# Time chronology of blue/green color switch?



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Sure it is burried here somewhere, but exactly when did the blue/green color switch occur? Any other obvious color switches that anyone can give us the chronology of, like the dark gray nacelle color.


----------



## mechinyun (Feb 23, 2004)

The blue was introduced with ST4 and the enterprise A.


----------



## Babaganoosh (Dec 16, 2004)

I must be a tad color-blind because the refit (refit or -A) doesn't look green at all to me. Noewhere on the hull is anything (besides the starboard navigation light) is anything green.


----------



## justinleighty (Jan 13, 2003)

Babaganoosh said:


> I must be a tad color-blind because the refit (refit or -A) doesn't look green at all to me. Noewhere on the hull is anything (besides the starboard navigation light) green.


It was on the model, just doesn't show up on screen. The closest is in one or two shots on TMP, you can see a slight green-ish cast to the vents on the pylons. But it mostly looks gray.


----------



## Doggy (Jan 29, 2000)

Justin's right: The main problem with the green versus blue E is that the "Engineering green" shades used appear mostly grey on screen, while the blue they used later shows up much more acurately.

The best shot showing the green is in ST2. Not long after the Reliant attack there's a shot of the E floating in space, the vessel's secondary hull and neck dominating the shot. The green areas are seen quite clearly in there.


----------



## EuphoniumGuy (Jun 12, 2005)

*Shot mentioned above*

Hello, new guy here. 

I just checked that shot in ST II and the engineering section clearly looks blue to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not color blind as I've never had a problem telling greens from blues before. Here's the shot from the movie attatched. What do you guys think?

EDIT: As well as in this shot: http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPent60.jpg


----------



## justinleighty (Jan 13, 2003)

EuphoniumGuy said:


> Hello, new guy here.
> 
> I just checked that shot in ST II and the engineering section clearly looks blue to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not color blind as I've never had a problem telling greens from blues before. Here's the shot from the movie attatched. What do you guys think?


Looks gray to me. The only hint of coloring I see is the intermix stripes on the neck and on the pylon inboard, where I see just the tiniest touch of green.



EuphoniumGuy said:


> As well as in this shot: http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPent60.jpg


The problem is, that shot is of the wax model, which is not only painted differently (the most obvious example being the horizontal gray stripe above the torpedo launcher deck, which is hull colored on the full miniature), but it also has different physical details (most notably the depth of the recesses around the navigational deflector, especially the recess with the dashed ring of lights).


----------



## lastguardian (May 20, 2005)

EuphoniumGuy said:


> I just checked that shot in ST II and the engineering section clearly looks blue to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not color blind as I've never had a problem telling greens from blues before. Here's the shot from the movie attached. What do you guys think?


You can see the 'engineering green' in this pic:



While subtle on film, it was definitely green (painted in Floquil railroad colors) and was much more vivid in person. 

Shane


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

lastguardian said:


> You can see the 'engineering green' in this pic:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm colorblind and even I can see the green hue during the last shot of TMP, when it goes overhead and 180s back. As for that still ... not sure if that is gonna be good evidence for everybody, cuz I'm pretty sure that was taken before they even put the lettering on. So some folks may figure the paint job was tweaked again before that happened (or even AFTER that happened.)


----------



## lastguardian (May 20, 2005)

And here's another view of the green:



Shane


----------



## omnimodel (Oct 9, 2004)

lastguardian said:


> And here's another view of the green:
> 
> 
> 
> Shane


I've seen that sequence more than 30 times, and I never noticed that the impulse engines are blue in that shot...


----------



## mechinyun (Feb 23, 2004)

Those areas are green on the refit, its stated by mr olsen the man who painted her (on his website) and you can see it in the first 2 fims.

The blue impulse engines and purple naceles were changed before filming to the familar red and blue. 

Here is an intresting picture of some details, such as purple naceles, blue impulse engines and phase 2 bridge...

(I prefer the purple naceles myself with the green engineering, which is going into my refit, at some point  )


----------



## mikephys (Mar 16, 2005)

AND the inboard warp nacelle grille is purple! Did they switch to blue for the 1701-A or was it always purple? (In other words: What color CCFLs are you getting?)


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

Trumbull definitely used purple gels on the inboards during WARP speed cuts for TMP (see cinefex 1) ... as for what ILM did on later shows ... I honestly don't know or care.


----------



## spacecraft guy (Aug 16, 2003)

mechinyun said:


> Those areas are green on the refit, its stated by mr olsen the man who painted her (on his website) and you can see it in the first 2 fims.
> 
> The blue impulse engines and purple naceles were changed before filming to the familar red and blue.
> 
> ...


I've got a print of this picture, too - was told that this was one of the initial publicity shots for TMP, but can't confirm it exactly. 

As I understand it, this was the model before Doug Trumbull took over from Robert Abel @ Associates and before Andrew Probert's modifications on the bridge area. If you look closely, the 3 bands around the circumference of the saucer don't stand out - the rim was painted grey with red pinstriping just below the lip of the upper saucer and just above the lip of the lower saucer. The nacelle grilles also have red pinstriping. Notice the blue (or green) sections down the length of the warp pylons are not there. 

Is there anybody in the know about the model's history that can elaborate on this? I remember that there are drawings of the Enterprise in this configuration in the issue of the now defunct Star Trek: The Magazine about the TMP Special Edition. 

Personally, I liked the solid gray band around the saucer section - thought it made a great link to TOS Enterprise - like the triangles on the underside of the primary hull of the E-E.


----------



## razorwyre1 (Jan 28, 2004)

spacecraft guy is correct; thats the able version of the model. if you really look at the photo in question, the first thing you'll notice is that the b/c decks are completly different. once trumbull came on, that area was changed to have more detail and to place the spotlights that provide the ships self illumination. dispite what it may say in cinefex, in TMP the inboard nacelle grilles light up in blue and the impulse engines in red. (i prefer the other colors myself, however i went back and checked it several times.... mostly to justify using the purple and blue... and its always blue and red) 

the only change i think ILM made in the models lighting for TWOK was the deflector, which changed from lighting up in amber at sublight and blue in warp to consistantly blue.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

you're talking about what light on the inboard was PRACTICAL on the model? I didn't realize there was any such light. In my post, Trumbull only sez he put colored gels over the inboard part during the warp drive shots, which is a photographic/optical process like a filter, not an actual light on or within the engine. 

Also, since this is a thread at trekbbs as well ... THE GOD THING there pointed out that ALL of the internal lights on the refit were white, and that any coloration effects were introduced either via filtration or by time-exposure on the mocon passes. That supports why the impulse engines glow red on film but look white or blue in behind the scenes shots (I thought that particular area really did have colored lighting installed, but given TGT's expertise on all things TMP, I concede to his knowledge.)

Abel's whole approach to warp drive was going to be very different. A guy he had there named Dick Crewson or Frewson, working with Richard Taylor, was going to combine a warp bubble around the ship with light fx/ripples between the nacelles that emitted from the inboards. I don't think the full model would have had any practicals in it for this; the idea was to film and build a matching all black model with fiber optics strung between the inboards to create the effect (replete with the black ship matting out the effect as the ship passed camera, then duplicate the pass with the full beauty model ship. There is some concept art for this effect in an issue of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS, probably between issue 10 and 16.


----------



## Treadwell (Aug 22, 2002)

In photography, a gel is a term for something used to color a light source. Something put over the camera lens is a "filter". Being a photographer, if Trumbull had meant "filter" he would have said "filter". My take on your quote of the quote (don't have the issue myself) is that the gel was either put over the light itself inside the model, or put over the engine on the outside for an additional motion control pass where everything was dark except the engine light.

My humble .02!


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

I don't have the article anymore either, but I remember another point in it where Trumbull refers to developing a filter pack for shooting some of the vger stuff in a way that does not suggest its use in front of the lens (I'm thinking perhaps something introduced in the printing stage, so depending on whether he used aerial image printing or not, I guess it might be over a lens), so his use of the phrase gel may be different as well. 

Then again, taping some gel material OVER the nacelle WOULD be a good solution if you already had a white or blue source installed though, especially given that you had long exposures to let the color really saturate. That's probably it, you're right.


----------



## lastguardian (May 20, 2005)

Here's a TMP photo from Cinefex #1, for what it's worth:



You can see the gunmetal (not black) on the outboard nacelle, and purple (gel or whatever) inboard.  You can also see how _white_ overall the model was -- the pearl effect depended greatly on viewing angle and whatever light was striking the model.

