Federation Commander

Great job!

Great to see new stuff on the bench, Dr. Cordeiro.

great job. love the mini.

Well...it's been a long time. And sadly, my minis post has drifted to page 2 (insert shame emoticon here). But...there's hope.

First is Emperor (formerly Proconsul) Rolandus' Flagship during the Romulan Civil War, the K7RX Retribution.
For this I used a FASA D7 and started by adding pins to the wings and thickening them so the nacelles would be better supported.



Next, I cut the nacelles and lengthened them with putty. I based this on my new love for lengthened nacelles for fast ships and some artwork that I've seen elsewhere online.



And I will use my usual hand-wavium to say that while the Romulans were able to upgrade the K7R to an X-ship, since they received the technology 2nd hand, their engineers didn't understand the Klingon technology as well as the Klingon engineers did and had to lengthen the nacelles to make it work.

After that, I added some more putty to the top making the nacelle 'grow' out of the wing and some skids to the underside reminiscent of the FASA 'Winged Defender' mini and some other artwork I've seen.



And then the usual phasers and such. I ended up adding small housings for them on the top and under the boom since the intricate pattern on or curve of the hull would make the epoxy deform (at least) a bit.





As always, more pics on the NEW page.

Great work there, Paul.
I'm looking forward to seeing her painted up.

great job as always, i am looking foreward to seeing her painted.

Looks great, Paul.

Thanks guys. I wish I could find the time to paint again. It's tough for me to paint at night. Not that I can't, I just prefer some natural light when I do it. And now that it's winter, going outside to paint is not gonna happen, and the paint takes longer to dry as well!

For some reason, my post is getting cut off after any apostrophe or elipse. I never realized how often I use contractions and "special" punctuation.

Maybe everyone's just excited about the 2500s, and leaving the 2400s alone.

Well, here is another round:
A second SFC inspired ship. This hull is used for the DD/CL in that game, but I liken it to an NCL. My previous one, the Kirishima, was one of the first ships I made (and about the 5th that I actually finished). This one was going to be the hull for the first DDX I made, but I started again and got the USS Alliance. So that means this one has actually been sitting on my workbench or in the box for 3-3.5 years!!

The deflector is more secure on this one, being attached to the secondary hull rather than precariously hanging from the bottom of the saucer. There is also the extra structure on top of the saucer where the nacelle connects (that was the first draft of the DDX), which is not present on the old one. This one also keeps the torpedoes under the bridge on B deck, rather than moving them to the secondary hull. And the thicker lower nacelle pylon compared to the upper one, I will explain away (cue handwavium) by saying that the necessary engineering components could not all fit in their standard layout in the smaller secondary hull with the shuttlebay, thus, more of the hardware was stacked vertically. The thicker connection also gives the ship more stability when making high-energy turns, since the center of mass is more spread out (I will say it would not even get the poor HET bonus of the NCL in SFC without the thicker connection).

Here are the two SFC-inspired NCLs together.


And just the new one.



And, along with a Terran National Guard destroyer, the USS Ganymede, it is patrolling the Terran system, so it will not be engaging that new Romulan X-ship (unless something is SERIOUSLY wrong).


But there are other things nearby...so let us go and find them.


Shuttle trip!

Nice work, Dr.

I like the squarer corners on the added hull module on the new one. Nice and clean. It should look great, painted up.

First one of 2012.

I have no idea what inspired me to do this, other than perhaps staging a recreation one of the early scenes from ST:TMP. Having a spare FASA Regula I sitting around did hurt either.

Since the creators of ST:TWOK turned the office complex upside-down to make Regula I, I just went the other way! I started by separating all the pieces: two arms, the tank assembly, and the large hangar. Then, I needed to make the extra arms that are only seen in ST:TMP and never again (even though this model is used countless times throughout TNG, DS9 and Voyager!)

I sat with the DVD and froze frame after frame after frame to find all the angles I could and determined the number of domes/bubbles each arm had and what their relative location was. Contrary to so many models out thee, the two arms are not the same. One is longer than the other and has more pods on it and both have different styles and connectivities of the domes. These were easy enough to cut from plastic card and sand to shape.


The initial arm assembly was easy to make from two parallel brass wires and held together by putty at the end with a pod.


The ugly part came when I had to connect the side pods to the main tubes. Obviously, I was going to use paperclips or brass wire to connect them, but mounting them to the main tubing in an inconspicuous way was going to be difficult. Drilling hold in the brass tube was tough, and it hurt every time I slipped.


Then after putting the docking ports on the pods that had them (more still shots on the DVD), I had the (as you can imagine, INCREDIBLY fragile) arms ready to assemble.


Arm 1 and Arm 2:



Then it was time for the top. FASA had an ugly cylinder of lead in this spot, since it was just the point where the mini connects to the stand. I knew I could not hope to duplicate the detail of the command tower on the actual miniature, and just adding a little dome was not going to be enough so I tried to build up some type of connection. In retrospect, I could have tried to salvage the command pod from the actual mini, but this whole mini was so beat up already, and the top was in such bad shape, so I could not have salvaged it very well anyway. Still not too sure about it, but it is easy enough to remove at a any time moment.


And putting it all together was not too hard at all. First, some holes are drilled to attach the new arms, and then the old arms, flipped over, are epoxide and puttied back on (supported by brass rod underneath where you cannot see). I was not going to try and make the half-complete pad in TMP that seemed to turn into the telescope by TWOK, so mine has the telescope.


Next, the new arms are attached:


And finally the top gets attached.


Before and After:


Scale comparison with my new SFC NCL


Now off to the next project!


As always, more pics on the NEW page.

Wow! Nice work, Paul.

Very nice!

WOW!

What an amazing amount of work. I would never have even contemplated such a feat.
Props to you, Paul.

Paul,

Wow, that is just simply amazing and a lot of attention to detail as to the number of domes each arm carried. and to bring it down to 2400/2500 scale. well done