Star Trek TNG:- "Yesterday's Enterprise" Diorama - micro build log

[linweseregon]

Since I'm extremely limited in the amount of space I have I do quite a bit of recycling of diorama ships. Some dioramas are left intact (eg The Battle of Wolf 359", "The Tholian Web), but others will be reused. I'll be recycling the Enterprise D and the Klingon birds of prey from "The Defector" and making a new Enterprise C. One of the bop's will be blown to bits and I might have a go at simulating phaser fire hitting shields. The tricky part will be the rift.
Well, here goes with the USS Enterprise 1701-C by Clever Santoro. As always I'm starting with the upper saucer:-

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I've printed this design twice so that I have a template for cutting damage sections to underlay before fitting everything together - I found this to be quite effective for fairly minor surface damage when I built my USS Constellation.

 

[spaceagent-9]

outstanding! I hope all your dioramas go to the proper place, some school arts and crafts sum such thing. very inspirational.

 

[Revell-Fan]

WOW - She's going TNG!

I'm so looking forward to seeing another master piece by you. Great choice on the topic, BTW. One of my favourite episodes right after "BOBW" (which is on top of ALL Star Trek eps IMO).

As for the rift, there are a few ways to make it. First, you could print out several layers of the cloud on transparent sheet or use some cotton wool and arrange it in a way that it forms a 3-dimensional structure. Illumined from within or from behind to give it a mysterious glow.

You could put the C through a hole in the middle so that one half of the ship is concealed. You could also make a full 4D-diorama and use some black card with a hole in the middle in which the C is placed. The hole should be as close as it gets to the perimeter of the outer hull of the C so that the other end of the ship is concealed when looked at from one side of the rift. Then put the D and the attacking Klingons to the left side and Narendra III and the attacking (old) Klingons to the right side. So you are able to capture the essence of the story both ways: When looked at it from the left you see the (altered) present with the D trying to ensure save passage for the C, when looked at it from the right you see the past with the C returning from the rift to the attacked outpost.

 

[spaceagent-9]

I agree!!

 

[Revell-Fan]

This is a quick sketch for illustration: Left is the present, right is the past. The boxes are stand-ins for the models. There should be three BoPs in each compartment. Well, just a thought..!

 

[spaceagent-9]

I like that and the romulan war birds that are waiting for it sure must have been amazed!!!

 

[spaceagent-9]

I think I would build it off kilter a little to give it a little character. not just a straight line 3-d box, maybe turn it 20 degrees...........?

 

[linweseregon]

Awesome idea! I was thinking cotton wool as well, and I have plenty of blue lights. I'll need to build some more warbirds and check whether the design and size are the same - so at least two, but probably four.

The Enterprise C is coming along:-

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For the damage I used a marker for the hull breaches then cut through and glued a damage printout to the underside. The scorch marks are made with a black pencil. I was hoping that the marker would leach through from the back, but (of course!) it didn't. When the underside of the saucer was joined I did the same for it:-

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and then moved on to the nacelle struts and secondary hull.

 

[Revell-Fan]

I like it when a battle damage comes together..!

 

[linweseregon]

Slow progress today due to mega-fiddly parts:-

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[spaceagent-9]

sounds awesome!!!

 

[ganeshsingh158]

Too bad about the leeching through not working, it always seems to "work" when you are coloring edges........

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You are doing a GREAT job on the Enterprise C. I like the battle damage that you applied to it. At that scale, it looks very good!
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!

 

[linweseregon]

I'm almost done with the Ent C - just a bit a blackening left to do on the nacelles:-

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Due to the insets, I've decided against insetting the battle damage on the nacelles as it would've made an already complicated build practically impossible to construct. Zooming in on the photo also shows fairly slight misalignments as huge gaping holes! lol The actual model is just over 2" in length so that massive crack is barely noticeable.
I'm trying an experiment this time around. Those who regularly follow my posts will remember that I tried to build a cloaked bird of prey, but gave up in disgust because my superglue turned out to be crapglue. I gave the glue another chance on a warbird with the same result so I'm using tape now. If it looks passable I'll stick (no pun intended!) with it.
Skip's design is a very much simplified one so I'll use it as a guide. By taping the template to the back of the plastic I get the lines to score and the outline to cut round. Here's the head as an example:-

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This design has a slightly different shape to Zosho's and I'm doing quite a bit of trimming to keep this one in line with the decloaked warbirds. It might need some reworking at the back, but this should be easy enough since I don't have to worry about texturing. The head and upper wing look like this:-

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[spaceagent-9]

wow! that's really cool!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You did a REALLY GOOD job on both the Enterprise C and the Cloaked BoP.
I like the technique that you used to make the BoP. Once you light the diorama, it should show up quite nicely.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Absolutely stunning! The transparent Warbird looks so cool (as cool as ice ;-) !) Keep it on!

 

[zathros]

O.k., that transparent is a first. You are exploring new ground (Space?) here. Excellent. I think it is cool you recycle you sips. True performance art!

 

[linweseregon]

The cloaked warbird is finished. Using tape hasn't detracted too much from the model; it's probably better than the result I would get by using superglue. The size and shape are close enough to Zosho's that any discrepancy can be put down to the optical distortion of the cloak - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

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I've made a start on the backdrop. I pinched three starscapes from interwebland and for Narendra III I used the Venus Magellan globe from the USGS website:-

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[spaceagent-9]

you're awesome. that's too cool.