Shane


----------



## spacecraft guy (Aug 16, 2003)

trevanian said:


> Abel's whole approach to warp drive was going to be very different. A guy he had there named Dick Crewson or Frewson, working with Richard Taylor, was going to combine a warp bubble around the ship with light fx/ripples between the nacelles that emitted from the inboards. I don't think the full model would have had any practicals in it for this; the idea was to film and build a matching all black model with fiber optics strung between the inboards to create the effect (replete with the black ship matting out the effect as the ship passed camera, then duplicate the pass with the full beauty model ship. There is some concept art for this effect in an issue of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS, probably between issue 10 and 16.


I have the pages from that issue in my files somewhere - will dig it out and post it ASAP.


----------



## haro genki (Apr 13, 2005)

lastguardian said:


> Here's a TMP photo from Cinefex #1, for what it's worth:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow  I was initially skeptical about the whiteness of the TMP Enterprise... but that there's all the proof my skepticism needed. Are there any other photos like that available?


----------



## mechinyun (Feb 23, 2004)

Intresting


----------



## Jim NCC1701A (Nov 6, 2000)

justinleighty said:


> that shot is of the wax model


Wax model?


----------



## bugs bunny (Dec 1, 2005)

Jim NCC1701A said:


> Wax model?


Wax Model???


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Surely this photo is far too late to show just the Able influence on the film miniature . It is fully aztec'd up and that , I reckon, is pure Olsen, who was working for Trumbull at that stage according his website. Impulse deck and warp drives are at a very mature stage - who did the final revisions and handled the repaint needed to the bridge at, presumably, the 11th hour?
Also this from the vault,
"The new miniature had originally been built with a new TV series in mind and when it was decided to produce effects shots for a feature film instead, special effects supervisor Douglas Trumble found the miniature far too 'miniature'. The studio did not want to pay the costs involved in building a larger miniature so the existing one had to be brought up to feature film quality". I am sure there is more on this in the 'making of the films' guides, but I don't have access to them at the moment

perhaps our friend LastGuardian can help clarify if he sees this,

good post guys, love this stuff


----------



## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

OK, I saw (and photographed) the model some time after TMP had wrapped and I remember those Engineering hull areas being blue-grey, not green. In the one photo of the ship in space (not in the dock) posted here, showing these areas to be green, I must point out that in that image, the entire ship is green. This tells us that the color has shifted in that image. The green glare in seen in the shot in the space dock is hardly conclusive, that the glare is green does not mean that the model itself is green. The light source may be green or, once again, the color may not be properly balanced. 

Regardless of what is seen in photographs, I saw a model with blue-grey panels, that is good enough for me.


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

good stuff X15-A2!

For me, it looks green on screen (barely though, just off grey), and that does it for me...I'm trying to replicate the film look, replete with all the filters and lighting implications, not how the model looks when photographed with flash or in the cold light of day...a subtle difference I think. So far, I am way off beam with my strongback, which is way too green - I am going to tone this back radically in the coming months (all my hours of masking have been wasted!!!) and head in the grey/white direction.

One other thing I have noticed on the impulse deck blue exhausts - I have found an ST6 teaser shot which also has it that way...another incorrect poster perhaps, but I kinda like it that colour.


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Final thing X15-2, care to scan in and share those photos. There are very few colour ones existing of the STTMP scheme that i have seen on the web...

Cheers
Col


----------



## Opus Penguin (Apr 19, 2004)

bugs bunny said:


> Wax Model???


I had read the same somewhere. This particular piece whether in part or whole was made of a wax substance in order to "burn away" the damage in a frame-by-frame process to provide the burining away effect of the phaser fire in the movie. Pretty effective if you ask me.


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Yep. Under the lights, the wax-like substance became soft enough to sculpt frame-by-frame to simulate phaser damage.


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

I may be wrong but i read in Enterprise Incidents that the model was damaged while left under a leaking air con unit. Paul Olsen refers to an electrical fault on his website. In a some photos of the model during its time in the model shop, a "rubbed down" effect can be seen around the B \ C decks an this could point to some messing with this area prior to replacing it completely.
The way i understand it is that the model was virtually complete; decalling and all when it was damaged by the leak.


----------



## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Flux Chiller,

I have already shared them on my web site, at cloudster.com. Unfortunately I only shot B&W fine grain print film, no color. So, I have no proof of what I saw.  

Oh well, can't win 'em all.


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

So that was you! Allow me to express my undying gratitude to you for setting up that site. A most valuable reference. :thumbsup:


----------



## bugs bunny (Dec 1, 2005)

SteveR said:


> So that was you! Allow me to express my undying gratitude to you for setting up that site. A most valuable reference. :thumbsup:


Here Here! :thumbsup:


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

X15-A2 said:


> OK, I saw (and photographed) the model some time after TMP had wrapped and I remember those Engineering hull areas being blue-grey, not green.


First off…..

THANK YOU for Cloudster!
This is an INVALUABLE source when it comes to SF modelling…. Especially the Refit Enterprise!

Secondly… I have to disagree!
The strong back WAS what is called “engineering green” during TMP.
Arthur Pendragon and I had a long discussion about this and did LOTS of research (screen caps of TMP etc. ) and at one point I got into contact with Andrew Porbert and I took the opportunity to ask him whether there was an “engineering green” or not. He gave this picture as an answer and also told me that these details where indeed green. :tongue: 

Since Andy is the person to know next to Doug Trumbull… I am inclined to believe him, regardless of what someone else thinks it might or appeared to look like for him (no offence!).


----------



## justinleighty (Jan 13, 2003)

bugs bunny said:


> Wax Model???


For good shots of it, look at Disc 2 of the ST II: TWOK Director's Edition DVD. It consisted of approximately the upper third of the engineering hull (maybe more like the upper half), the torpedo launcher and most, if not all, of the neck. It was large and was used, as previously mentioned, for the phaser damage shots (where we see the damage happening). There were markings applied to the 8-ft filming minature to show the damage after it happened, but the close-up shots of the phaser blasts occurring were done with the wax model.


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Garbaron, thanks for reminding us of the Andy Probert discussion and picture, I couldn't find the post...some might think the engineering green is a bit on the greyish side - there is a Tamiya colour called Japanese Grey Light, and that is actually very light duck egg green...

X15-A2, I too add my deepest thanks and gratitude for posting those lovely black and white pictures. Cheers mate


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

You are welcome!
Always glad if I can help 

Ohh and guys look at the strongback Aztec! It’s different from the A version!
I thought I notice this, since ALL of the guys building the Refit out of the PL kit used the Ent-A strongback pattern. But you must be blind to NOT notice the obvious difference of the patterns.


----------



## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

SteveR said:


> Yep. Under the lights, the wax-like substance became soft enough to sculpt frame-by-frame to simulate phaser damage.


If I remember correctly there was wire imbeded in the wax and had a current ran through it to simulate a phaser burn.


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Flux Chiller said:


> Garbaron, thanks for reminding us of the Andy Probert discussion and picture, I couldn't find the post...some might think the engineering green is a bit on the greyish side - there is a Tamiya colour called Japanese Grey Light, and that is actually very light duck egg green...
> 
> X15-A2, I too add my deepest thanks and gratitude for posting those lovely black and white pictures. Cheers mate


As I said in another thread. There may have been a light greenish tint to the areas in question instead of blue-grey.

However, in Director's version of TMPicture, there is no sign of the greenish tint.

That may very well be due to the rework down on the Director's Version, 

but it also brings to light that either could be considered accurate, or "canon" as they both were seen on screen.

To me the color green just doesn't make sense on a naval ship.
Blue-grey makes the most sense of the two "canon" choices.

But that's just my personal taste, logic. Haven't seen too many Green naval capitol ships.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

irishtrek said:


> If I remember correctly there was wire imbeded in the wax and had a current ran through it to simulate a phaser burn.


Some pics show that the phaser burn stuff was done by Ken Ralston using a hot tool like a soldering gun, plus they MAY have had some interactive lighting from behind.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> As I said in another thread. There may have been a light greenish tint to the areas in question instead of blue-grey.
> 
> However, in Director's version of TMPicture, there is no sign of the greenish tint.
> 
> ...


I just ran the widescreen laserdisc AND the dvd of TMP ... I saw no difference whatsoever, the green hue (or whatever you want to call the coloration) IS there in the last shot when the ship comes overhead. 

