Star Trek TNG:- "All Good Things" Diorama - micro build log

[linweseregon]

For this one I'm going to build a scene where the USS Pasteur is being harangued by two negh'vars and the future USS Enterprise-D swoops in to the rescue. One of the negh'vars will be getting blown to bits .
The designs I'm using this time are:-
USS Enterprise-D by Paragon - I prefer the look of it
USS Pasteur by Zosho and
negh'var by Wulf111.
I thought that the Pasteur would be the hardest one to build so I started with it:-

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I wasn't at all confident about being able to build the spherical section this small so I made sure that I could before posting anything. I tried to take Revell-fan's advice about using a similar sized solid ball to shape the sphere; unfortunately I couldn't find anything so I used my fallback option of blu tac and it turned out pretty well. With that done I cut the next most fiddly parts:-

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I built all the wee boxes that these parts were for and then cut the secondary hull parts:-

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Although I've shown one of the internal supports, I didn't actually need them as the secondary hull doesn't have any 'give' when it's 4mm wide. I also ditched the edges of the nacelle struts as a double thickness of card was sufficient.

 

[spaceagent-9]

wow! I can see that this one is going to be another triumph!

 

[zathros]

Where do you keep all of these?

 

[Revell-Fan]

I guess everything is delivered to Area 51. Lots of empty space left though..!

 

[spaceagent-9]

she's building an addition to her home with these as the interior walls!
bricks around the outside and a planetarium for the roof!

 

[linweseregon]

@zathros @Revell-Fan @spaceagent-9 lol The ones that take a lot of work are left intact and are currently cluttering up the living room. I'm a mad hoarder as well as a collector, but if I move some of my Asterix dudes around a bit I should be able to make room for Wolf 359 and Yesterday's Enterprise in my museum (aka bedroom ). Most of the space I have is taken up with Asterix figures and bird ornaments and I have a few tricks for space optimisation. Some of the other dioramas get recycled, eg The Defector became Yesterday's Enterprise just by adding two more warbirds. The single builds have mini balsa shelves 1' wide by 9" tall by 3" deep which can hold two or three dozen of these wee ships without looking cluttered .

Back to the Pasteur - the nacelles were left to build:-

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These were quite tricky wee devils; curving the outer edges was murder and there was a tiny bit of slippage on some surfaces. However, I got her finished and she looks not too shabby at all at 41mm:-

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Next up is the future Enterprise-D starting as always with the saucer:-

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This one will be a bit larger than the last Enterprise build to keep it in scale with the Pasteur. It should be around the 3" mark when it's finished.

 

[spaceagent-9]

I am very envious. you really do good work on these. it looks like you could fit all the ships they ever shown on video on one poster. bravo, excellent!

 

[Revell-Fan]

WOW! The sphere is 1.35 cm in diameter! Incredible!

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 If I removed all the ships from dioramas and added them to the single ships they'd all easily fit on one shelf of a bookcase . As always, many thanks for the compliments .

@Revell-Fan The sphere could be built a bit smaller, but the rest of the tiny pieces are probably at their lower limit .

I joined the pieces for the upper and lower saucer halves then cut the pieces for the rim, bridge and impulse engines:-

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I omitted the windows as they were just too small for me to be comfortable working with. One slight slip and the whole saucer would be ruined and the smallest windows are less than 1mm wide so...
With the saucer complete I cut the parts for the secondary hull:-

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I left one piece uncut as I'll have to connect the deflector first; from experience I found that this piece tends to split when PVA is applied.

 

[spaceagent-9]

man that saucer looks great, i have already printed out this one to build, so im very interested in your assembly pics. again the micro size is just too cool , i can imagine a pillar of these dioramas, im sure some kind of convention would just love to host them! all that work and the themes are incredible.

 

[linweseregon]

All the tiny insets have been done. My paper strip method of connection is proving to be time consuming as usual, and there is still a lot of work to be done on the secondary hull. I also spent an age on parts which turned out to be for the interface when the saucer separates! So while the PVA was drying I've cut some more parts for the nacelles:-

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I'll be replacing the parts for the bussard collectors with reddened blu tac - I'm building at approximately 1/4 the size this model was intended to be and blu tac works better for me at this scale. If the insets on the nacelles prove too challenging I'll be omitting them as well - fortunately, I've printed the page twice so I have a fallback option.

