2021 (6)

Another item I have meant to finish for a long time.

I was looking through my Star Fleet Museum files as I wanted to update my Amarillo and Krechet Class ships that were rendered as smaller screen sizes. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my Krechet model files but did find this incomplete Amarillo wreck model.

I had done a wrecked alien ship a long time ago as a scene but was not happy with it. I always wanted to try again hoping to improve the result. Don’t know why this was sitting there because this was better.

I had only needed to add a background to this and do some minor post work. The post file for the model has about twelve layers and then a few more in Photoshop.

Kursk demise

The scene is the UES Kursk adrift after having her missile bays blown away in combat with a Cabbage class Romulan cruiser. The Kursk inflicted heavy damage on the larger vessel before meeting her demise. The wreck would later be salvaged by the Romulans giving insights to Earth warp technology.

2021 (5)

Continuing to clean out my backlog.

Here is my take on a Gorn cruiser circa TNG. In my Trekverse the Gorn entered into a treaty with the Federation after the Cestus III debacle of 2267. While not as expansionist as the Federation and not interested in membership, the Gorn were able to secure borders and growth territory with their new neighbors.

The Gorn realized they were mostly at parity with the major races of the Federation and did not feel there was much to gain in technology transfers. They did, however, appreciate some of the efficiencies found in Star Fleet ship designs. The Glaashi’khass (Of Honor) class was designed incorporating many Star Fleet design considerations.

Gorn cruiser

A few more fun items to finish. I’m also trying to clean up multiple drive libraries full of incomplete or duplicate models. Hopefully I’ll finally get organized.

Who am I kidding.

2021 (4)

I recently completed my own version of a Star Trek BOP. It was influenced by 2D drawings created by Atolm and the one seen in Enterprise. I posted the WIP a fair while back but with fancy nacelles. I eventually abandoned those because they looked like the ones in Enterprise which are to advance looking for the era.

This ship is slightly smaller than a TOS BOP and would exist between TOS and TNG. This is a large patrol ship used within the Empire to maintain order.

The scene / render had to show that I did take the time to add the required signature bird emblem along the lower hull. Always fun figuring that out.

This was also a mesh I wanted to do with smooth flowing lines using as few elements as possible. Final count was 6 total elements.

This is in the gallery but I never added a final update.

Bird of Prey

2021 (3)

A refresh.

A number of years ago I built a Gorn heavy assault cruiser that was designed by Atolm. The only ‘post’ of it was on my now defunct personal website. It was only at 1024×768, had two ships flying by a big orange gas giant. Was nice at the time but too bright and toy looking.

As I complete other projects I look at older archived items and consider updating them. This one got moved to ‘refresh queue’ and I only needed to render it at a higher resolution. The original textures hold up pretty good to 4K rendering for the post production source layers.

Funny story, this is not from one of Atolm’s drawings you will find on the net. Rather, this is patterned after a mod he built for the old Star Fleet Command game. I downloaded the mod and converted it to 3DS format to only find it was a mess. I rendered out 3 views of it to build my own version. I shared my WIPs of it on a 3D site we both belonged to and he commented that he forgotten about this and was not a fan of the mod. It was only a kitbash of parts of other Gorn ships he had.

He did provide ideas on textures and graphics to the finished model. Ultimately he liked it after it was done as a high poly model.

Gorn Assault Ship by Atolm

2021 (2)

Yeah, okay, been awhile. Partially due to having moved (twice) this year. Moved from the west coast eastward. Had everything in storage for months.

Additionally, I discovered a number of my designs are not very photogenic. I really can’t tell until I put a model into Max and try to build a scene. A tried using my Tern class, which I really think came out good, but it just looks poorly in the scenes that were completed. Hung me up for some time.

I then moved on to some new projects that seem more promising. Time will tell. One is my take on a post TOS but pre TNG Romulan Bird of Prey. I had to redo the textures as the originals just weren’t up to par. Looks way better and I have a couple of scenarios for scenes.

I noticed that two completed projects never made it to my gallery but are in my DA gallery. Sloppy of me.

I finished my Silimias autonomous drone and my updated Ptolemy class.

The Silimias scene is three drones on patrol –

Silimias Class

The Ptolemy scene is the ship in orbit of Mars after being completed at the Utopia Planitia yards. The ship is performing final calibrations before it’s shakedown cruise.

Ptolemy

As always, thanks for looking. Hope all is well with you all!

2021 (1)

Sad my first post of 2021 is to note the passing of Mira Furlan.  She passed On Wednesday the 20th at the age of 65.  No cause provided but it was noted that her close friends knew she was in declining health.

I still love Babylon 5 and rank her role as Delenn as the best and most compelling character of the series.

Her Twitter account has this last quote from her, “I look at the stars. It’s a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That’s where I’ll be going soon. ‘We’re all star stuff’, I suddenly remember Delenn’s line from Joe’s script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That’s all,”

Update 2020 (13)

Tern Class

Continuing to work on a few projects that have been sitting around.  I have many ‘mostly done’ models sitting in the queue.

This is another in my own series of Seldom Seen Ships of the Fleet.  The Tern class is a system survey ship.  The Federation has many star systems that are devoid of or inhospitable to life.  These systems do have, potentially, massive amounts of resources that could be utilized by the Federation.  These ships were built to explore these systems and catalog the various planets, minor planets, moons and asteroids.

I’m working on the textures now.  Mostly done with the principal maps and then can complete the bump maps.

Update 2020 (12)

It has been awhile!

I took off a couple months and drove across the country to see relatives. Spent some extended time in Wisconsin and Maryland. Went into DC to see the public monuments not impacted by closures and no crowds.

Finally found time, a couple of weeks ago, to open up my tools again. I had a creative block on my drone project that followed my time off. Worked through it and finished it.

I created an all new central hull that captured the look I had always wanted.  I was trying for an analog to contemporary drones.  I then had to texture as well.  I tried getting fancy and unwrapped the mesh but hated how it came out.  Ended up using real basic flat map projections on the whole thing.

The final – Salamis class combat drone.

Adding to my ‘Seldom Seen’ list of ships project.