Did any of you see this? More trivias .....

They say the future is all about recycling, and the people at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) can be very proud of themselves for doing just that ... with their studio models.

Let's take a look at the destroyed Refit USS Enterprise from Star Trek III The Search for Spock. It was heart wrenching to see her go like this.

And of course the studio model is now on display, probably owned by a fan somewhere now. Whoever it is .. take good care of her.

Now check these out. Here's the Enterprise D cruising past the wreckage of the fleet assembled to engage the Borg in TNG's episode "Best of Both Worlds". I'm sure a lot of you noticed these.

Note that separated damaged saucer section in the first image, and the wrecked hull of the USS Olympia.

And for those arguing about the battle damage on the Refit Enterprise in Star Trek II and then Star Trek III, well, here's confirmation they are not the same. The damages were augmented for Star Trek III to show that the good ship Enterprise survived hell in  space, worthy of the name "Enterprise"

More trivia after the jump.

The USS Enterprise NCC 1701 "J"

For those who didn't know, yeah, there was a brief highlight on the USS Enterprise "J". So the images you see on the web, well, they're basically "concepts" done up for the actual ship and not some new fictional fan based design concepts. But wait ...... the Enterprise "J"??? Where was the Enterprise "J" seen?

Aaaahh, that's why it is important to follow up with the Star Trek Universe. The "J" was never really seen on the outside, but rather, from the inside. Its in the third season of Enterprise when Capt Archer was told of a war between the Federation and the Xindis when he was brought to the future, on board the Enterprise "J". Archer was told that this war should not have happened and was the result with someone tampering with history during his time.

Look at the "screen' in the background. There you have it, folks, the Enterprise "J".

And here are the designs derived from the above image how the Enterprise J looks like from outside.

Now I'm sure you have plenty of questions regarding this ship. I'm here to say that I'm the wrong person to ask as since I myself do not know much about her, except that she's huge, sleek and I'm sure she has a dandy crew equalling those of her predecessors.

It'll be great if we can see more of her and what she can do though. Nice ship.

Available Kits for the Ambassador Class Starship

There were quite a few kits made for the Ambassador Class Starships in Styrene Plastic (where she is more affordable and easier to work with), and most of these were primarily from ERTL/AMT, Platz and later AMT Round2. I'm sure there are resin kits made as well but for this highlight, we'll focuss on the styrene plastic kits.

Two scales were made available, the first being in 1/2500 scale which first came out with the Enterprise Set 2 and later under the Cadet Series on its own, and then the 1/1400 scale version. The 1/1400 scale even had the USS Yamaguchi version which was casted in transparent plastic for lighting.

Here's the 1/400 scale when she was launched.

And here's the 1/2500 scale version, when she first came out and her latest release. Much highlight have been given to this scale on the 1/2500 Enterprise set and the stand alone Cadet Series

Despite the grandeur of being able to own your very own Ambassador Class Starship, much care needs to be given to her accuracy, esp toward the shuttle bay which was the wrong design for the Enterprise C.

More images of fanstastic build ups after the jump.

Tobias Richter's Design for the Ambassador Class Starship

We have seen Andrew Probert's design for his Ambassador Class Starship and it was awesomeness on warp nacelles. Here's another out of this world design from Tobias Richter as he further stream line the Ambassador Class Starship.

More images after the jump.

Differences Between the Enterprise C and other Ambassador Class Vessels

OK, so we've seen the studio models for both the USS Enterprise C along with the other Ambassador Class Starships, and you've decided to build your kit along one of these. And as I have mentioned, the refurbished model had some differences, so if you are a rivet counter (a term given to those who wants accuracy above all else), then you need to pay attention to the following differences.

More detailed differences after this jump.

Other Ambassador Class Starships Reference Materials

The studio model of the Enterprise C was of course re-used through the course of time to represent other Starships on TV and the movies, with some changes made to the hull. Some would think that these changes were done to differentiate the C from the other vessels - partly true but more toward rebuilding those parts when the studio was replacing those battle damages done to the Enterprise C model.

There were many Ambassador Class Starships highlighted in the Star trek Universe, and for simplicity, their registries are listed as per below:

• USS Adelphi NCC-26849
• USS Ambassador NCC-10521
• USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C
• USS Excalibur NCC-26517
• USS Exeter NCC-26531
• USS Gandhi NCC-26632
• USS Horatio NCC-10532
• USS Valdemar NCC-26198
• USS Yamaguchi NCC-26510
• USS Zhukov NCC-26136

While the original model started from the Enterprise C, they refurbished the Ambassador class studio model and that refurbished model was reused over and over again to represent other Starships. Here are a few more images of the refurbished Ambassador Class Vessels after the jump.

