Well I finally got my thumb out and have been having another go at the old girl. Looking back at what I had previously done just seemed too much to go back to and I decided to start afresh. Starting with the Bridge again and this time I am using just one set of plans to work from and those are by the late Michael McMasters. The external structure will probably be based on the V2 Casmiro drawings, but the remainder of the deck plans will almost certainly be from the Franz Joseph blueprints. Although I do have a fine set of prints from Strategic Designs which I might just use for the internals.
Anyway, this time around I have decided to build everything myself and not use any borrowed items such as the nav/helm console and captains chair as I did last time around. Everything will (for better or worse) be built by me.
I had a few ideas as to how to build the ring of consoles and workstations this time around and thought that I would start with a spline and then extrude it by the circumference of whatever the outer ring of the console came to, have it divided up by the number of consoles in a circle and then bend it through 360 degrees. That way there would be no unsightly gaps or measurement problems. Right?
Well yeah, but of course when I cut the sections away that shouldn't have consoles I was left with open ends. So I went back to constructing a spline and then extruding it out by one console width. But this still did not work too well. In the end I used a box for the workstation with the correct WxHxD made sure it had enough segments and then converted it to an editable poly. From there I altered the side vertexes to the correct shape and then placed this box just above a cylinder which was big enough and had the correct number of segments to give me the appropriate angle lines in hidden line mode. Then from a top view, I altered the end vertexes on the workstation so that the tapering angles on both sides matched the deck lines. I also did the same with the consoles above. This writes easier than it was to do, I had to make a number of attempts before I got it right enough to use. Thankfully I always kept a copy of the original box, so if I get into trouble after making alterations......
From here I continued building up the elements which make up the bridge ring, viewscreen, turbo lift area, secondary exit, rear wall of the head and so on. The turboshaft was interesting as I wanted the outer tube to just be able to go straight down through the saucer section as is and build off of that. I had to redo this several times too, but now I think I have something which should work. In fact, on my bridge the front most portion of the turbo shaft actually encompasses the outer doors and makes up the beginning of the entrance alcove on the bridge.
The basic deck is in place, along with the rails and posts. Still a few structural items to add, but not too much.
Enough talk, heres a couple of images of how far I have got to date.
It ain't the years honey, it's the mileage.