 

[linweseregon]

So, instead of insetting the blue parts, I overlayed my extra grey parts to achieve an inset effect on the nacelles. I also cleaned up the lines on the neck and made the wee modification boxes before cutting the last of the parts:-

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Joining the two halves of the secondary hull proved to be a huge wrestling match which took ages to complete as I was only able to join a couple of mm's at a time. I worked from front to back, pushing the deflector forward to get the fit flush at the front. I still finished with a bit of an overhang at the rear end, but since I'm talking about a fraction of a mm I suppose it's negligible . The bit that wasn't negligible was the curvature of the nacelle struts misaligning - tiny errors in cutting parts can lead to huge problems with alignment and symmetry!
I eventually worked out the positioning of the parts for the underside of the saucer after careful scrutiny of some images I found in interwebland:-

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I would assume that this modification wasn't built over the captain's yacht port, but rather replaced it, so I'd suggest omitting the yacht layers if you're thinking of building this version.
I then moved on to the support for the third nacelle:-

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Spending time on insetting the detail on the rear of the neck has proven to be an exercise in futility, since it was all covered by the extra impulse engines . I'm hoping the the bases for the other two nacelles will cover up the mess that the top of the struts currently is. I'll also need to rework the strut for the third nacelle - at full size the part is awesome; at this size I can't really work with the pinprick-sized detailing...

 

[spaceagent-9]

even though you are having a hard time, i am in awe of your micro-building and all this hard work and how great it really looks to me, and us, im sure! i really appreciate all your hints and tips! i really was wondering how those nacelles were going to go together. thanks again.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Great progress! A joy to see everything come together. What pattern do you use to make the Future Enterprise?

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You are doing a REALLY GOOD JOB on this Enterprise.

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 Thank-you very much . I'm really glad that the log is proving useful - the last installment is below

@Revell-Fan Thank-you very much too . This one is the one found on Paragon's site:- http://www.freewebs.com/paragon19/startrek.htm The gallery doesn't show any pics of this version, but there are plenty of the actual ship on the web .

@Rhaven Blaack Many thanks to you as well . I've been trying to take more care with these builds. It also helped that I printed the design twice. Paragons designs are great for extra wee details, especially on some of his shuttles; the designs for those were so good that I managed to build most of them 1" long .

A modeller is only as good as the designer, so I'll take this opportunity to again thank all you brilliant designers out there .

The last piece of the third nacelle strut did pose a slight problem. I got round this by packing the inside with four thicknesses of cut-off card and trimming round the outline with a modelling knife. This will only work if you're building your model 3" in length - at larger scales the original piece should be able to be folded into shape. For the detail on top of the nacelles I omitted the brown edging as I felt that a single thickness of card would be enough, but I used my spare printout to double the thickness of the black central line. The guns and gunmounts were another challenge, particulary because the section which was glued to the saucer was miniscule - lol. Long fingernails are a nuisance for playing the bass, but are very useful when working with a tiny wee bit of card with three folds in it!

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So here's the finished 3" triple-nacelled USS Enterprise D alongside the USS Pasteur:-

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Now for the negh'vars. I can't find any instructions for this one so I'm kinda working in the dark a bit - destructions shouldn't be a problem though . I've cut the parts for the main superstructure:-

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There seem to be plenty of reference photos around so I'll be using some of them as a guide.

 

[spaceagent-9]

ravenblack or silveroxide might be able to correct me on this, but didnt sidewinder post build pic thread on this model, dwhale might know of this too.
great job on this!! i had no idea it was only 3 inches long! i think i will print all the energy grills and such on wax paper for lighting it up when i start mine.
this is just fantastic!!!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

@linweseregon, The Enterprise-D look REALLY GOOD!
It looks like you forgot the bussard collectors on front of the nacelles (the red tips).

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 There's a build log on papermodellers, but it's for a different design . I'm getting on OK with photos and screen captures so far; having said that, I'm only on the middle section - lol.

@Rhaven Blaack Thank-you very much . I did indeed forget the bussard collectors - I've added them this afternoon .

There's not enough progress to warrant a pic today. The edges for the main structure can only be glued a few mm's at a time and I've only managed to edge one surface on each ship...

 

[linweseregon]

With a few more pieces cut I can start posting pics again . To be honest though, I have absolutely no idea where these parts go!

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with the exception of the impulse boosters. I've joined up what I can and by a process of elimination I'll eventually work out what the other bits are. In the meantime, I've completed the superstructure and cut the parts for the bridge:-

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