With as little money as there was to fix tmp for dvd (something on the order of half a mil, tops), I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that they did such a cheapjack job (which is why I still hold onto the laserdisc) ... outside of a general warming-up of the color scheme (visible mainly in the faces) that makes the film look more appetizing than it did in previous video (AND theatrical) releases, there ain't much sign of improvement to me, especially in the shots they chose to alter (not even gonna get into the sound mix, which REEKS.)


----------



## nx01Rob (Mar 1, 2005)

Chuck, the Digital version of the Enterprise done for the DVD did have the greenish tint on the model. I don't remember it not being visible the last time I saw the DVD, but I believe you that maybe in got lost in there post timing changes. Guess I might have to watch it again!


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> As I said in another thread. There may have been a light greenish tint to the areas in question instead of blue-grey.
> 
> However, in Director's version of TMPicture, there is no sign of the greenish tint.
> 
> ...


Ooohhh my….. I do own TMP DC myself and I can SEE the greens during the dry dock scene and afore mentioned final overhead fly by. Andrew Probert says it had a green touch, Paul Olsen says it had greens…., pictures show it was green… what else do you need to accept it was green? 

And the Enterprise is NOT a Naval ship!


----------



## Richard Compton (Nov 21, 2000)

Flux Chiller said:


> Also this from the vault,
> "The new miniature had originally been built with a new TV series in mind and when it was decided to produce effects shots for a feature film instead, special effects supervisor Douglas Trumble found the miniature far too 'miniature'. The studio did not want to pay the costs involved in building a larger miniature so the existing one had to be brought up to feature film quality".


 Is this right? I remember reading that Trumbull had wanted a HUGE miniature, like they had for 2001, but I think he's a little mistaken here. They had that Brick Price miniature for the smaller tv series/movie but by the time they increased the budget and brought in Wise and everyone, they went and built the newer model. That was always for the movies though, I don't think it was ever intended for television, updated or not...


----------



## Jim NCC1701A (Nov 6, 2000)

Don't think it's right, although I stand to be corrected.
From memory I think the Phase 2 model - which would have to be the one being referred to for "a new TV series" - was about 4 feet long. Whereas the TMP - TUC model was around 8 feet long...


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

That's right.
The Phase II ship was built by Don Loos and was around 4 feet long. The changes meade to the 8 foot miniature were to enhance the lighting and increase surface detail to enhance the feeling of scale. It was always built with the intention of being for a movie as oppose to a TV series.
Doug Trumbull did ask for a much larger version but had to adapt the camera lenses of the day instead. 
Cinefex 1 and Enterprise Incidents are a good source for this discussion. 
Check the Phase II Enterprise threads for images of the TMP version in it's various stages of development.
Isnt there someone out there with a stonking great polaroid of the engineering section up close?


----------



## ArthurPendragon (Jan 4, 2004)

NJFNick said:


> Isnt there someone out there with a stonking great polaroid of the engineering section up close?


Dude, Í've been asking myself this question for years, and I'm sure there ARE color photos of the Enterprise model during the filming of ST-TMP which are simply kept not available (if not from modelmakers, painters and other people involved, it should exist for continuity purposes...).

Unfortunately, the person (or "persons") which holds this unvaluable modeling information decided to take it to the grave, like some family heirloon...

To these guys I say: if you expect to become rich keeping these material... you will ONLY become very frustrated...

That's the greatest problem with this hobby... people with inside information do no share it (no, I'm not talking about the guys at this forum or Starship Modeler... we usually share everything we got, like Garbaron's EXCLUSIVE Probert polaroid ! or Shane's sensational UNMARKED model photos... I don't know how many times I should thank you, dudes !)


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Here's another view of the Probert shot. The aft end of the dorsal is pretty close to neutral gray, so the strongback is probably lit neutrally as well ... so we may be able to judge its colours with some confidence. Sound confident? 

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/showphoto.php/photo/9444/cat/500/ppuser/26411

Pretty subtle colours, eh?


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

LOL Andy was just coverd with black boxes in this one. 
I know.. he send me that one with him infront of it too


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

I just didn't want our loyal readers to be distracted by his handsome visage.


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Ohh... well then ignore what I said


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Well, its gotta be subtle, whatever colour you choose...(something I have missed on my strongback so far - see my gallery if you are at all interested to see my trials and tribulations)

This is such a great posting..I'm really enjoying this. To imagine the guys sat there and said
,"ok, its a starship, what colour should the engineering section be - green was never used in the navy right?, but it matches Kirk's Admirals outfit..uh how about pinks?" or some such..perhaps it was the only tin they had lying around. And these faint greens are there for all to see on the Laserdisc and the hashed up Director's version, which I also don't personally like for the horrid sound mix. 

OK, I think you guys are right, they never updated the 4' model, that appears to be nonsense. This from Andy Probert site,
"When I started the design phase of the Enterprise, my Art Director, Richard Taylor, showed me these pictures of the ship as it had been designed by Joe Jennings and Matt Jefferies for the Star Trek Television movie now known as: 'Phase II'. Since this four foot miniature was made for a 20 inch television screen, it would have worked just fine but our miniature had to hold up on a 40 foot movie screen, so we started our eight foot version from scratch." It seems some of the early Phase 2 themes found their way onto this model for a while (eg: the bridge). At what point did Trumbull take over from Able during this construction?

Final point, and I am wittering on here. Why would Paramount want to keep any Polaroids of the Enterprise? They take up space, they are a fire hazard. Its history, chuck them out for goodness sake...they don't give a hang about some crazy model makers, "just paint it gloss white you idiots and be done with it!!!"


----------



## Nosirrag (Apr 26, 2005)

Having followed the Star Trek movies through my collection of American Cinematographer and Cinefex magizines, both of which have some "in vivo" or candid color, glossy shots of the model while filming or during set up, I'm pretty sure the model was painted between TMP and TROK. For the second movie, it looks like they coated the whole model with a flat coat. The effect of this is to reduce the panal detail as much of that was created by contrasting levels of gloss on the original paint job. It is also reported that some cracking and damage to the model was repaired and the neon warp lights were not working. (Believe it or not, the warp nacelle lights remained non-functional until they were repaired for Star Trek VI, about 10 years later. All warp effects from ST II - IV were optical effects -- believe it or not)

The model was competely repainted for ST III. That appears to be when the "green" turned to blue. The front of the nacelles were also painted a fairly bright blue. This may have been done to compensate for the photographic effects used. You see, the white on the model was notorious for picking up and reflecting the blue light bouncing off of the bluescreen behind it used to generate the matte for compositing the model with backgrounds. To fight this, the model was lit in amber lighting -- almost orange colored light. This made a better separation with the blue background and cut down on blue wash on the model. Later, the color was corrected after the mattes were pulled off and the film was printed for final compositing. Painting parts of the model more blue helped it appear more blue, even after all the color manipulations.

One side of the model was repainted for ST-IV and the saucer lettering was changed to NCC-1701-A.

In ST V (force yourself to watch it and you'll see) the model has been repainted again and it is in this movie that the impulse engines appear in their natural color of neon blue.

In ST VI it is reported that the non-working warp nacelles were repaired and lighted again for the first time since TMP. The model got much needed repair to cracked fiberglass around the dorsal neck just below the saucer, cracks in the nacelles, saucer, etc, and repainted yet again. Flourescent lighting in the saucer and engineering was supplimented to make it brighter. Strangely, the little amber attitude control thrusters were not used or lighted in ST-VI. 

It does appear that the strongback in TMP and TROK is grey-green (it is a subtle effect) and the deflector area is grey-blue (again, it is very subtle) . For ST III, the strongback has most definately been painted a much more blue color -- although not nearly as blue as it appears in ST--VI and in the color photos of Cloudster.com.

By the way, those pictures are, overall, the best reference you can find of the Enterprise. THANK YOU X-15-A2.

This is my humble opinion and judgement (which I concede may be questionable). But, it is clear that the strong back green is so subtle as to be almost grey.


----------



## mechinyun (Feb 23, 2004)

I too thought this thread was very good, thats why I bumped it out of oblivion a few posts back so people who are new or missed it can enjoy the information and pictures.

Paul Olsen the main painter of the enterprise posted on this website instructions for how to paint her and what colors he used. It seems he has taken this page down (at least i couldnt find it just now). So here is, in his own words how he painted the E back in the day. 

