If its a starship it has to be good. This is actually great!

excellent model well done

Beautiful job on the mapping and effects!

Getting better. A good WIP. If you have Photoshop, it would be possible to map some hull plating. First, carving up the mesh surface planes, the saucer section top from the sides and the bottom, for example, bump map channel a UV map of simple concentric circles, one inside the other made up of thin black lines. Connect each ring to the other with a line, periodically, as if it were a circular brick pattern. Apply it to the top and bottom circular sections bump channel. The side planes, use similar technique but make the line pattern more grid like. Each piece of the ship can get its own purpose built UV bump map and applying it to separate mesh elements is the easiest way to do that. Later the model can be rewelded together. Texture mapping and proper lighting techniques are the keys to making simple mesh objects look real.

RBlue, I could do that, but I'm actually trying for the smooth look the real model had in the 1960's. The grids weren't even present on the 11-foot model when the series was filmed originally. The model kit had them, but not the actual ship. I know that in the remastered episodes, they've added grids to the hull, but to me, they detract from the beauty of the ship. Now, I could play around with a reflective map that would give it just a tiny hint of variance to small panels on the hull, but the hull has been painted, and it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me that they'd be getting a lot of separate paints out to do each panel. I may play with it a little and see if I can get a very subtle look, but I liked the Enterprise before the revisionists changed it, personally, and I'm hoping to get a look that fits it as it was filmed. :)

.:I'm inclined to agree with RBlue about the lighting, the model works really well. If you're keen on keeping the original smooth look, do you think that a darker model with more small lights would look cool?:.

Again, my goal is to match the way it looked in the original 1960's footage. The ambient light was higher because of their keying issues, but as I grew up with that show, the new FX look very... wrong to me. The Enterprise was always brightly lit. I took pretty good care to match the look of the photos from the original FX shots. It is a work in progress though, so there will be some adjustments, and I do appreciate the comments and ideas very much. :)

Looks great! whats your plans with it? just a personal challenge? or is this part of the new Enterprise movie? Hmm... now that BSG is wrapped up ;)

Magnatude, I'm getting ready to work on a fan film of my own, called "Starship Saladin" which will be featuring a destroyer class vessel from the Franz Joseph Technical Manual made in the 1970's. The Enterprise will be in the episode, along with several other ships, but the story is centered around the Saladin, which is currently still under construction at the moment. :)

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