Star Trek: TNG:- Wolf 359 Diorama - micro build log

[linweseregon]

After a suggestion from spaceagent-9 about building a Wolf 359 diorama my imagination was fired. I've started to do some research on Wolf 359 and the consensus seems to be that there are eleven confirmed named ships of the forty strong fleet sent against the Borg cube. I have templates for eight of the starship classes, five of which are named: USS Ahwahnee, USS Firebrand, USS Kyushu, USS Princeton and USS Yamaguchi. Now I have to kick-start my old grey matter and work out sizes for the micros to keep them in scale. I would also like to find some more reference photos of damaged ships so that I can remain relatively faithful to what has been shown onscreen in "Best of Both Worlds" and "Emissary"; so far I have photos for the USS Firebrand and the USS Princetown. I'm aiming for a maximum length of 2" for the largest Starfleet ship (the Ambassador class USS Yamaguchi, I believe?). To remain in scale this would mean building the Borg cube at 1' across, unfortunately, so I may take a bit of poetic licence and reduce the cube to 8x8x8". It also means that I have to try to build an Oberth class ship measuring 1/2" long! I''l have to start with the USS Bonestall to find out if it's feasible to shrink my available templates; failing that I'll try to work out another method.
Watch this space

 

[spaceagent-9]

you know that bling stuff I linked on your romulan build? I bet at this scale, 2'' for a ambassador class, that a finger tip green light, inside the borg cube, and shined thru a simple plastic bling faceted bead,clear, would split that beam into many green beams shooting out at the ships. just a thought.......

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 I'll need to find UK suppliers so that I'm not crippled with postage costs. Lighting is something that I know exactly b****r all about - LEDs or fibre optics would be small enough to fit inside tiny starships, but do they produce a thin beam suitable for phaser fire? Your idea for the Borg sounds great and there's certainly plenty of room in an 8x8x8" cube - lol.

 

[spaceagent-9]

omg.........I had no idea , a 1000% jump up in cost? how can we work around this to get you a keychain laser, super bright green leds and some mirrors to bounce around the beams,......? someone help us on this please.

 

[spaceagent-9]

im not having any luck searching in the UK for any of this, not even a keychain laser, or blinking led.
I will ask around.
any other way I can think of is sequins and a flash light to make a glittery effect.

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 Many thanks for looking Jim. I've done a bit of scouting as well and only found one ridiculously expensive website. The obvious alternative for me should have been a well known auction site (no advertising there ) and after doing a mix 'n' match of search terms I found quite a few 'cheap as mince' options. Green LED/fibreoptic hair extensions could be used for Borg fire and yellow LEDs coupled with 0.25mm fibre optics could be used for Federation phasers. This way all the electronics could be housed in a reinforced cube at a cost of <£5. It's not that I'm a tight-fisted Scot - I can't work so I'm usually skint...

 

[spaceagent-9]

im glad you found something, I was ready just to send you some stuff, because I couldn't find anything, except a thousand percent mark if you up for some lite up toy swords. I check back in here a couple times a day, so if you need any advice on something let me know, here are a few links of some stuff I have done.

http://tinypic.com/r/33ndjmb/8]View My Video[/URL]


URL=http://tinypic.com/r/2s1wx10/8]View My Video[/URL]


View My Video

 

[linweseregon]

While pondering the laser show options I've started on one of the wrecks since it won't require any internal electronics. It was supposed to be the USS Princeton, but after scaling down the template and printing it off I noticed that the name and registry number: the name is unreadable without a magnifying glass and there's not going to be anybody coming round to examine the registry so it'll have to do since I don't have software that can print text in a curve. Anyway, the foundation of this mini is the Sushibones retexture of D-Whale's Niagra class with chunks removed where the Borg turned it into mince. I'm basically following the instructions, although I'm removing tabs and a few pieces which are redundant at this size.

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The two black pieces on the left weren't used as they would bulk the bridge up too much.

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The black line drawn on the left of the saucer is a rough approximation of the missing chunk shown in the production photos.

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It was only now, when checking who to credit for the design, that I saw D-Whale's original underneath! Well, I've said before "I have no common sense at all!" lol I think the darker colouring of the retexture is more suited to a derelict anyway.

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 Wow! I'm blown away! The smallest LED I've seen so far would still be too big to fit inside any of these micros, hence the fibre optic option - I can get hold of 5m of 0.25mm for next to nothing so it's worth experimenting with.
btw I'll be using your D7 design again as I've seen a few sources hinting that there were K'Tingas at Wolf 359. One will be a wreck and neither will be longer than 1" - I need my head examined!

 

[spaceagent-9]

it sounds like so much fun! yeah, the Klingons would never pass up a fight, and it figures that they would fight until the last piece of their ship. I'm sure, that it is futile, to resist-making this diorama, lol!

 

[linweseregon]

Slow progress was made on the Princeton (USS Surprise) today, especially since I didn't notice that two pages should have been printed three times - d'oh yet again!

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Two more smaller chunks still need to be removed from the port side of the saucer. Only two bussard surrounds are needed as the port one is totally destroyed.

