Will McCammon's Minis (Formerly: My wallet hates me, but...)

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu Nov 24, 2016 1:15 am

Charles -

Are you seeing that on a ship card or SSD, because I didn't when I reviewed my research.

As-commented on Facebook, you might be thinking of the SkyHawk-L destroyer leader, which does indeed add a centerline big plasma (plasma-G, IIRC) on the centerline, but in its case it does it on an enlarged and specially strengthened boom.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu Nov 24, 2016 1:20 am

And a third image on Facebook, reposted here.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Thu Nov 24, 2016 3:16 am

Nope.
Just checked the SabreHawk SSD.

There is NOT a plasma-G added to this one.

ctchapel · Post by **ctchapel** » Fri Nov 25, 2016 2:34 am

Thanks Tony, I wasn't positive about that.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:57 pm

A sneak-peek at what can be done with a good CAD model for a Starline mini.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 4:16 am

Two more in-progress pictures of the new Starline 2500 SaberHawk HDW posted to Facebook, reposted here.

Sgt_G · Post by **Sgt_G** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 4:36 am

Aren't the plasmas on the nose of the warp drives supposed to be on swivel mounts??

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 2:44 pm

Sgt_G wrote:Aren't the plasmas on the nose of the warp drives supposed to be on swivel mounts??

Ah. But see, that's the beauty of this design.
The entire warp dome is actually a sphere mounted inside a gimbal.
It's free to swivel as required (or targeted) and as is swivels - so too does the plasma launcher.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 2:47 pm

It's a little hard to model this in the scale Will is using, but I will be kit bashing all of my SabreHawks thusly.

The dome will be removed and the nacelle behind it hollowed out to accept a sphere of the equivalent size with a custom plasma launcher modeled onto it. Between that and the retaining ring designed to allow the assembly to pivot, but remained attached to the nacelle - I should be good to go.

And of course, I will have to do one with googly eyes instead of plasma because after converting that many of them - I'll be googly-eyed myself.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 4:21 pm

Scoutdad wrote:
Sgt_G wrote:Aren't the plasmas on the nose of the warp drives supposed to be on swivel mounts??
Ah. But see, that's the beauty of this design.
The entire warp dome is actually a sphere mounted inside a gimbal.
It's free to swivel as required (or targeted) and as is swivels - so too does the plasma launcher.

That, and this is how Romulan plasma launchers are modeled on the rest of Starline 2500 (and 2400).

I pitched for them to look more like Nick Blank drew them on his SkyHawk deckplans (with the swivel mount clearly shown) but the tide moved the water of progress away from that idea, over 5 years ago.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:00 am

Another mini underway and picture posted to Facebook (and the legacy bbs).

This image is of the recreation of the Starline 2500 F-5 frigate I am working on, which will be modified into the HF5 (and a re-creation of the F5W), once it is completed.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 4:21 pm

I think I'm going to paint an F5 in that multi colored pattern and give it to Jean.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 6:02 pm

The weird thing is that the more recent research data on the filming miniature for the Klingon battle cruiser in ToS has shown that it was originally painted in a pastel purple color, with pastel green engine "wings" and underside. All of that weirdness got washed out by the bright studio lights and it just looked the blue-tinged "battleship gray" we all know and love, on-screen.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:32 pm

djdood wrote:The weird thing is that the more recent research data on the filming miniature for the Klingon battle cruiser in ToS has shown that it was originally painted in a pastel purple color, with pastel green engine "wings" and underside. All of that weirdness got washed out by the bright studio lights and it just looked the blue-tinged "battleship gray" we all know and love, on-screen.

I've seen photos of the 'real' models taken with normal lighting.
The green and purple scheme is... bizarre... to say the least.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:24 pm

Yeah. As much as Matt Jefferies is one of my inspirations, I'm grounded enough to know not all his ideas were home runs. Most of them though.

I kind of find it odd that movies like The Force Awakens and Rogue One are using stuff from Ralph MacQuarie's sketchbooks that he rejected because he developed better versions (the T-70 X-Wing, the new droid K-2SO, etc.). It's like the modern designers feel like they can't top the stuff in the masters' reject pile and that's kinda sad. That, or the producers and directors spent their childhoods staring at The Art of Star Wars just like I did and couldn't get the images out of their heads - ignoring the fact that MacQuarie moved beyond them for reasons.