backup hard drive not working), and I've been putting off taking it in. No longer, I'm taking the damn thing in on Monday. But I don't know how long it will be in the shop, leaving me unable to work on or post anything, so I'm posting this baby now.

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/...t_new=10:1603558304&ga_type=edit&ga_changes=1

 

[JES]

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Excelsior-Flying-Wing-Concept-WIP-2-860224875

This is just a very quick diagram for my Excelsior-era McQuarrie-style wedge design. I COULD have made it a better presentable LCARS, but I figured that spending an hour on this was enough. Maybe next time, but I want to spend my time elsewhere!

I've been playing around with a number of competing design elements, and they are as closely competitive as this election.

I am keeping the saucer impulse drives, but they will be more integrated into the hull, so as to not interrupt the flow of the design.

But there are still many directions this design can take.

Which base design to use: Ingram or Excelsior?
Megaphasers, like the Ingram, or no?
What type of shuttlebay should she have?
How tall should the neck be, and what type?
How modified should the engineering hull be (I'm thinking of something narrower than the Excelsior or Ingram)?
What type of nacelles should I use?
I want her to have two pairs of impulse drives, but where should they be mounted on the primary hull?

I've even been contemplating the use of a superstructure at the aft of the primary hull, not unlike the Churchill class Tactical Cruiser. This would ironically give her as many shuttlebays as a Galaxy class! I could see this class taking on the role of Carrier as a sort of poor-man's Akira class during the Dominion War.

As always, C&C is welcome, and I hope to hear from you!

 

[Atolm]

Lookin good.
As much as I really love the Ingram, I say use the Excelsior. I would also say bring the impulse to the back of the neck like the Ambassador or Galaxy.

 

[BorgMan]

I'm really a fan of that wide body, even wider wing design; maybe even wider than your top Excelsior example, to keep it more in line with the Crossfield. In that light: keep the Excelsior nacelles. The way they're designed allows for longer nacelles which are still visually attractive when compared to the Ingram-type ones. And yes, that flowing neck from the saucer down, where you've put impulse engines in, looks very good. I like how it combines the flowing line motif with Excelsior's ribbing. I'm liking the lower right sketch, just with a wider body and more wing. Maybe, just maybe, you could position this as a ship before the Great Experiment; like, Great Experiment 0.1, trying one last shot at the Mycelial Drive technology before Starfleet ditched the idea and went with Transwarp instead. That would also explain why we didn't see this ship; only one was made and it failed spectacularly.

Did I mention I like a wider body?

 

[Kaiser]

Great artwork

 

[publiusr]

Do the Ingram version--that has a great side view.
An alternate version is to put the raised Reliant style superstructure atop the secondary hull, and have nacelles rise from where it is widest. That would be a good alternate.

 

[JES]

Okay, boy does this design have quite a history...

The current incarnation is influenced by Atolm's Assiduous class:
https://www.deviantart.com/atolmazel/art/Federation-Assiduous-Class-USS-Spyros-Spyrou-00-821328479
https://www.deviantart.com/atolmazel/art/Federation-Assiduous-Class-USS-Spyros-Spyrou-01-822451170

I had already started to rework the design about a month ago in this https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/What-I-ve-Been-Up-to-Part-II-858520414

The influence was specifically the way that the hull bracketed the center hull, because it wasn't like I wasn't going to bracket the bridge before, however, that was more like the Luna class at the time. But Atolm showed me a more exotic way to do this, and I started to run with this.

Unlike Atolm's design, I have chosen to keep the sweeping wing design, which might give her a bigger profile to shoot at, but I just can't seem to let go of Forbin's influence on this design. I have altered things a bit by flirting with the idea of a B-plane wing arrangement. It just seems like something that Atolm would do. There is also an alternate concept that uses a pair of deflectors integrated into the lower pontoons, similar to the Phobos variant of the Loknar refit.

As of now, the Sparrow class is supposed to be a direct descendent of the Assiduous class, the latter of which would see production cease soon after the Commissioning of the Vesta and Sparrow classes into the fleet, due to the latter being incompatible with Quantum Slipstream, not unlike how most turbo-prop aircraft were discontinued after WW-II as jet engines became mainstream.

My choice to revive work on this design and the registry number is an in-joke to this thread: https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/discussion/81931/3d-mkf-random-trek-thread/p71

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Prelimary-Detail-Sketches-539188704
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Dorsal-539220205
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Sparrow-class-Frigate-Side-539222720
https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Falken-class-Heavy-Frigate-B-and-W-Preliminary-539190968

I have used the opportunity to once again practice using layers in Photoshop to add color, which is also important of course for shading and lighting. The color scheme is this case will be heavily influenced by the Vesta class.

As always, C&C is welcome (even from BolianAdmiral for stealing his registry number), and is required from Atolm. Hey buddy, it's based on your design, so I'd really like your input.

I still want to nail down the rest of the design, so I can begin the vector schematics process, so I'll be starting on another view next time. Maybe aft ventral.

 

[Finn]

nice

 

[JES]

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/...t_new=10:1613503596&ga_type=edit&ga_changes=1

've have been working on and off of the redux of my Sparrow class for quite some time, but have struggled to find time due to studying investing in stocks, which mostly takes place when I'd normally draw in the first place. For the moment, there are three variants. As before, the design consists of 5 components: the inner hull, a pair of outer hulls, a pair of nacelles/pylons, and an upper mission pod.

They are missing a lot of details, since that would just take more time, and result in this perhaps never getting posted.

Design A uses a (relatively) simple arrowhead shape. The forward downward swept pylons are optional, and might be replaced with different nacelle pylon designs as I work on the design further.

Design B uses a forked bow which might or might not be inspired by the Mark 4 from Speed Racer. The downward backswept nacelle pylons are again optional.

Finally, design C is designed to use optional hull modules (think Insignia class from Mark Kingsworth). According to Atolm, the Assiduous class has the ability to mount different modules, and I wanted to retain this ability in the Sparrow class. Possible modules could be designed to have better sensors, phasers, torpedo turrets, and passenger capacity. The upward backswept nacelle pylons are - you guessed - optional.

At first, I was adding shading/lighting to every view that I was working on, but I was looking as Zoids concept line art, and figured that since shading was taking so long, and line art always looks professional without the shading, that I'd just add white underneath the sketch work, and save coloring/shading for when I get to the final design phase.

 

[Kaiser]

Cool sketchs

 

[publiusr]

Can’t wait for more!

 

[JES]

https://www.deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/Swallow-class-Concept-877954184
A further refinement of my Sparrow class, now called the Swallow class due to the characteristic twin tails housing the aft RCS thrusters, which makes the design as tail-happy as a Ford Mustang GT. New feature is the modular forward hull segments, which can be switched out for anything from emergency hospital wards to phaser cannon batteries, similar to Mark Kingsworth Insignia class. I haven't decided whether I'm going with forward swept wings like the BOP, or backswept like in most of the concept art so far, although I am honestly leaning with forward swept.

The aft top view might have been a little bit influenced by the SS Emmette from the ENT opening credits, while the black background was influenced by John Eaves's concept art.

 

[Orac]

That Discovery/Excelsior mashup is the shit!

The Sparrow makes me think of a 24th century Batwing.