The USS Enterprise C and Studio Model References

Would you believe I actually missed out highlighting the Enterprise C's reference materials? While I was cleaning up my blog of dead links, I was wondering why my Enterprise C highlights had only 3 posts and when I checked, the reference materials was missing, and I do have images collected for these.

So without any further delay, I am highlighting these now. Please note I do not have much materials on the Enterprise C as well as the other Ambassador Class starships, so I'll put down what I have.

The USS Enterprise C was first seen in The Next Generation's episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" where she travelled through time in the middle of a battle and changed history. She is classified as an Ambassador Class Starship vessel, and was seen with lots of battle damage. Destined to be destroyed by the Romulans and the catalyst for the Federation/Klingon Khitimer Peace Accord, she was commandeered by Commander Garret who was killed in a surprise Klingon attack.

Here are some screen caps of the Enterprise C with all her battle damages.

  

The introduction of the Enterprise C help fills in the void left in the Star Trek Universe over the evolution tree of all Starships named Enterprise. All these USS Enterprises are seen either on TV or in the movies, the original with her refit, the Enterprise D, and the B which was introduced in the movie Star Trek Generations, then the E and later a brief look at the Enterprise J, but more on the J later.

More studio model references after the jump.

First view of Pegasus Hobbies 1/144 Scale Alien Tripod

Just a follow up on the Pegasus Hobbies War of the World's 1/144 scale Alien Tripod. Thanks to GKvfx, we now can see the kit's parts and tree sprues first hand before her release.

According to GKvfx, there were about ten trees of parts and from the measurement seen, this kit is going to be quite big. Here's his description over at the Starship Modeler Forum

"Looking at the parts on the trees, I can see that this kit is a big step up for Pegasus. The engineering is more complicated than anything I've seen from them, and the level of detail is far more sophisticated.

The leg parts seem to be split up into three sections. Each section has little tabs/keys so you know that you are doing this the right way. I test fir a single leg together this morning and it was fairly intuitive. I suspect the leg parts are identical - or maybe the two front ones are. Detail is good, with the feet being looking like suction cups and the ankles having barbs.

The waist has recessed cups that accept the hip joint of the leg. These are keyed as well, but I suspect you could cut off the tab and alter the position of the leg if you were doing a diorama.

Kit includes an option to build the version with the people baskets (molded in clear) or the variant with the destructo-ray arms (that's what I'm calling them anyway....). You also get all the little feeler arms to glue on. They are molded with a bunch of curves and, looking at the built up sample he also brought, look very natural.

The head has a couple of large parts topped by the smoked hood. I'm not sure where you can fit batteries in this thing, but I suspect watch batteries in the hood might work. (You cannot run a wire down the inside of the leg as the lower leg is solid and too curved to drill out.)

The detail on the hood is great. Subtle panel lines and textures. This will really benefit from a nice pass with the Metallizer paints and an oil wash.

There is a base, with a section of ruined street, destroyed building and crushed car. The kit is 1/144th scale - a common architectural scale, but not one with a lot of buildings. 'N'-scale for trains is very close - withing about 10%, so if you want to do any buildings, you should be able to go to a train store and get what you need. Since this is a totally alien thing, I don't think anyone will be able to tell the scale difference."

More images after the jump.

Affordable Vacuum Forming ... Courtesy of Warmplastic.com

Imagine you need to to vacuum form a part and the only place that can help you happens to be a workshop that wants to charge you a bomb, even though its only a small part. You have no choice since you can't afford a Vacuum Forming Machine, so gritting your teeth, you pay up, or, abandon that step and opt for another method which ultimately delays your project, or caused it to be sitting somewhere in your workroom until such time when it is possible to continue. Ever had that happen to you? In my case, that usually stops a project midway since none of my team are willing to fork out that kind of money.

Well, about two months ago, all that changed. I received a very generous offer from a Mr. Eliot R Brown, an offer I literally couldn't refuse. Apparently he found me through my blog and had something really very interesting to showcase. Eliot owns a shop that literally helps designers, scale modelers, engineers and even chocolatiers with their vacuum forming project by providing for a Do It Yourself (DIY) vacuum forming table. All you need is an oven and a vacuum cleaner. Yup ... you read right, its really that simple.

It is with great pleasure for me to introduce to all my readers, warmplastic.com. 

So what can warmplastic.com do? Well, for one, it can really help with your savings.

You'll only need to make a one time payment for the tools, and perhaps the only recurring cost would be your supply of styrene sheets, but you will have unlimited uses without requiring any heavy equipments for your vacuum and heat source, just your everyday household appliances, an oven, and a vacuum cleaner.

In the long run, the savings is immense. It saves you money since you no longer need to be at the mercy of those workshops, saves you time as you can do it at your own home, and well, it can also make you kind of popular with your modeling buddies.

More after the jump