Take notice of when he describes painting the engineering section 

Im sure most of you have seen this, but again for the newbies and people who just may have missed it.

Quoted from Paul Olsens site:

If you would like your model to look as close to the real thing as possible, and are willing to put in the time---and it will take a LOT of time.....possibly two to four years if you work on it 10 or 15 hours a week (but if you are serious, the end result will be worth it), you'll want to paint the Big E exactly as I painted her.

The original model was 8 feet long and I would have thought it would take even more time to paint a smaller one.

First of all, the paints: the primer was a coarse, white, lacquer auto primer...none of us can remember the name of it, but it was a common primer we obtained from a local auto paint store meant to go on thick so it could be sanded, re-sprayed, sanded, re-sprayed, etc, until you achieved a perfectly flawless, smooth finish.

At any given time, there were two to four modelmakers sanding the plastic surface and making it perfect, as well as spraying and sanding various sections of the Big E, working ahead of me; so in terms of man-hours, I would say AT LEAST twice as many man hours went into the preparation of the surface than into my finish, which took me six months, working 5 to 7 days a week, upwards of 16 hours a day! Over the course of six months, I probably averaged 12 hours per day, 7 days a week. The actual job took 8 months because someone tripped a circuit and blew half of the electrics, and the model needed major surgery.

The engineering section was painted by Ron Gress, who used Floquil paints....a kind of matte, opaque, pale sage green color.

I found the pearlescent lacquer paints at a huge automotive paint store in Hawthorne, just south of LA, that sold to the trade and custom shops only. I can't remember the brand of the paints, but they were made by a specialty outfit who only produced these paints, because the labels were quite home-made. The paints came in 6 colors, in 8 oz. glass jars, and were $45.00 each in 1978! The paints looked milky in the jars, but were utterly transparent when sprayed, just giving a pearl-like luster to the undercoating---just like pearl fingernail polish today. So you can see where the quality of the preparation of the plastic surfaces and the undercoating is paramount (yuk-yuk). I bought four colors: red, green, gold, and blue. When I finished the Enterprise, I still had 2/3 of the paint left in all the jars.

Mark Stetson, who was in charge of all the miniatures, and helped prepare the surface of the Big E, just sent me this: "Paul, I remember I hated that plastic primer, and it was really grainy. It did stick, though. I remember we had to chase it out of the scribe lines between each coat. It had too much filler in it. Using common sense, I'd say that we both wet-sanded and dry sanded it, starting with 400 and finishing with 600. In some cases, when we got into areas where we knew the camera would get very close, we used that plastic sandpaper that goes down to 1200 grit. We used sanding blocks whenever we could to keep it flat. I still have my nifty little x-acto sanding block set of aluminum extrusions. And, I think, the same rubber automotive block I used during STTMP."

AIRBRUSH: You HAVE to have a DOUBLE-ACTION, internal-mix airbrush...a single-action one won't cut it...don't even think about it. In case you are unfamiliar with airbrushes, a double action airbrush has a top-mounted trigger that when pushed downwards, releases air into the tip, and when pulled back, retracts the pointed needle from the nozzle and allows paint to be gradually siphoned through. The airflow creates a suction to draw the paint from the bowl, cup, or jar. You essentially control the airflow with a pressure regulator in the air line (usually at the junction where you hook up your airbrush hose) and can then precisely control the paint flow by pulling back gradually on the trigger whilst the full airflow you have determined is correct passes through the brush.

I highly recommend the Paasche V-1, SIDE FEED airbrush...they are reasonably-priced, and very good airbrushes. You can drop them, and knock them about and they will not get harmed. Don't use a gravity-fed airbrush (with a built-in cup on top)...they are a pain the ass to use for all sorts of reasons. If you have an Iwata, or more precise airbrush, that's fine, but what I like about the Paasche is that you can get little color bottles for it. The beauty of that is if you have four bottles filled with the four colors, you can switch bottles back and forth endlessly and effortlessly...and trust me, you will be doing that all through the job. They slip in and out of the hole on the side where the paint cups go. You can use paint cups, too, but the paints will tend to evaporate, and you can spill them out of the cup. The bottles are much better. During the whole course of the job, I never had to clean out the bottles...the airhole in the top of the bottle cap would clog up once in awhile and that would need clearing out with a paper clip and some lacquer thinner, but that was about it. At the end of the day I would simply run some lacquer thinner through the instrument and it was clean and ready to go the next day.

You only need the smallest of compressors, any of which will have a regulator mounted on it. I recommend getting a separate regulator---they aren't expensive---that you can mount within easy reach of your work area. Also, you MUST wear a carbon filter rubber respirator and ensure you have adequate air flowing from behind you to carry off any fumes and overspray. Lacquer fumes are DEADLY. If you have built, or bought a small spray booth, then you can do without the respirator if you can't smell any fumes as you spray.

I can't remember the general air pressure I used, but it would have been between 20 and 35 psi. The higher the air pressure, the smaller the droplets....up to a point. Then things begin get messy because of the high rate of airflow against the model surface.

If you are not used to using an airbrush, they can be quite daunting. Just follow the instructions that come with it, and try it out with some inks on paper until you get the hang of it. The little tips at the very front usually need some adjusting in and out to get the correct airflow. Make sure the tip is kept clear of paint build-up. The beauty of working with lacquers is that the thinner is also the solvent, so the airbrush is constantly cleaning itself and will always work smoothly as a result. Also, the pearl paints will constantly "melt" into themselves, giving you a lovely sheen to your work....assuming the surface has been prepared perfectly! As you prepare the surface of the ship, think of what you are doing as applying the skin to a naked woman, with all her intimate details, and the paintjob as giving her a see-through outfit to wear over her perfect, bare skin, and you won't go wrong.

Try to find another piece of smooth plastic that you can prep with sanded primer, and practice spraying the pearl colors on that until you are happy with the results. Remember, you can ALWAYS spray more color, but you can't un-spray...so always lay your colors down sparingly and keep building them up. Don't try to cover what you are doing in one coat. Easy does it, bit by bit...that's the secret to using an airbrush for anything. You can't take back what you do unless you wipe everything off with lacquer thinner, and that will goop up the primer and make a right mess....that is NOT an option. 

The colors I used were: red, gold, blue, and green....so those colors would have that color-cast when they pearlesced...but would also "flip-flop" to the complement of that color when you changed your angle of view...so they were always "moving" as you moved. Incredibly beautiful when the surface is broken up in various combinations and densities of these colors. The paints are completely transparent and just "cast" a color of pearl...so when the ship was finished, it looked like an opal or like it was made with mother-of-pearl. Stunning.

I would assume there are many more pearl paints out there now....and maybe they all work the same way by pearlescing in the main color, and then when the angle of reflection (incidence) is changed, they pearlesce towards the complement (the opposite color on the color wheel) of that color, "flip-flopping," so-to-speak, though I'm not sure if commercial "flip-flop" colors are the same thing...best to check.

As you know, the ship is broken into etched panels, and then it was up to me to further break those panels down into smaller, "human-sized" panels to give the ship scale. For that I spent a week cutting friskets (stencils) of every size and shape of square and rectangle, and curved rectangles for the dish, and lightning-bolt shapes for the engine pylons. I was limited to right-angle shapes because of all the etched panels...but where there weren't any, I was free to use other shapes (as in the pylons).

When I would illustrate an album cover, or any commercial job using an airbrush, I would always spend more time cutting friskets than spraying the job...because essentially, your stencils give you all the tools you need to paint, and it's important to get them right and spend time on them. I used 5 and 10 thousandths acetate sheets cut with an X-acto #11 knife. You need to keep the sheets relatively small because they have to bend over compound curves, which flat sheets of plastic don't like doing, of course. You could easily end up with 30 or 40 little sheets of plastic with various sizes of squares and rectangles cut into them. I also used "repositionable (low tack) Magic tape" for small, tricky areas. If you are working on a small model, I could imagine most of your frisketing would be with this stuff....very time consuming and tedious work.

Before I started on the model (read all about it on my website, www.olsenart.com), I tested the colors on scrap bits plastic to get used to them and how they would lay down. I freely admit to putting off for days making an actual start on the model---I was "testing!" Ha! I was scared stiff! I can admit it now.

