1138sw
Sr Member
WOW! That looks so cool!
Enterprise Refit -signup.tomy.com
- Thread starter xlowes
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RevelationSpace
Active Member
Haha, as soon as I saw the update headline at the top of that post I thought "Here comes the delay announcement," and lo and behold. No mention of European orders, does this mean ours will be even later than they already are?
Packaging looks nice, give your graphic designer a pat on the back!
Packaging looks nice, give your graphic designer a pat on the back!
JiminSTLouis
Sr Member
EU deliveries will be February 2026
EDIT:
U.S. deliveries are only delayed one month. NOTHING in the prop/replica world. I don’t know what the original UK delivery schedule was.
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TheManDelorean
New Member
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TheManDelorean
New Member
Hi Karl /phase pistol
Sorry for this delayed comment: I didn't realize there was an RPF page for this. I see your point about manufacturing limitations, however it seems to me that the alternative of going with a flat surface (with subtle printing to represent the panel lines) was dismissed entirely, when it may have been the better option for maintaining scale realism. Consider the design of a 1/6 scale person's eyebrows. Option #1 is to use pad printing on a flat surface to indicate the eyebrow hairs with lines. Option #2 is to place a piece of fur above the eyes. I know this is an exaggeration, but the general idea stands: the second option ruins the scale realism.
I have difficulty believing that the indentations on the recent prototype are only 2x. The filming model had extremely subtle indentations around the panels. The recent video released for the prototype looks much greater than 2x (in both depth and width). I feel it kills the scale realism. Was moving to a flat saucer dismissed out of hand by the design team? Maybe it was the lighting, but I felt the updated prototype video made it look quite deep and wide. I almost feel like the initial prototype (which I suppose was made from plastic) was a bait and switch.
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My preference would have been to print the lines but I was told it was not feasible. The early prototypes were 3d printed out of plastic because that was the first step in the process, before cutting steel molds for die casting. This is how manufacturing works, it wasn't "bait and switch" as you suggest.
Photos: One is the plastic prototype shown in Vegas last August, the other is the metal prototype in its current iteration
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Rizop
Member
thanks for the input and pics Karl! Honestly I was a little worried too about the grid lines; probably my primary concern, but I understand that it’s the limitations of the material and process. I’ve also been involved in product development over my career, and there’s few things more deflating than being told “it’s not feasible” after thinking that it was.
the photo of the current die cast model looks really good, and the paint is just phenomenal. I don’t know how they were able to implement it at scale like this. The update video with the color filters most likely exacerbated the grid line concerns. That video was a little blurry, and the lighting probably unintentionally highlighted the grid lines lol
the photo of the current die cast model looks really good, and the paint is just phenomenal. I don’t know how they were able to implement it at scale like this. The update video with the color filters most likely exacerbated the grid line concerns. That video was a little blurry, and the lighting probably unintentionally highlighted the grid lines lol
TheManDelorean
New Member
Thank you for posting the pics Karl phase pistol , it's much appreciated. It must be cool to be part of the design process.
In your pics it doesn't look as bad as it did in the video that was released - I agree with Rizop that the lighting and/or possible post production color timing was too strong and highlighted the gridlines. That said I'm still not crazy about the depth: even if it is 2x the width/depth of the TMP filming model, that works out to 4x the negative space for the indentations, as its twice along two dimensions.
It seems odd that they would say it's not feasible to go with flat surfaces, as it would be easier for the molten metal to flow. The only reason I can think of is that it might complicate printing in some way, as they might have to use multiple coverage passes to print on the saucer surface, and the gridlines might not line up?
As for "bait and switch": I don't mean that I think they did it intentionally. Rather, it's just that I had to do a double take when that last video was released as I felt it was so different from the intial prototype. I expected later prototypes to look different from the initial prototype, due to material/manufacturing differences, but was just taken aback that it seemed to go in the direction of (seemingly) much stronger panel lines.
Also, I know it's way too late for this, but metal stamping might have been preferable to die casting, at least for the saucer. Did the team ever discuss this as a manufacturing option? Metal stamping would have been able to achieve a saucer with subtle gridlines easily. It's a different technology entirely though, so maybe Tomy only subcontracts to die casting facilities, and doesn't use metal stamping for its parts?
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I had not seen this video of behind the scenes shooting the TOMY Refit at the studio in Arkansas earlier this year.
RevelationSpace
Active Member
It's not really fair to call it a bait and switch, what we see is a relatively early plastic model of what they hope to produce, then the money from pre-sales is used to fund proper metal dies and further prototyping before they know what they can definitely achieve and what they can't.
I was quite shocked by some things the last time around with the TOS Enterprise, but this time I expected it. Also, to be fair to them, they clearly learned a lot about the limitations of large scale die cast and how to hide them with the TOS, because the Refit looks much, much nicer and is far closer to the prototype than I expected. I'm particularly impressed with the paint job. I expect the panel lines couldn't be painted because you'd never get them to align properly across the entire saucer, whereas you'll never notice when the overlapping aztec colours inevitably don't line up perfectly.
I just really, really, REALLY wish they'd find a way to avoid the saucer supports in future. If the neck needs serious reinforcing with a stronger steel armature inside or something that would be absolutely fine with everyone (probably?) even if it added to the cost.
I was quite shocked by some things the last time around with the TOS Enterprise, but this time I expected it. Also, to be fair to them, they clearly learned a lot about the limitations of large scale die cast and how to hide them with the TOS, because the Refit looks much, much nicer and is far closer to the prototype than I expected. I'm particularly impressed with the paint job. I expect the panel lines couldn't be painted because you'd never get them to align properly across the entire saucer, whereas you'll never notice when the overlapping aztec colours inevitably don't line up perfectly.
I just really, really, REALLY wish they'd find a way to avoid the saucer supports in future. If the neck needs serious reinforcing with a stronger steel armature inside or something that would be absolutely fine with everyone (probably?) even if it added to the cost.
Rizop
Member
Great points! The paint job on the actual die cast sample looks like it far exceeds the plastic prototype. They really seemed to have nailed the iridescent Aztec pattern on both the primary and secondary hull. It’s pretty shocking what they’ve managed to accomplish with the paint as it looks to compare favorably to a lot of kit builds. I adore my Tomy TOS, but the painted plastic prototype looked slightly better than the metal version (albeit still impressive), whereas this looks to be the opposite case. The paint job also looks to be a lot more accurate than the FE models that cost the amount of a cheap used car; they’ve really done their homework on the TMP studio model photos
There was a post on FB somewhere that mentioned that the saucer supports actually were not needed for this particular model, but were only included for liability reasons. I’ll probably still display them with the supports just like you said, as that heavy saucer has to exert a ton of leverage on the neck, even more so as the nacelles probably won’t counterbalance with much weight (they’re probably mostly plastic as there are big lighting effects in there)
Just like you see said, painting the grid lines might’ve been tough. There are some die cast applications that can achieve thin fine details, like large die military or commercial aircraft models with the wing flap details, but this probably has more to due with the limitations of their own or factory processes unfortunately
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