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I've also found a backdrop which I can hopefully enlarge without too much more loss of resolution:-

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Wolf 359 is the red dwarf in the centre of the image.

 

[spaceagent-9]

looks great! the starship is a mystery to me though. but in the show I didn't recognize the ship styles at the wolf graveyard anyway so I guess that's in theme with the whole diorama. anxious to see what you do with the battle damage interior,....red glitter nail polish? screen torched with a lighter? there are some threads on it somewhere.

 

[ennder]

nice build so far you could use steel wool in the open section of the hull to simulate pipes and structural members sticking out.

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 I found corroborating references for 11 named ships; everything else only has one reference, eg K'Tinga presence has no corroboration on other sites, others say Vor'Cha yet others say bop's. I'm hoping to build one of your bop's at about 2", but trying to build at 1/2" is pushing it a wee bit too far

The ships I'm definitely intending to build are:-
damaged - USS Buran (Challenger class; no template yet), USS Chekov (Springfield class; no template yet), USS Firebrand (Freedom class), USS Kyushu (New Orleans class), USS Melbourne (Excelsior class rather than Nebula), USS Princeton (Niagra class), Klingon K'Tinga
undamaged - USS Ahwahnee (Cheyenne class), USS Belerophon (Nebula class), USS Bonestell (Oberth class), USS Saratoga (Miranda class), USS Yamaguchi (Ambassador class), Klingon K'Tinga

@ennder Thank-you very much for the compliment Thanks also for the wire wool idea - I'll probably try to use this now as a debris field around phaser strikes. I tend to stick with card for major structural damage and I've already printed a sheet of battle damage (from various sources) on both card and paper.

 

[spaceagent-9]

awesome idea , printed out damaged card pieces. the only ship I can see that wasn't some kind of excelsior variant in the wolf 359 graveyard, looked like the secondary hull of a 1701-a type.PARAGON has his ships here that would look good scrapped up, but I bet you have your ideas on that! if you release these in the downloads as a kit, I will definitely want to take a crack at it! I guess there would be a Miranda class also from ds9, I think there is even battle scenes from Sisco's flash backs. if you need it I might be able to post a link to that.

 

[spaceagent-9]

there are 4 ships shown here, a modified khans reliant, excelsior,nebula, and enterprise c type. im sure there is much more. by the way, if you sand the outside walls of a strand of fiber optics, it will lite up as a light saber effect, instead of just at the end. so you can light up interiors that small [ if you have the time and want to] and you can make a phaser beam with a red led. and twisted sanded fiber optics with a white led, connected to sisco's Miranda type would look pretty cool as in this video link, that overloads their sensors, after all the precautions were taken, they forgot about that! the fleet didn't stand a chance against locutus and his knowlage and experience!

 

[ennder]

Linwe I just looked at your blog, I get the impression that you May be a Star Trek fan. You Do have a Nice model collection. Good Work!!!!

 

[spaceagent-9]

I found this of the Kyushu, if its any help

 

[linweseregon]

@spaceagent-9 Thank-you very, very, very much for all the background research - it's greatly appreciated . I've downloaded at least two of Paragon's designs, but I can't recall which off the top of my head - I'll credit the designers as I log the builds. The fibre optic cable arrived this morning so now I'm waiting for a yellow LED (rather than red; I'm a traditionalist ) and, of all things, green raver's hair extensions! lol I think the pics I have of the Kyushu are from the blog of the dude who bought the production model at auction - they're a bit bigger and give dorsal and ventral views. When the Princeton is finished I reckon I'll need to start on the cube though. All the electronics will be inside it and I'll angle it so that only three printed faces will be seen. These will have five layers so doing six faces like that would keep me busy until I draw my pension and probably drive me even more insane in the process . I remember seeing a guide to how the Buran and Chekov were kitbashed (possibly on Ex Astris Scientia) and they should hopefully be fairly straightforward - assuming I can judge the scales when I paste the parts into MS paint...

@ennder Thanks again for the compliments! I admit it, I like Star Trek - lol. I can just remember when the original series was first shown in the UK and since then I've lost count of the number of times I've seen each episode - with the exception of 'The Empath' and 'Turnabout Intruder'; these were never broadcast on the BBC and I had to wait until they were shown on satellite telly, so I've only seen these episodes three times. To think that all this started with a drakkar for an Asterix diorama and seeing Uhu's Enterprise when I was searching for a design for Asterix and Obelix encountering the pirates!

 

[linweseregon]

Progress has been slow again today. Quite a few pieces from the original design can be discarded and some must be discarded otherwise the model will be as deep as it is long! It also makes it too difficult to cut through with nail scissors if all the layers are used.

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The bottom 'cap' on the left is intentionally bent out of shape to resemble the remains of the port nacelle in the production photo:-

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The grey 'surround' at the top of the next photo was discarded on all three nacelles:-

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And the last one for today:-

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Placing the 'plates' on the nacelles was very time consuming as they had to be curved, glued and held in place individually. The smallest piece here is the grey square in the centre of the photo - half the surface area of a pinhead! I cut some sections from the curved edge of some battery packaging to represent burned out bussards - the curvature, if not the opacity, are ideal for the ventral nacelle (top left).