Starships Collections' Xindi, Prometheus, Enterprise and more

Due out next week (in the UK, with the rest of the world to follow), is issue twenty-four of The Official Starships Collection, the Xindi Insectoid ship, which will be followed a couple of weeks later by the USS Prometheus. StarTrek.com have released images of both of these models, and descriptions of what the magazines will be exploring:

The ship was designed by John Eaves, who shares his original concept drawings and reveals that he was inspired by... crab claws. The magazine also reveals how Dan Curry designed the Xindi Insectoids themselves.

The magazine reveals some previously unknown technical details and shares Rick Sternbach’s original concept artwork, including early versions of the Prometheus that split into five independent ships. The model shows the ship in its combined form.

Continue after the jump for a look behind the scenes at the forthcoming USS Enterprise NCC-1701 model, and some artwork from the magazine:

StarTrek.com also recently a piece from the series' manager, Ben Robinson, who revealed the efforts being made to make sure the fiftieth issue, the USS Enterprise, will be as accurate as possible. As Robinson described:

Every ship we work on gets a lot of attention, but when it came to the original Enterprise, I knew that we had to go the extra mile. We used Rob Bonchune’s CG model as the basis for the digital sculpt, but when the factory’s version came in, I knew it was too important for me to check over alone. I asked around, and everyone from Mike Okuda to Doug Drexler and Rick Sternbach pointed me to one man: Gary Kerr, who they told me was the expert on the original ship.

Gary was kind enough to go over our version and mark up all the corrections. I’m sharing a selection of them with you here because I wanted to show you how great Gary has been and because I wanted everyone to know that we take our responsibilities very seriously.

I can only imagine what Matt would make of it. I got to know him fairly well back around the turn of the century and I’m sure he would have smiled at the idea that people would be so passionate about his design.

Finally, here's an image created for the magazine for issue eighteen, the Bajoran Solar Sailor. Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz posted it on Facebook, remarking:

I really like the colors in this one; the gold foil sails are quite unique and lent themselves to a render very different from the typical spaceship shot.

The model was built by Ed Giddings for the Eaglemoss "Little Ships" collection and due to the unique CG surface of the sails (and the special lighting I used to really bring out the shine and colors), this was a long render indeed - over five hours!

The typical starship shot usually comes in at under an hour and while I was tempted to re-adjust the scene for faster rendering, I felt the overall beauty of the subject matter made it worth leaving it as it was.

For a listing of all the ships in the Starships Collection, including links to all my previous previews and reviews, see my index page.