I began to spray one panel with various shapes, using various colors, and overlay some of the frisket shapes so I would get layers of color, and also spray some friskets lightly, and some a bit more heavily for more density of color....by doing this, and going back and forth overlaying various friskets and spraying them, I would end up with infinite colors and densities and shapes. I wish I had kept those friskets! What a wonderful souvenir they would have been! But I used the same ones, cutting new bits I needed from time-to-time, for the whole model. I would have to clean off excess paint from time-to-time with lacquer thinner, laying them down on paper towels, and they would clean easily. Use cling-film to protect the bits you've sprayed with pearl.

The reason you don't see the bright pearlescence on the model in the movie is that the model was so sparkling, that when lit properly, there were too many light "kicks" off the edges of the model, and a clean matte could not be made to isolate the model from the studio background so a star background, or other background could be cleanly dropped in behind the model. Consequently, the model had to be shot in low light, which substantially lessened the effect of the sparkling pearl finish.

As to reference photos, you'll have to ask your model company or go digging aorund the web....I don't have any good close-ups of the Big E. If I knew then what I know now, I would have tons! The panels on the dish were an Aztec motif....you'll have to try to find a photo of it, as I don't have any close-ups and I can't remember it precisely. Each panel had the same Aztec design, but broken up in different ways with differing patterns and colors.
I was very impressed with the model-makers I worked with....how patient and detailed they were, so when they finished a part of a model it was absolutely flawless from inches away. Total perfection.

The blue parts of the model were already done in a kind of colored plastic insert before I got to the model.

The underside of the rear of the fusilage (I know it has a name, but I don't know what it is) was sprayed free-form with no friskets, using all the colors and going back and forth along the length of it in "rays" to make it look like energy was flowing from there.

When you are figuring out how to break up any area of the ship into panels, let the shapes you are working with guide you, and always think of jet aircraft. Imagine laying the metal skin on a 747 and how that would look...and when you get to complex shapes on the stern of the model, around the front, or on the engine nacelles, think of the jet engines and the pylons that hold them. Go out to an airport and have a look at jet planes to see how those complex shapes are covered with metal skin. That's what I did....I drove out to LAX and took tons of photos of aircraft to understand what was going on. That will be a little tougher to do these days, but you can take pictures from an airport lounge. I highly recommend you do this, if you can. It will give you a good visual foundation on which to build as you bring your beauty to life.

What I loved about the way the artists up at ILM broke up the skin of the ship on the second movie was that they worked with smooth surfaces, which gave them carte blanche to use more "alien" breakup techniques...a more advanced form of construction....but this model forces you into more familiar kinds of shapes, which is why I used the pearl paints to give it that "advanced" civilization, techy look. If it was going to look like "familiar" construction, so the mind would see it as a spacecraft (understand the panel breakup), I wanted to give it something extra that would make it "advanced."
Good luck! Just remember to take things slowly and bit-by-bit, and you won't go wrong. You can always go back and build up areas you think need it....just keep laying on the colors until you are happy with the result! You are the artist on this one....you can make it what you want!

---------

-Mechinyun


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

Jim NCC1701A said:


> Don't think it's right, although I stand to be corrected.
> From memory I think the Phase 2 model - which would have to be the one being referred to for "a new TV series" - was about 4 feet long. Whereas the TMP - TUC model was around 8 feet long...


The pics I've seen of the phase 2 ship, especially one of the dish alone that ran in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS in the Brick Price piece, seem to suggest the ship was at least five and a half feet long, maybe even 6 feet.

Abel's art director Richard Taylor has given interviews that have it varying from 4 ft up to "just missing the scale settled on for the hero ships" ... which was one inch for every ten feet. 4 ft is a LONG way from just missing, it is barely half that suggested scale.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

ArthurPendragon said:


> Dude, Í've been asking myself this question for years, and I'm sure there ARE color photos of the Enterprise model during the filming of ST-TMP which are simply kept not available (if not from modelmakers, painters and other people involved, it should exist for continuity purposes...).


Trumbull lost a ton of his own images from projects as far back as 2001 up through BLADE RUNNER when he divorced a wife about 15 years back, and it might be that he had the big nice stills that nobody else took. 

The fact that there was, to the best of my knowledge, no large format still reference like that for the Foundation folks to look at (something that probably would have been more useful than the painted over model itself) certainly suggests that the Paramount vaults aren't holding any secrets like this (they were probably all dug out when Zimmerman unearthed the tmp drydock in the early 90s, pre GENERATIONS.)

Considering the lack of perspective change on the ship shots added by Foundation for the DE, I think the same effect could have been achieved by roughly animating still cutouts of high-quality stills of the ship. In fact, given that large format still cameras have HIGHER resolution, the stuff would look BETTER than what we got (same as much of the 2001 photocutout stuff.)


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

Andy Probert refers to "photo documenting" the Vulcan shuttle on his website. It is safe to assume that if they did it for that ship then they did it for the Star of the show. The way Paul Olsen describes the finished model must make it one of the greatest lost treasures of the Cinema.


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

trevanian said:


> I just ran the widescreen laserdisc AND the dvd of TMP ... I saw no difference whatsoever, the green hue (or whatever you want to call the coloration) IS there in the last shot when the ship comes overhead.
> 
> With as little money as there was to fix tmp for dvd (something on the order of half a mil, tops), I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that they did such a cheapjack job (which is why I still hold onto the laserdisc) ... outside of a general warming-up of the color scheme (visible mainly in the faces) that makes the film look more appetizing than it did in previous video (AND theatrical) releases, there ain't much sign of improvement to me, especially in the shots they chose to alter (not even gonna get into the sound mix, which REEKS.)


You are not paying attention.
I said "Director's Edition." 


The laserdisk is a verbatim copy of the first release.

I also noticed by very closely reading the above you did not say "the Director's Edition" of the DVD anywhere in your above statements. Maybe we're supposed to think you meant to, but you didn't. The regular "pre-director's" version is also a verbatim copy of the first release.

There are a lot of differences in the directors cut of the DVD. They don't change the tenor of the movie at all, except for one error in the original which was really glaring. But there are very glaring differences nonetheless. Which also leads me to believe you aren't referencing the director's version.

Again, green may have been involved in the original, and there MAY even be a half second of it left in some snipet of the Directors DVD even showing this, but in the initial, very close and well-lit flyby in the pod with Scotty it's nowhere to be seen. Plus it's a pretty dumb color to add to a Naval Capitol ship.


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Huh…?????

Correct me if I am wrong but… there is no other DVD version THEN the Directors Cut!


And AGAIN... the Enterprise is NOT a naval ship. ...It's a STARSHIP for crying out loud!!!!


----------



## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

Garbaron said:


> Correct me if I am wrong but… there is no other DVD version THEN the Directors Cut!


 Okay.

I'll correct you.

There is no other DVD version *THAN* the Directors Cut!


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Whenever I hear a discussion about a "green" color re: film, I think of all the black and green episodes of The Invaders I taped from TV years ago. The colors that you see don't necessarily have to be real. Saturation on film, lighting, etc. Here are two photos of the 1701A (?) taken at the same time by the same person, so far as I can tell, and to my eye, it seems as tho one is blue and one is green, the only diference being the angle of the light reflecting back at the camera. The idea of green on a starship shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, tho - look at the purple Surak. Not exactly traditional colors there. So which one of these two photos do you all think best represents the real color??


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Aaurgh! - what if they are the same paint? I have that same document here, the one that was quoted earlier, from the person who painted the thing. What if the E was BOTH green and blue, the colors moving toward compliment as the angle changes:

"The colors I used were: red, gold, blue, and green....so those colors would have that color-cast when they pearlesced...but would also "flip-flop" to the complement of that color when you changed your angle of view...so they were always "moving" as you moved. Incredibly beautiful when the surface is broken up in various combinations and densities of these colors. The paints are completely transparent and just "cast" a color of pearl...so when the ship was finished, it looked like an opal or like it was made with mother-of-pearl. Stunning.

"I would assume there are many more pearl paints out there now....and maybe they all work the same way by pearlescing in the main color, and then when the angle of reflection (incidence) is changed, they pearlesce towards the complement (the opposite color on the color wheel) of that color, "flip-flopping," so-to-speak, though "


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Regarding the two photos:

First, you should remove the colour cast, and correct the neutral gray areas back to neutral gray, not magenta. The first picture has a magenta colour cast, so the strongback colours cannot be considered accurate in that shot.

(Trust me, I do video editing and compositing. Color correction is part of my job.)

