None of my designs lately work. They all look terrible the day after, and I'm so tired of coming up with new nacelles and saucers all the time. There's only so many things you can do with them, and they've ALL been done before. Basically, ever since I did the fandom ships, I haven't come up with anything remotely interesting myself.
So, my silly question is... does anyone have tips/ideas for making new designs? Something that stands out at least a little bit? What are your inspirations?
Yikes, that sounds desperate ... Starship Designers Anonymous anyone?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Make a three-naceller look good? Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
You should do the accurate version of the Federation-class dreadnought. (One that doesn't use simply two Connie saucers joined together, but rather the much larger and thinner version of Joseph's manual.)
It would also be superlatively cool if you were to do the rest of the TAS shuttles that Rev and Masao are so loathe to do. (The Copernicus from "The Slaver Weapon" and the shuttle from "Mudd's Passion.") The scouter-gig from "The Ambergris Element" would be cool too.
-MMoM
P.S. Season's Greetings, BTW!
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Or move away from Federation ship designs and go for a Tholian or Bolian design. Something for fandom that isn't the same old stuff may give you a new perspective...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Harry, a lot of times I just..play. I sketch randomly, frethink, look at clouds...& sometimes things come form the oddest places. My Canberra-class desing came from thinking about the streamlining of seaQuest & about how throwing nacelles out on pylons all the time was boring after a while. Thus, compaction, streamlining, & the manta ray-like shape was born. Sometimes it's thinking about civilian designs, alien designs, or stepping away from capital ships for a while & heading for support vessels. Some of my best ideas have come up in freighter & tanker classes.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Like Shik, I spend a lot of my time just looking around. I get ideas from a lot of different places: insects, airplanes, subs, trains, cars, household appliances, seafood, plants, etc. Early jets are a particularly good source for unusual ideas.
I also spend a lot of time sketching, usually just studies of masses without worrying about surface details. I also try to sketch in perspective to avoid designs that look good only from one direction.
Sometimes I abandon the sketch pad and do "physical sketching" with clay, dishes, pencils, and rolled up papers, holding them in different positions and looking at them from different angles.
If you want to continue with pre-TOS Fed designs, try greatly varying the size and shape of the elements. For example, try a ship wih an extremely small or non circular saucer. For example, for Paris, I pushed the bridge to the very front of a pointed primary hull. Vary the number and placement of the nacelles: they don't always have to be long, paired, supported on long sticks, and at the back of the ship.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
My roommates back in CT would hide remote controls from me because they looked like starships to me. Currently, I'm obsessed with the shape of my roommate's phone. It's Masao shuttle-like.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
I do the same thing, remotes and phones looks like some sort of space ship or at least part of one.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Better phones than other things.....
The design ideal of a saucer and two nacelles can only be taken so far.... I have designed a ship based on a shuttle, it gives a lot of volume for all sorts of stuff, made it a through deck carrier in one study model. If I can find the CD I burned it on to when cleaning off my HDD I will post it... My first design posting come to think of it...
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I usually get my ideas while I'm already drawing. In most cases I don't even "waste" my time and paper with pencil sketches but start directly in CAD. But aside from that, I have no tips - I'm suffering from a lack of ideas myself...
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I'm with Bernd on this one, I usually just start mucking about in PSP and usually inspiration will strike, sending me off on a weird tangent. The EVAPs are a prime example of this, they started out as a reverse engineered version of one of Masao's early fighter concepts that he showed me and it ended up becoming a NASA maintenance pod. The best advice I can give is to not think to much about what your doing and just see where your imagination takes you. When that doesn't work I always have more than enough half finished projects - (enough to open a half finished gallery with) - to keep me occupied until something else comes along.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Do you (people) sketch oblique views of your ships to begin with or just a certain 'plane' and then build from there?
I like doing the oblique views but my perspective needs work. Any tips? Should I draw guide-lines?
Matt Jefferies sketches are 'simplistic' but they look fantastic.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I don't know about guidelines for sketches. It sounds rather frustrating It's a sketch after all, it doesn't really matter if perspective is off a bit.
And I just sketched up a TOS era ship with a big MIDAS-like sensor (communications?) dish at the back. But I forgot the nacelles ... and I don't know where to put them Perhaps I'll corel something up.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Here's a very quick sketch of what it could look like. I'm not 100% sure what the 'tentacles' do, but I think it looks cool
Any suggestions for nacelles?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
An early repair pod/tug type vehicle???
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Perhaps it could be some kind of astroid mining ship, then you wouldn't have to worry about nacelles.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I like to sketch first, because I find sketching is more flexible and allows me to get my ideas down faster. I sketch in perspective, then refine the final design on the computer.
Also, drawing in a vector program can sometimes lead to designs that are 2-D graphic exercises rather than 3-D designs. What I mean is that a thin antennae on a top or side views seems to fill in a graphic space as well as a large piece of hull. But when you look at it from another view, the antennae disappears. Of course, if you draw three views at the same time, this problem can be minimized.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Astroid mining.. hmm. Some tractor emitters on the ends, and a phaser at the back? How does Star Trek handle asteroid mining anyway? Apart from holographic 19th century tools, that is.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Identify what you need. Beam it out. No fuss, no muss Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Depends on the composition of the asteroid in question, I seam to recall that certain minerals (I forget which) tend to interfere with transporters, other materials may become unstable within the matter stream so tractor beams and phasers (or lasers) would seam to be the safer option.
As for the design, I'd add some cargo modules in there somewhere so that the raw materials can be delivered to the mothership or other base of operation by simply swapping the full pods for some empty ones. Presumably several of these ships could operate throughout an asteroid field so you could design a carrier that these ships dock with and transport them at warp from one system to the other.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
For many substances, beaming them out might be too energy-consuming. That would be like spending a lot of oil to obtain less than the equivalent as coal. I think that there could be well something like a starship to harvest small asteroids with drills and laser cutters.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Here's a design suggestion for the mothership, it looks sort of like a Starbase so you can imagine that it can be permanently stationed somewhere without the nacelles and just be a mining outpost. Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bernd: For many substances, beaming them out might be too energy-consuming. That would be like spending a lot of oil to obtain less than the equivalent as coal. I think that there could be well something like a starship to harvest small asteroids with drills and laser cutters.
Bah. Energy-consumption isn't a concern of Starfleet. I refer you to the aforementioned holographic mining personnel Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Some more sketches, including a very sketchy top-view.
I've thrown away the saucer, as it made the rest of the ship look really skinny in the top view. It's now a shape inspired by Masao's "small transporter". I've also made the arms look a little bit stronger. The containers can be combined and 'hung' from a frame to form a Frans Joseph compliant container.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
How is the internal space on the mothership oriented?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Bacteriophage!
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Indeed.
I'm also curious about the mining ships. How exactly do they move? I'm assuming that they latch on to their target with those legs, and scoop up the ore through some mechanism in the tail, but then where are the engines? And perhaps the "head" should be larger, indicative of more storage space, as I would presume the stuff gets moved from the aft to there, and then from there into the station.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
... Starship Designers Anonymous anyone?
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... and I don't know where to put them ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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