Monitor WIP

Thomas P · April 9th, 2002, 06:29 AM

I also started on the Monitor. I have a work area now as I am sharing status with Caudex (ex-Hullbreach) on the progress of his designs. Unfortunately I don't have the work I did on it last night available. I have added the engineering hull side windows, grills, rear view ports and shuttle doors.

WIP Area

meshula · April 9th, 2002, 09:49 PM

monitor looks pretty cool, although the wip pictures are kind of small!

April 9th, 2002, 09:53 PM

the text is a clickable link.

Thomas P · April 10th, 2002, 05:31 AM

Yep -

April 10th, 2002, 04:55 PM

Something about the design bugs me a bit. I think the problem is that Monitor has an extremely primitive Daedalus-style secondary hull mated to a rather more modern Constitution-style primary hull (at least its dorsal part). This combination makes Monitor look like a Ptolomey-class cargo tug. So, I'd either backdate the primary hull a bit or updating the secondary hull by making it less cylindrical (or both).

Thomas P · April 18th, 2002, 06:08 AM

Masao - I'd take it up with the designer

Updates for anyone who cares - (WIPs 4-7)

skyhawk223 · April 18th, 2002, 01:09 PM

What's that antenna like object on the top of the secondary hull on image 5? An antenna?
It's coming along nicely although it looks bare without textures. What else do you have to add?

And dude, I have to ask. Is that handsome chap underneath your name you?

Thomas P · April 18th, 2002, 02:11 PM

Ya know... to date I've designed, lets see, two whole ships of my own and I couldn't tell you what anything really was on them

!

Well, on the Orion ship (which is a cleverly disguised rip-off of Masao's work) I could tell you a few things. I have no idea what Brian had in mind on any of his designs and I don't ask. It's because I just don't think these things through like you guys (a failing really - noodle whipping likely to have to occur now!) But.. Yeah, I'm thinking it is some type of antenna.

As to the handsome stranger - I wished I looked that good. It is actually a real 5'4" fully pose able model of an alien visitor. My company had this ad campaign running and one of the stories had this alien dude in it. The agency had worked with a guy who made it and then did some cleaver PS work to make two of them show up in the picture. To make it more convincing he made it pose able in the event we would want full body shots. No idea what ever came of him since.

Here is the
ad

April 18th, 2002, 08:15 PM

"a cleverly disguised rip-off of Masao's work" What the...?

I wouldn't say your Orion pirate was a rip-off. That would be devaluing your work. It was simply "consistent with established designs for the time period." Nothing wrong with that.

Let's not forget those Romulan scout ships of yours. I like those a lot.

Actually, this ship looks a lot like that Orion ship. What I might do would be to do something to show the greater variability in early warp designs, such as having the nacelles in weird clusters or positions, sort of like engines in Luft '46 designs. Settling down to a pair of outboard nacelles with slight anhedral (or dihedral?) is kind of boring.

Thomas P · April 19th, 2002, 05:41 AM

I forgot about the Rommies

There is a lot of potential from looking at all those Luft46 and applying it to designs. The Germans really thought 'out of the box'. I wonder why I have never seen a site that looks at all the weird stuff the British and Americans came up with? (I am sure there is one somewhere).

April 19th, 2002, 06:20 PM

Most British and American manufacturers were too busy actually manufacturing aircraft, so they didn't have as much time to design super weapons that would never be built. One of the many things US industry did right was to consolidate production around a handful of proven types and crank out tens of thousands of planes.

About the weirdest planes that I can think of are the P-82 Twin Mustang, the chimeric P-75 Eagle (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p75.htm ), the XP-79 rocket-powered flying wing (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p79.htm ), and the Moonbat (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p67.htm ) which aren't all that weird.
There are also a few jet/turboprop hydrids ( http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/fighter/f81.htm ) and pusher-prop fighters ( http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p54.htm http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p55.htm http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p56.htm http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p71-1.jpg ) and bombers ( http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/air...uglas_xb42.htm ). But the XB-35/YB-49 Flying Wing and the B-36 could also be considered pretty strange.