Second, this is the Enterprise-A, about which there is little color debate due to the large volume of color references available. For the most part (if not entirely), Paul Olsen's pearlescence was long gone by the time those photos were shot, covered in a matte coating or repainted entirely. There's no flip-flopping in those photos.

Regarding the original, Olsen, flip-flopping paint job on the miniature as painted for TMP, we may never know what the minature looked like in a fully lit environment with no colour cast, from multiple, moving points of view. We have to gather what we can from the B&W Cloudster shots, the TMP DVD, and the occasional publicity shot and anecdote that crops up. 

... but that's what makes it exciting, yes?


----------



## tetsujin (Dec 12, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> And the Enterprise is NOT a Naval ship!


Yes, she's a beautiful lady, and we love her.

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)


----------



## justinleighty (Jan 13, 2003)

starseeker said:


> Aaurgh! - what if they are the same paint? I have that same document here, the one that was quoted earlier, from the person who painted the thing. What if the E was BOTH green and blue, the colors moving toward compliment as the angle changes:
> 
> "The colors I used were: red, gold, blue, and green....so those colors would have that color-cast when they pearlesced...but would also "flip-flop" to the complement of that color when you changed your angle of view...so they were always "moving" as you moved. Incredibly beautiful when the surface is broken up in various combinations and densities of these colors. The paints are completely transparent and just "cast" a color of pearl...so when the ship was finished, it looked like an opal or like it was made with mother-of-pearl. Stunning.
> 
> "I would assume there are many more pearl paints out there now....and maybe they all work the same way by pearlescing in the main color, and then when the angle of reflection (incidence) is changed, they pearlesce towards the complement (the opposite color on the color wheel) of that color, "flip-flopping," so-to-speak, though "


Paul Olsen was talking there about the aztec colors; he didn't paint the engineering section:
*"The engineering section was painted by Ron Gress, who used Floquil paints....a kind of matte, opaque, pale sage green color."*


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

justinleighty said:


> *"The engineering section was painted by Ron Gress, who used Floquil paints....a kind of matte, opaque, pale sage green color."*


Would this be our man?
http://poll.imdb.com/name/nm0340362/

Do you think he'd still have paint chips?


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Trek Ace said:


> Okay.
> 
> I'll correct you.
> 
> There is no other DVD version *THAN* the Directors Cut!



Thanks for correcting the typo


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Garbaron said:


> Huh…?????
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong but… there is no other DVD version THEN the Directors Cut!
> 
> ...


I seem to remember a ship numbered NCC-1701, or in the the unabreviated form - Naval Construction Contract 1701.


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

SteveR said:


> Regarding the two photos:
> 
> First, you should remove the colour cast, and correct the neutral gray areas back to neutral gray, not magenta. The first picture has a magenta colour cast, so the strongback colours cannot be considered accurate in that shot.
> 
> ...


I quite agree. And since I doubt I'll be able to duplicate the original effect on a 1/350th model... heck I probably couldn't duplicate the original effect on a 24 foot model, muchless one smaller then the pro's worked on!... 

I'm personally forced to choose between the green seen in snipets and the blue-gray.

To me the blue gray is infinitely more logical when forced to choose between the two... 

Maybe one of you guys will be able to get a spot-on perfect copy of TMP finish accomplished. More power to you! I hope somebody somewhere pulls it off.

I just realize and am willing to admit to myself that I don't have that kind of talent and/or patience. I'm sure it exists among several of you, just not in the fingers of the guy banging out this BB message.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

"The first picture has a magenta colour cast, so the strongback colours cannot be considered accurate in that shot."

Exactly what I'm talking about. Those two photos appear to have been taken at the same time, by the same person, under what should have been the same lighting conditions, saturation, balance, etc. Yet obviously they were not. The colors in them look to me to be very different. The one that you say may be the more accurate is the second photo, but that makes the A 1701 look to have substantial green. I didn't think there was supposed to be any green on the A at all. Mr. Olsen says that "when THE SHIP was finished, it looked like an opal or like it was made with mother-of -pearl". He doesn't say THE SAUCER. Does it make sense that the E would have two different paint schemes, one for the saucer, one for the hull? He talks about his experience painting the saucer. We don't know how the hull was painted. Yet. And we don't know exactly what was re-painted between the E and the A. Maybe Mr. Probert will yet post some new and amazing photos on his site. In the meantime, lots of guesswork. But that's a lot of color difference between the 2 pictures. Yes, for all the reasons that the camera and the eye see different colors, for sure, but also possibly because someone else used some of that complementary paint? And has anyone seen what Mr. Olsen is talking about when he mentions... Wait... he did the rectangles on the deflector and the panels on the pylons, too! The complementary paint MAY NOT have been restricted to the saucer! So perhaps even on the A. but much more possibly on the E (the real E, not that Generations e"), the green/blue debate may be due at least in part due to the "flip/flop"? Also, has anyone seen the "free-form rays" on the underside of the hull that Mr. Olsen mentions? Fascinating.


----------



## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I seem to remember a ship numbered NCC-1701, or in the the unabreviated form - Naval Construction Contract 1701.



OMG pleeeeeease don't start up that old debate again.


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

The flip-flop effect was part of the pearlescent finish when viewed from different angles in changing light.
The engineering section was clearly stated by Paul Olsen as being a sage green colour. This was one of several similar hues used in that area and not part of the pearlescent paint scheme and therefore not able to flip-flop.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

"To me the blue gray is infinitely more logical when forced to choose between the two..."

The D was was most illogically 1/2 green FS-24516 and 1/2 blue FS-15526.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I seem to remember a ship numbered NCC-1701, or in the the unabreviated form - Naval Construction Contract 1701.


Come on, you KNOW that is an after the fact notion that nobody in charge would approve of (especially if it meant acknowledging FJ) ... NCC is just Jeffries' extension of the NC designation on his aircraft.

And yeah, there IS only one version of TMP on DVD (unfortunately, which is why I still have the laserdisk.)


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

trevanian said:


> Come on, you KNOW that is an after the fact notion that nobody in charge would approve of (especially if it meant acknowledging FJ) ... NCC is just Jeffries' extension of the NC designation on his aircraft.
> 
> And yeah, there IS only one version of TMP on DVD (unfortunately, which is why I still have the laserdisk.)


I did not know that about the DVD. Could have sworn I saw one out before the TMP version, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. 

On the FJ thing, his writings were 100% approved by Paramount, Paramount just wishes they could have so royally taken FJ to the cleaners the way they did Roddenberry. 

Roddenberry had sour grapes over the whole deal, but was given several opportunities to make suggestions and changes to both the FJ blueprints and the Technical Manual.

He declined input on either and avoided FJ, even though FJ was gentlemanly enough not to press the point that he had been misled by Roddenberry and Lincoln Enterprises into thinking they still owned Star Trek, which they didn't.

If anything FJ had cause to be distant towards Roddenberry. But I guess nobody likes being embarassed the way Gene was when FJ was forced to go around him to find out who really still owned Star Trek.

Luckily, as a design artist Franz Joseph wasn't used to the then common studio practice of signing away all of your intellectual rights to your art for a piecemeal pitance with no residuals.

So he negotiated, demanded, and got the rights to all of the designs in the Starfleet Technical Manual.

The first artist(and probably the last) to get a truely fair deal out of Paramount.

For that a lot of Roddenberry and TOS creative staff lambasted and criticized the poor guy as a kook.

I always looked at it as sour grapes. If he was a crazy kook but got three times a better deal out of Paramount then they ever did - what does that make them?

They should have been pissed at Paramount or themselves for negotiating the deals they did with them - not FJ because he was a better negotiator.

My two cents. :thumbsup:


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

starseeker said:


> "To me the blue gray is infinitely more logical when forced to choose between the two..."
> 
> The D was was most illogically 1/2 green FS-24516 and 1/2 blue FS-15526.




That's Advanced Illogic 3203, The Next Generation, which requires the following pre-requisites: Advanced Illogic 1201, Enterprise; and Advanced Illogic, 2202, The Original Series.

Let me work my way up to that one in the future. :lol:


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I seem to remember a ship numbered NCC-1701, or in the the unabreviated form - Naval Construction Contract 1701.





Nova Designs said:


> OMG pleeeeeease don't start up that old debate again.


There was a debate about this? 

They saluted one another.
Whistled dignataries[sorry for mauling the english language, TrekAce] aboard.
Had yeomen.
Had Admirals.
Had midshipmen.

