Enterprise Bridge (adjusted for DST action figures)
- Thread starter glorbes
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Progrocker
New Member
What are you using as your reference for plans? This looks incredible, I can't wait to see more.
glorbes
Well-Known Member
Star Trek LCARS Blueprint Database - U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge Blueprints - Revised
These are the plans I used as a starting point. I have a hard time being slavish to plans sometimes, so I mainly used them as reference, as well as a guide to scale some of the elements. Ultimately, my bridge is smaller than it should be in some respects, and there are parts that are disproportionate. I also have been eyeballing photos of the sets, watching the show, and trying to get a feel for the bridge in general. Mine isn't accurate by any means, but thus far I'm happy with the impression it makes as a display piece.
Progrocker
New Member
Thanks! The link and advice are much appreciated.
Yes, they are MOST appreciated. Thank you and please post again soon with progress. This thread is addictive!!
STpropguy76
Well-Known Member
Since your totally enclosing it you should make the View Screen like a window into the ship & leave it as a Clear piece of Plexi so people can look in, instead of just getting a birds eye view of it.
Unless your going to put hinges on a Bridge Station so you can swing it open.
Anyway Great job, and I got my Mirror/Mirror figures and I'm on my over to play.
Unless your going to put hinges on a Bridge Station so you can swing it open.
Anyway Great job, and I got my Mirror/Mirror figures and I'm on my over to play.
DrMcoy
Sr Member
nice work.
i wouldn't sweat the side panels being a tad wider -- i never thought this project was about 100% accuracy as it was devoted to the spirit of building a set piece that made your figures look cool -- and gave them something to do!
the idea someone had about making viewscreen a clear window that allowed you to "peep" inside is a GREAT idea.
This gets back to one of my initial remarks about a bridge model being a clumsy thing to display, especially if you build the entire bridge.
The COOLEST thing to do with this is transport it back in time to yourself when you were a kid so you could play with it! That's what it would be best for...and while you are at it, throw in a transporter room, a sick bay and an engine room to same scale...and then a shuttlecraft and then a planet surface, complete with paper mache boulders and a screen that surrounds it that you could light different colors to recreate different alien atmospheres.
Here's what I would do with this if it were mine...
I would finish out bridge, get a dome that fits the top, if clear dome, leave as is for both a top viewing window and a way to shed light on inside if someone were peeping in thru window view screen. If dome is painted, then hide a light inside dome and turn it on to light up interior -- again, so people could see better when peeping in viewscreen window.
As you likely do not wanna add light to all the control stations, you COULD use flourescent paint and use a BLACK LIGHT in top of ceiling dome to make it looks like panels were lighted...but this would also cast an odd glow on the figures.
The thing to think about above ALL else is to determine who is REALLY going to look at this thing. My guess is it will mainly be YOU, so the best thing to do is finish it out in a way that best serves how YOU wanna look at it.
So many times I struggled with such questions and realized that for all the time and effort I out into a model, nobody ever looked at it but me (sure, family and friends may take a quick glance once in a blue moon, and even then, they usually don't soak in any of the detail work I did)
Of course, depending on how your house is set up (and if it were mine) I would pull apart the various sections and set them on a shelf as a way to showcase my figures...I would not care if they were even on same shelf.
But guess what...it's not mine...unless, of course, you wanna give it to me.
Good luck finishing it out and thanks again for posting al the cool pics.
t
i wouldn't sweat the side panels being a tad wider -- i never thought this project was about 100% accuracy as it was devoted to the spirit of building a set piece that made your figures look cool -- and gave them something to do!
the idea someone had about making viewscreen a clear window that allowed you to "peep" inside is a GREAT idea.
This gets back to one of my initial remarks about a bridge model being a clumsy thing to display, especially if you build the entire bridge.
The COOLEST thing to do with this is transport it back in time to yourself when you were a kid so you could play with it! That's what it would be best for...and while you are at it, throw in a transporter room, a sick bay and an engine room to same scale...and then a shuttlecraft and then a planet surface, complete with paper mache boulders and a screen that surrounds it that you could light different colors to recreate different alien atmospheres.
Here's what I would do with this if it were mine...
I would finish out bridge, get a dome that fits the top, if clear dome, leave as is for both a top viewing window and a way to shed light on inside if someone were peeping in thru window view screen. If dome is painted, then hide a light inside dome and turn it on to light up interior -- again, so people could see better when peeping in viewscreen window.
As you likely do not wanna add light to all the control stations, you COULD use flourescent paint and use a BLACK LIGHT in top of ceiling dome to make it looks like panels were lighted...but this would also cast an odd glow on the figures.
The thing to think about above ALL else is to determine who is REALLY going to look at this thing. My guess is it will mainly be YOU, so the best thing to do is finish it out in a way that best serves how YOU wanna look at it.
So many times I struggled with such questions and realized that for all the time and effort I out into a model, nobody ever looked at it but me (sure, family and friends may take a quick glance once in a blue moon, and even then, they usually don't soak in any of the detail work I did)
Of course, depending on how your house is set up (and if it were mine) I would pull apart the various sections and set them on a shelf as a way to showcase my figures...I would not care if they were even on same shelf.
But guess what...it's not mine...unless, of course, you wanna give it to me.