All of these planes were actually built and flown, so maybe there is even weirder stuff, like the German designs, that never got off the drawing board.

April 19th, 2002, 06:35 PM

have you ever seen that one that looks like the XP56 but takes off and lands vertically like a helo? Basically it lands and lifts off on its ass facing straight up vertically.

April 19th, 2002, 07:14 PM

Sure, the Convair Pogo. A very cool plane. http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/air...nvair_pogo.htm
On this page you can see QT film of the damn thing take off! http://www.AirAndSpaceMagazine.com/a...gotakeoff.html

Lockheed had a competing plane: http://www.anser.org/vstol/VSTOLWheel/LockheedXFV-1.htm

April 19th, 2002, 07:29 PM

ah! Thankie for the retro blast!!!

Thomas P · April 20th, 2002, 07:06 AM

Masao, is there stuff you don't know?

April 20th, 2002, 07:56 PM

Did you know that a human head weighs 8 pounds? Also, did you know that my neighbor has 3 rabbits?

All this stuff came off the Smithsonian or AF Museum websites. Without Google, I'd be a mere mortal.

Thomas P · April 22nd, 2002, 08:58 AM

No I didn't know the human head weighed 8 pounds (how many stones is that?). Oddly enough, yes - I knew your neighbor had 3 rabbits (for now anyway).

But....

UPDATE - you know the drill:

Monitor Project

skyhawk223 · April 22nd, 2002, 01:41 PM

And such a lovely color...

Are these green shapes on the rear of the saucer impulse engines? If so, they look a bit close to the nacelle struts.

Thomas P · April 22nd, 2002, 02:30 PM

I had worried about that myself when I started to model them on (yes, they are impulse ports). They are clear when viewed from the back of everything. They also angle out so the 'vent' away from the engineering section.

Hey - I'm just having fun with it

April 22nd, 2002, 05:47 PM

I'm starting to warm up to this design. Rather than a discordance between the eras of the primary and secondary hulls, I'll starting to see an interesting contrast! Thomas, If you say those impulse vents are clear, we'll have to take your word for it.

So, I guess you guys didn't catch my "Jerry Maguire" reference about the rabbits and human head. I'm disappointed.

Thomas P · April 23rd, 2002, 05:53 AM

Sorry - I've only seen it once and don't recall the line

One additional update - more color applied.

skyhawk223 · April 23rd, 2002, 06:25 AM

I didn't see the movie. Was that something the little kid said?

April 23rd, 2002, 05:45 PM

"Jerry Maguire" is the only Tom Cruise movie I like. There's a scene where Jerry (Tom Cruise) is trying to impress this little kid with sports statistics about Troy Aikman and Pete Rose and the kid responds with those lines. The movie was directed by Cameron Crowe, who also did Almost Famous (great film, especially for 1970s survivors like ThomasP and me) and Vanilla Sky (not so great, but still interesting).

Another pretty well-known line from Jerry Maguire is "Shut up. You had me at hello." I've heard this line used in sitcoms occassionally.

Thomas P · April 24th, 2002, 06:14 AM

NOW I recall.

Thomas P · April 25th, 2002, 06:08 AM

Almost done. WIP pics 11 and 12 posted on my work area. Only 3 masks, 2 bump maps and 2 decals are used. I'm pretty pleased but it needs real good shine/gloss maps still.

April 25th, 2002, 08:38 PM

That combination nacelle/hull banner is neat! Why didn't I think of that?

skyhawk223 · April 26th, 2002, 05:28 AM

Masao, you can't have ALL the good ideas around here...

Thomas P · April 26th, 2002, 05:52 AM

Hey - I just dropped in and you guy's are both on? Is the world ending?

Sorry no updates today. But.. I have the whole house to myself tonight so I expect to get some 'playing on the computer time' in