Sounds like a navy to me... 

I know Roddenberry, under pressure from political correctness gurus of the time tried to crawfish on even whether or not Starfleet was a military organization, but nobody bought in the 80's during the height of PC'ness. Nobody is buying it now...


----------



## mechinyun (Feb 23, 2004)

Not exactly sure where this photo came from. The green stands out pretty good here though, notice the pre-pro purple lights. 

Now lots of people say its green, I tend to believe it was green, but another theory maybe it was green when olsen painted it, and it may have had the purple nacelle lights and blue impulse at this time too. However we know the purple was switched to blue, and impulse to red/orange. Maybe the green enginering got small blue face lift too at the time? hmm.... Now Mr cloudster himself (u rock btw for cloudster) says it was blue and alot of the pictures im seing recently make a good case for questioning the color


----------



## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

That is from the Ships of the Line calendar - it's a CGI done by the guys who did the Director's Cut, you cannot trust it in any way..and yet they show it green. Well, well.

Similarly the early shots of the ship with the blue impulse were photo retouched publicity shots. I happen to like the impulse engines in white/blue, but that's my own business.

The pearlescent effect only works over the base white colour to vary the gloss and give very slight metallic pigmentation. Olsen did not have flip flop paints at the time (they were a 90's invention), and he would certainly have not used them over the top of the flat engineering greens. That would be a waste of time. This area was finished and that was that. I am concerned a lot of us are going colour blind on here, or all our monitors are uncalibrated. I see it green (aircraft undercarriage, weapons and engine bays often use a similar colour, maybe that was the idea?)


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I seem to remember a ship numbered NCC-1701, or in the the unabreviated form - Naval Construction Contract 1701.


Am not going to get into it deeply, mater of fact:
Contrary to Star Wars in Star Trek Canon is what you see on screen. 
There is ZERO onscreen confirmation that NCC = Naval Construction Contract.

The use of Capitan, Admiral Commodore etc. was to indicate a Naval based command structure. And anyway what else would you have wanted Kirk to be called? Skipper????

Oh and the FJD where approved by Paramount that’s true…but so was “ST : The Chronology” which is now contradicted by ENT and FC and and and…..”ST: The Encyclopaedia”” was also approved and it clearly says at page 317:

“ Put another way, NCC doesn’t stand for anything. It was devised by Matt Jefferies <snip> Jefferies, who was a pilot, based NCC on 20th century aircraft registration codes. <snip> an “N” first letter refers to an aircraft registered in the United States of America. A “C” second letter to a civil (non military) aircraft. Jefferies added a second “C” just because he thought it looked better.”

Taking the real world back story of the NCC …. The Enterprise by definition is NOT a naval vessel since the “C” denotes CIVIL as in NOT military, hence NOT naval!


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Garbaron said:


> Am not going to get into it deeply, mater of fact:
> Contrary to Star Wars in Star Trek Canon is what you see on screen.
> There is ZERO onscreen confirmation that NCC = Naval Construction Contract.
> 
> ...


Whoa. Didn't want to get into the "canon" thing.
It's all just fiction when you examine it.

Perhaps in the 20th century the term NCC would refer to a civilian craft.
No telling how it would be defined hundreds of years later.

I do find the idea that Starfleet is not a naval organization a bit amusing, though - I feel forced to say. The entire series was based on the exploites of British Naval Captain Horatio Hornblower.

Now, I'll grant you. The job of British Naval captains in the time the Hornblower series is much more widely defined as we narrowly define Naval and miliatary duties today.

The Captain of such ships had the duty of often being the one to make "first contact" with other cultures and peoples on behalf of the crown. He was both a diplomat and a miliatary man. An explorer and a policeman.

But not a naval organization? :lol:

As to what is "canon" I would say that *nothing* can be truly classified as canon, as the errors in Trek are just as replete onscreen as they are in written secondary material.

We know the Enterprise doesn't have 80 something decks, and that the interior set of the TOS Galileo doesn't fit into the exterior, and the hanger bay doesn't fit into the TOS E - those are just a handful of examples.

I can't speak to the Star Wars "canon" issue. I enjoyed all the films well enough, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go other then to say that I hope SWars fans don't ever end up wasting as much time trying to define "canon" or thinking that there can be a definition of such a word as Trek fans have wasted.

Just wanted to take up for Franz Joseph, who I believe was very unfairly maligned by people like Roddenberry who never treated the guy honestly to begin with.

I don't attribute such feelings to you, of course.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

"The engineering section was clearly stated by Paul Olsen as being a sage green colour."

You are right. I e-mailed Paul Olsen about this and just received this reply: 
"Hi Jay....

Thanks for your note....I airbrushed the entire ship, including the hull or main fuselage (the "cigar shape) and the engine pods...there was what Andy Probert called the "engineering section" which was only a vertical bit on the dorsal dish support that was painted by Ron Gress in "Railroad" colors...paints specially made for model railroaders. No pearlescent paints were used on that section...it was a flat sage green. And Jay...it's not 20 years after the fact, it's almost 30! 27 years after the fact in fact....time flies! I used friskets (stencils made of 5 thousandths acetate sheets) for the whole ship...combining various shapes and sizes of friskets over each other to create a layered effect, which also made the colors really pop and pearlesce...unfortunately, they could not light the ship brightly to really show off the pearl paints because the light "kicks" from the gleaming paint would have made it impossible to "pull a matte" (isolate the ship) from its background, so a star field or planet could be dropped behind it cleanly....hence it was shot in low light, which didn't do the paintjob justice.

Cheers,

Paul


----------



## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Good, now can we please lay this to rest?


----------



## BEBruns (Apr 30, 2003)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I do find the idea that Starfleet is not a naval organization a bit amusing, though - I feel forced to say. The entire series was based on the exploites of British Naval Captain Horatio Hornblower.
> 
> Now, I'll grant you. The job of British Naval captains in the time the Hornblower series is much more widely defined as we narrowly define Naval and miliatary duties today.
> 
> ...


The Enterprise is not a sea-going vessel, so therefore it is, by definition, not a naval vessel. Yes it does use a naval structure, but by that reasoning, does that make the Salvation Army a military organization?

And much of the military protocol seen was actually the contribution of Nicholas Meyer to WRATH OF KAHN. In TOS, this was mostly seen in ceremonial settings, welcoming dignataries on board, court martials (courts martial?), etc.

Let's look at the earliest episodes, which presumely more closely reflect the creator's intentions. In "The Cage," there was apparently a much looser command structure:










Notice that the only indication of rank is the single braid on the sleeve of the officers. Even the Captain only has one.

And in the very first episode of the series proper, "The Corbomite Maneuver," the Enterprise is seen mapping an unexplored section of space. Not exactly a typical military operation.

I think the Hornblower reference is correct. The Enterprise is Earth's official representative in the unexplored sections of the galaxy. Which means that sometimes they act as explorers, sometimes as diplomats, and sometimes as a military craft, depending the needs of the story.


----------



## trevanian (Jan 30, 2004)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> I did not know that about the DVD. Could have sworn I saw one out before the TMP version, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.
> 
> On the FJ thing, his writings were 100% approved by Paramount, Paramount just wishes they could have so royally taken FJ to the cleaners the way they did Roddenberry.
> 
> ...


Pretty much nothing in the print world for trek has any bearing on aired trek, so until somebody identifies a ship as "naval construction contract number so&so" in a film or show, it ain't gonna be considered part of the lore. This is why I'm so relieved to see the "enterprise-class" simulator onscreen in TWOK, since there ain't much else to support the Enterprise-class designation, and there's tons of later Okuda-based stuff that contradicts it, much to my chagrin.)


----------



## frontline (May 4, 2005)

BEBruns said:


> And in the very first episode of the series proper, "The Corbomite Maneuver," the Enterprise is seen mapping an unexplored section of space. Not exactly a typical military operation.


Well since we are picking nits here, actually functions such as meterology and cartography traditionaly were the responsibility of the military. It isnt until recently (early to mid 20th centruy) that those areas were spun off into their own federal agencies (National Weather Service and The U.S. Geological Service). As for charting waters (or in this case areas of space) that is inded a responsibility of a (quasi) military branch, the United States Coast Guard. Same goes for most formal expeditions of exploration. Historicaly they were the responsibility of the military. Civilian research agencies or federal non military research missions are a relativly new advent in human history. Like I said, just so long as we are picking nits...



