This cover art has always inspired me. It was a collaborative effort; Production Illustrator Jim Martin designed the art, executing it in a series of progressive pencil sketches. The art was subsequently turned over to freelancer Mikido Uesugi and John Knoll.
Here is my version again using GrahamTG space art and Asteroids..
“Click on image to see full size”
4096×1732
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.
Something I have never done before, not that not true I tried years ago before getting into modelling, I created this image but first with my “series” version of the USS Enterprise, it was commented and criticise, so I adjusted my model to better show the first pilot look, but I consider that had Jeffery Hunter had remained with Star Trek for the series, the Enterprise would have looked like Kirk’s, it was a pilot just as “Where no man has gone before” is the unheard of second pilot.
It gave me great pleasure to know that Jeffery Hunter son enjoyed the one of my test images and used it on his Facebook page, I made another image that would work better, but I had a lot of fun doing something slightly different with my models, I hope you like them.