Good luck finishing it out and thanks again for posting al the cool pics.
t
CB2001
Master Member
Or, if he wanted to, he could make a mold, cast a control panel in clear resin, paint it and then use an LED light to light up the panel underneath. That way, he wouldn't have to worry about casting an odd glow on the figures with the use of a black light.
glorbes
Well-Known Member
The clear view screen idea is really cool! I think I may design this so that that could be one of the options.
I will be showing this at a model show next spring (I was hoping to have it done for a sci-fi convention, but the convention is this coming weekend, and that is NOT going to happen).
As for your concerns Dr. McCoy, I have had that realization, even before I finished the first few sections. One idea I have is to build a table with some sort of turntable feature, and allow the sections to be removed. I thought about stopping the build with the first section, but I was too restless about the idea of stopping...I'd gone this far, why not go the whole way?
For display, I may just have a shelf that shows half the bridge (from Spock's station to the Engineering checkout station), and once in a while pull out the rest of the sections. I also have a two year old son that already knows what the Enterprise is and can identify it by sight and name so who knows...when he's older, he may just get some use out of it (or he may just think Star Trek is a crusty old show with silly sets and antiquated effects).
PS - I checked out your bridge...the lighting is terrific! I have a set of Christmas lights I may be able to retro-fit to the cove lighting (I made them from clear plastic and translucent plastic canvas so that it could be an option down the road). I cannot imagine the amount of work you put into making that effect work so well...brilliant!
I will be showing this at a model show next spring (I was hoping to have it done for a sci-fi convention, but the convention is this coming weekend, and that is NOT going to happen).
As for your concerns Dr. McCoy, I have had that realization, even before I finished the first few sections. One idea I have is to build a table with some sort of turntable feature, and allow the sections to be removed. I thought about stopping the build with the first section, but I was too restless about the idea of stopping...I'd gone this far, why not go the whole way?
For display, I may just have a shelf that shows half the bridge (from Spock's station to the Engineering checkout station), and once in a while pull out the rest of the sections. I also have a two year old son that already knows what the Enterprise is and can identify it by sight and name
so who knows...when he's older, he may just get some use out of it (or he may just think Star Trek is a crusty old show with silly sets and antiquated effects). PS - I checked out your bridge...the lighting is terrific! I have a set of Christmas lights I may be able to retro-fit to the cove lighting (I made them from clear plastic and translucent plastic canvas so that it could be an option down the road). I cannot imagine the amount of work you put into making that effect work so well...brilliant!
glorbes
Well-Known Member
Alright, here's my ultra low tech solution for the bridge viewscreen. I cut a hole in the wall of the viewer section so that it can double as a peep-hole into the completed playset/diorama, but the view from the bridge can see an entirely different set of images:
How did I achieve this effect? Card stock! I saved a bunch of images into a Word document, resized them to fit the viewscreen dimensions, and printed them out on some card stock I had lying around. I stuck them to the exterior of the bridgearound the viewscreen hole with some masking tape, and voila! Instant viewscreen images! To up the impact, I set an indirect light behind the card stock so that the screen would glow slightly.
I need to frame out the edge of the screen with a thin blue line to get a more accurate effect, but on the whole, I think this will work just fine.
How did I achieve this effect? Card stock! I saved a bunch of images into a Word document, resized them to fit the viewscreen dimensions, and printed them out on some card stock I had lying around. I stuck them to the exterior of the bridgearound the viewscreen hole with some masking tape, and voila! Instant viewscreen images! To up the impact, I set an indirect light behind the card stock so that the screen would glow slightly.
I need to frame out the edge of the screen with a thin blue line to get a more accurate effect, but on the whole, I think this will work just fine.
Skidmarks_Diecast
Active Member
This is one of the coolest projects I've seen!!! You should move into a bigger house and keep going until you've built out the entire primary hull
CB2001
Master Member
I know how you mean. I'd love to have something like this for my dad for Christmas (as I got him the Kirk and Spock Megos, the two figures he had when he was a kid).
glorbes
Well-Known Member
You know, I have trolled around the internet for images, and I think I need to mention that a lot of the images that I converted into decals have come from many different sources. I noticed that in Steve Neill's "The Enterprise Project" thread that there was a discussion between Commander Max and Feek 61 that their work has been used by others, be it plans or images, without credit. I don't believe that I have directly used Feek's images, but I did do google searches and stumble upon images that may or may not have originated from his hard work. A few of the sources that I have used have come from the amazing Star Trek Prop Authority blog. I also used images from this Deviant Art gallery compiled by LIBRCOMP. The source of the overhead viewer images (with the exception of the LIBRCOMP ones for the colored lines and Condition Alert pictures), are a little more amorphous, since they are either long range images from news sources, or from the actual show. The astrogator was found in a google search from the RPF if this thread.
So, I know my bridge isn't 'accurate', but it is a labor of love and will make for a nifty display for my figures, and was also made possible by the artistic and photographic work of other people. It is so easy to find and use other people's work on the Web, and I'm glad I stumbled upon the discussion in Steve's thread...it provided me a kick in the arse to at least try to give credit where credit is due.
So, I know my bridge isn't 'accurate', but it is a labor of love and will make for a nifty display for my figures, and was also made possible by the artistic and photographic work of other people. It is so easy to find and use other people's work on the Web, and I'm glad I stumbled upon the discussion in Steve's thread...it provided me a kick in the arse to at least try to give credit where credit is due.
This is the awesomest of awesomeness! :cry
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