BEBruns said:


> I think the Hornblower reference is correct. The Enterprise is Earth's official representative in the unexplored sections of the galaxy. Which means that sometimes they act as explorers, sometimes as diplomats, and sometimes as a military craft, depending the needs of the story.


On that I agree. Star Fleet cannot be interperted as a pure military branch or pure diplomatic corps. But interesting to note, even though you have minimalist uniforms in "The Cage" specificaly and TOS generally, there is a clearly defined chain of command, rank structure, responsibilities, limitations. Dont forget that judicial administration was done under a form of courts martial based system which has never been used in the civilian judicial system. So the basic structure of StarFleet seems to be military in heritage, but expanded a bit.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I've dug out a Future Life mag from Feb 1980 that has two phots of the E against starfields. Both photos show pale blue glowing impulse engines and bright purple, not at all blue, on the insides of the nacelles. In these photos, the E has all the markings, features of the finished E, not the unfinished version posted earlier on this thread. Also have a photo of Brick Price building the saucer mold of the Phase II E. The saucer seems to be 3 1/2 to 4 feet in diameter.


----------



## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

That's been pretty thoroughly discussed in the "lighting" sticky.

Check it out for some pretty authoritive info.


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

Starseaker, Any chance you could share those pictures?
I know plenty of us would like to see them. Also see the Phase II threads for shots of those types.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Sorry about the blotch of paint on the cover photo. Hope these add to the debate.


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Number 1 looks like the magazine-printed version for which the Probert shot was behind-the-scenes. I have the same thing in an old Marquee magazine. It may be assumed (note: assumed) that no retouching of the grills or impulse was done here, since the colours match the behind-the-scenes Probert shot. (note: assumed)

Number 2 looks like a flopped version of this Cloudster shot: 
http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPent59.jpg
Note the rec-deck windows. Maybe the warp grills were overexposed on this one. I wouldn't make too much of the colour in this one, as printed pieces can sometimes be all over the map, colour-wise.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

And here's one more. In getting the file sizes down to under 50k, I notice that the colors in the photos has faded a bit. It's not nearly as apparant in the scan of 2 as it is in the original, tho it does stand out well in 1 and I hope in 3 as well.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Damn, I thought I'd rotated that image - purple3... Anyway, this is the 10x10 photo that came with the origianal smoothie 1701. The colors I see are a little faded again, but you can see that the red of the photon torpedo tubes is red, the blue lights on top of the nacelles are blue, but the shine coming out of the nacelle is definitely not blue. Hey, I never noticed the blue between the bridge spotlights before. Was that always there???


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

...pressed "Enter" too soon. Also, on Purple1, the scan doesn't show the obvious rainbow effect beginning on the outside of the nacelles as well as the print version does. I just can't imagine how beautiful the original minature must have been "in person". Now whether these are earlier publicity shots, or from the actual effects stage, who knows? But production of TMP was an utter disaster - rushed and ultimately unfinished - I wonder if they had time to set up publicity photos w starfields, etc, then make changes to the E before filming?


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Umm ... you _have _ been here, haven't you?
http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPEnterpriseTop.htm
http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPent58.jpg


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Yeah, I know she's beautiful in pictures. But I mean in real life, with Mr. Olsen's original paint and all the various light and color shining from her. Wow, Cloudster's picture 58 is possibly grainier and more washed out than my scan, which I didn't think possible. It occurs to me now that some 25 years after Smoothie was released, you can actually buy self-adhesive diffraction foil at places like sign making companies. I've seen it lots of times. Put that into place on the outsides of the nacelles, cover it with strips of pre-painted Evergreen cemented down with any of the clear parts cement they sell now, and you could easily replicate that effect. Well, I guess it's time to start building! This group is just the best resource a modeller could wish for. Thank you all!


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

starseeker said:


> <snip> some 25 years after Smoothie was released, you can actually buy self-adhesive diffraction foil at places like sign making companies. I've seen it lots of times. Put that into place on the outsides of the nacelles <snip>


Uhmm you mean the INSIDE of the nacelles!

According to Andy Probert the OUTSIDE of the nacelles is brushed aluminium!
He told me so when he commended me on my ERTL Refit, but like so many others he had seen I had gotten the out board grills wrong. 

The INBOARD grills are of a purplish color that would cast a rainbow effect when viewed from different angles. He said that was the one thing ERTL got right on the smoothie.

Take my word or leave I got it from Mr Probert himself, so I know it must be true


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Hmm ... so the inboard grills were all purple, but only the "trenches" were _transparent _ purple?

Jus' checkin'.


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Actually, the TMP DVD backs up Mr. Probert (as if it were necessary). At 38:09, look at the last frame of the shot as the Enterprise is seen orbiting earth with the sun behind. There's a nice purple glint off the inboard grill of the starboard nacelle. And the outboard grill of the port nacelle sure looks like brushed aluminum. :thumbsup:


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

See I told you..... 

Oh and yeah the trenches must be transparent, otherwise there would be no glow


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Uh ... yeah. <cough> I knew that .... :drunk:


----------



## ArthurPendragon (Jan 4, 2004)

Just to let you all know.... I'm working on new 1/350 Travelpod, Workbees and Cargo Containers. Detailed decals will make the surface details.

It's 60% done. Soon to be released by DLM.

Stay tuned !


----------



## Disillusionist (Apr 19, 2003)

Garbaron said:


> Uhmm you mean the INSIDE of the nacelles!
> 
> According to Andy Probert the OUTSIDE of the nacelles is brushed aluminium!
> He told me so when he commended me on my ERTL Refit, but like so many others he had seen I had gotten the out board grills wrong.
> ...


I'll second that, he told me in person! 

Probert


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Uhmm you mean the INSIDE of the nacelles!


Nope, I mean the outside. Using bare metal foil in that location was just not good looking. I'd go with a prismatic foil next time to catch that diffraction effect that the minature's bright lights created, or even black bare metal foil would be a much better look. Even if it isn't how it was done on the minature.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Just to let you all know.... I'm working on new 1/350 Travelpod, Workbees and Cargo Containers. Detailed decals will make the surface details.
It's 60% done. Soon to be released by DLM.

Great! The PL kit is going to be so much work that I think my scratchbuilding patience will be pretty much all used up. Eight years ago I scratched 2 1/350 TOS Es and they were so much work that I haven't touched another model since then. But this E is simply irresistable. 
What are the chances of adding a 1/350 Surak style shuttle to that package, with or w/o warp sled? That's one of the accessories I'd most like to see.


----------



## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

SteveR said:


> Number 1 looks like the magazine-printed version for which the Probert shot was behind-the-scenes. I have the same thing in an old Marquee magazine. It may be assumed (note: assumed) that no retouching of the grills or impulse was done here, since the colours match the behind-the-scenes Probert shot. (note: assumed)
> 
> Number 2 looks like a flopped version of this Cloudster shot:
> http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STMPEnterprise/STMPent59.jpg
> Note the rec-deck windows. Maybe the warp grills were overexposed on this one. I wouldn't make too much of the colour in this one, as printed pieces can sometimes be all over the map, colour-wise.


The number 2 shot in post 92 is not an exact flopped version the image in your link, the star pattern is different. And the angle looks to be different also.


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

irishtrek said:


> The number 2 shot in post 92 is not an exact flopped version the image in your link, the star pattern is different. And the angle looks to be different also.


Nope, it's the same shot, printed or scanned at a different gamma or contrast. Drop 'em both into a folder, and name the purple shot STMPent59a.jpg, and drag it next to the STMPent59.jpg shot in the folder (thumbnail view). Double-click on one, then use the arrow keys to jump between the two and compare. They might have been scanned or printed differently, but they're the same shot ... flopped. As for the stars, look for the brightest stars, and you'll see they're in the same places. The discrepancy is due to the different gamma.


----------



## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

First I have no idea what you're refering to when you mention "gamma".
As for the angle, in the no.2 shot you can just maake out the main gangway hatch on the rim of the saucer just above the formation light and that light is red in both images which tells me the image was flopped.


----------



## NJFNick (May 22, 2004)

Not to mention the backward "Enterprise" decal on the fantail and the circular Rec Deck windows.......


----------



## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

... that's why I added the word "contrast".  
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/gamma

... and yes, it's the same image, flopped, but printed with a different contrast and color balance. Now can we move on?


----------

