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
A number of renderings I made after altering the Series Constitution Class to look like both Pilot designs The Cage and Where No Man has Gone Before, and playing with lighting and Ali Ries Background nebula art (used with permission), I also made use of my TOS version of the Dry Dock, I also gave the USS Constitution a NX desigination and had to tweak its placement.
I also tried to create a poster for The Cage, mixed results but fun exploring the process.
HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Australia and New Zealand on his first voyage of discovery from 1769 to 1771.
This name was suggested in lists of possible ship names in Star Trek The Original Series by D.C. Fontana and Robart H. Justman for Gene Roddenberry.
It did not make the cut at least not directly, it was named finally in a cut scene in Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country in the scene where Colonel West shares his plan on rescuing Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy.
3 rendering in Lightwave 9.6
I have at last finished with my version of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, I was/am looking at new projects and to help I have jumped back to an older design, I used to call the Kilkenny and on refection feel it not a name that grabs your attention, so I went back to the Pathfinder, giving it some more thought the S.S. Pathfinder, S.S. standing for “Solar Surveyor” a designation from the pages of Arthur C. Clarke book “Rendezvous with Rama” and its ship the Endeavour.
S.S. Pathfinder is a interplanetary explorer, making trips to Venus, Mercury, Mars etc in rapid time and I imagine in 100 years hence, with a crew compliment of 20 or so.
I was inspired by designs I seen over the last few years that hearken back to Isaac Asimov book covers, the David “Lucky” Starr story called “Oceans of Venus” by Ray Feibush, which I have in my book collection. and the Black Hole USS Palomino which I made a in the early 2000s.
by Ray Feibush
When the Enterprise attempts to penetrate a space barrier, it is damaged and creates a potentially worse problem. Two crew members, including Kirk’s best friend, gain psionic powers that are growing at exponentially. This leaves Captain Kirk with the difficult choice; either marooning them or killing before they get so powerful they lose their humanity and become truly dangerous.
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..
Just to jump out of Trek for a bit.. Dan Dare Eagle on patrol,, using the fabulous Ali Ries Background art scene .. no prep just slapped it in there where the Enterprise was and a reminder of its scale.
Well, I have returned to this, my re-imagined constitution class, a last throw of the dice with this before I move on to other designs, I have adjusted the scale (again) to 1311’5 ft design and made changes to deck height to fix as many issues as possible. I did have it at 1260ft.. that I thought would work, but it falls short in some areas I think important to address.
One of my favourite sources is The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry 1968, and I have looked 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 ideas and thoughts on a scale were in flux, busy enough just keeping the show on the air.
but one area I thought needed addressing is the deck heights, one key scale for me is 10ft for the deck heights, I except the needs for camera and dolly’s, etc.. but it the established look for the series, (I am not going anywhere near other and later designs)
In The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry, the Hangar Deck 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 Journey to Babel) at this new scale there is room for a corridor, while there is very little room practically none with the established scale of 947ft.
also 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 lowermost decks here are 16ft,, this is something I am not entirely happy with but,, these levels could have a need for structural supports for the dorsal neck and perhaps something else,, antimatter storage or something.. but this works for me.
this is the direction now.
Well now I have been busy, rendering yes and some more Star Trek using some background art by Ali Ries, GrahamTG and dadrian to bring some energy into them, normally I don’t do action type renders but here for the first time with Phasers firing all or Klingon torpedoes evading,, 99% in Lightwave and a tiny tweaking in Photoshop..
I am going back to doing my own reimagined constitution class this week and I am going if time permits some other designs from the federation moving on to Klingons for the first time since I worked on the bridge or corridors a few years ago.
That should get star trek out of my system for a while, so I have decided to attempt the Battlestar Galactica with my approach to its detailing and arrangement.
Mixed in with some of my own designs.. stay tuned for the WIPs (Work in Progress)
I think that all for now,, … … yes that it..
Oh wait There is a possibility that 3DGladiators will be making a return.
I have not been idle, I have over the last week being designing a TOS orbital dry-dock, it has the look of Star Trek The Motion Picture in that its a frame, and I have a shuttle docks in the upper central unit, and Solar panels, normally around a planet / Star-base but it also has fusion reactors and other star trek tech you care to add, it has the same diameter as the Star-base inner working I made a few months ago.
Starfield by dadrian
Crown Nebula is by Casperium
A space anomaly appears in a sector close to Starbase18, The USS Enterprise is assigned to investigate, I remember one of James Blish novels,, Spock Must Die! where there is a barrier around Organia, while I was never really satisfied with the device, what if this is something like another version of the Doomsday Machine , the Enterprise is able to enter it finding the source.. not much but there it is.
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..
Lightwave Designs 