Its been so long since I used this model, it’s a terrible thing spending weeks or in my case months designing and building models and after the first test renders and a renders I take a little more seriously, the model is forgotten.
I have taken this out of mothballs and with the wonderful Spawn Nebula art by Ali Ries and have set 3 Ranger Class Destroyers deployed on patrol
The model is available for sale royalty free on my Gumroad page
My re-imagined constitution class, the biggest adjustment is the scale from “947 ft” to “1311’5 ft” & I made changes to deck height to fix as many issue as possible.. I did have it at 1260 ft thinking that it would fix the areas of interest. but that did not solve issues with the shuttle bay access corridors at the sides of the bay, so again I had to enlarge the design, which was creating a new problem for me as to the deck count, I always put that at 23 via The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry and I did not want to stray to far from that.
But one area I thought I needed to establish is the deck heights, what to use, other fans think 9.6 or work, which is fine. I chose to go with the set plans and make it 10ft for the deck heights for corridors as seen in Series, it is the visual established look for the series. I think if they are lower it would effect the look so right or wrong its what I used.
Some of the decks in the secondary hull are taller than the 10ft mentioned mostly due to the shape of the design, this included the dorsal neck and the Engineering section mostly helps in the area for fuel, maintenance and cargo, for example in the connecting neck I have turbo elevator maintenances area. with the rescale there is enough room.. just to do this..
One of my favourite sources is The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry 1968, and I have look to it for guidance in some areas, (I think its canon though I also think that as the book was published in 1968 (second season) many idea and thoughts on scale where in flux, busy enough just keeping the show on air.
In The Making of Star Trek book the shuttle bay height and width is 30ft by 60ft and 100ft long.. now I assume this is only the bay area proper and not including the corridors to each side we see in Star Trek Season 2, Episode 10 – Journey to Babel at this new scale there is room for a corridor, while there is very little room practically none with the established canon scale of 947ft, I think the following post from Memory Alpha is worth sharing.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Constitution_class
“The dimensions of the Constitution-class, 947 feet (289 meters) long for the original configuration and 1,000 feet (305 meters) for the refit-configuration, are the ones that are universally accepted by production staff and fans alike, and propagated in virtually all reference works dealing with the subject, starting with the very first one, The Making of Star Trek, published in 1968. That being said and oddly enough, neither dimension has actually ever been canonically confirmed, as neither dimension was ever seen or referred to in any of the live-action Star Trek productions.
The original configuration length of 947 feet was first derived from Stephen Edward Poe‘s reference book, The Making of Star Trek, p. 178, and that dimension has been propagated in every subsequent reference work ever since. However, what Poe did not mention was that designer Matt Jefferies had originally produced that graphic in 1967 as a reference for Poe’s employer, model kit company Aluminum Metal Toys for their 1968 second edition retooled USS Enterprise model kit, No. S951 – where the graphic was displayed on the side of the box prior to its publication in the book – and not for the actual Original Series production. Remarkably, the dimension of the starship had been in flux until that time as producer Gene Roddenberry‘s memo of 24 August 1964 evidenced, “We anticipate a final design might see the ship as 200 feet in length, and thus even a 1½-inch scale would give us quite a huge miniature.” This figure, initially accompanied with a crew complement of 203 would actually more or less stand until Jefferies, utilizing his engineering background, recalculated the figures for his design three years later. (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 89, 134)”
So with that been said I have with some adjustment with deck scales (something I did not want to do), but you can see I found some workable changes, most decks are 10ft, but in the dorsal neck they have 12ft and this works with lining up portholes (assuming mine are close enough) then in the secondary hull all decks save 2 are 10ft ,, the top and lower most decks here are 16ft,, this is something I am not entirely happy with but,, these levels could have need for for structural supports for the dorsal neck and perhaps something else ,, antimatter storage or something.. but this works for me.
Latest Renders below
Length: 1311’5 Feet
Width: 577’5 Feet
Height: 319’11 Feet
23 Decks.
Crew Complement 430.
7 Class F Shuttlecraft
Total Escape Pods 192
164 Escape Pods in the Primary Hull (4 persons per Escape Pod is 656)
28 Escape Pods in the Secondary Hull( 4 persons per Escape Pod is 128)
Total Escape Pod Personnel Capacity is 768, including the 7 shuttles (possibly standard compliment) would mean that the upper limit of the crew would be around 800 (817 evacuation limit)
I have also included a large image of Doug Drexler’s
Master systems display of the U.S.S. Defiant and was seen in Star Trek Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II“. I think that this depicts the Constitution Class being even larger than my rescale of 1311’5 ft
Click on image to see the full images
Some details
New rivets and oblong window on the Nautilus, taking cue’s from the illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou for the novel. I was not intending to rework the exterior, but what can I say, I am a fan.
Reworking the forward section of the Nautilus, I added a forward hatch just behind the wheelhouse, I was never happy with the cut I made through the upper section of the Salon.
With the cut gone and only having one entrance, finding Nemo would descend the steps turning aft and travelling back through a short corridor and the a stairwell, heading down to the main deck (2) (there are 3 levels) then turning forward walking through the dining room, library, salon and right hatch through the corridor to the next stairwell to the wheelhouse. So I decided to add a second one 
I am also thinking of adding oblong windows to the Salon removing the current setup.
Its fun but time consuming working out these details..
Some Halcyon Space Craft renders I created but neglected to post, background art by Ali Ries aka Casperium and GrahamTG, who kindly allowed me to work with their art, really setting a dramatic feel. some are repeated trying different approaches.
I hope you like them, I will look to another original design I think for the next model, stretch myself creatively, but who is to say I cannot do two designs 🙂
They are not textured and only available in Lightwave3d for now, if I texture them would equal more time, greater the cost.
Of course there is also the early version of the Ranger that I may rework the engines, or maybe I won’t and Pathfinder Class Interplanetary ship and the McCall design but limited amount per engagement with McCall’s Daughter.. once they are gone that’s it.. and of course my Nautilus all in Lightwave3d 9.61..
