Starships Collection previews and updates: New pictures, more specials, and much more

Lots of news to from Eaglemoss' Official Starships Collection today, starting with the latest two issues to be solicited, the armoured USS Voyager, and the ECS Fortunate, which will be issues forty-eight and forty-nine, finding there way to the UK first in June, with the rest of the world to follow. Online retailers are now listing them, and in doing so revealed new photos of the models, and magazine covers, including the first look at what looks to be a very impressive model of the Fortunate:

Continue after the jump for more previews of forthcoming models, and lots of news of ships to come later in the series.

Another cover, for the previously solicited forty-sixth issue, the USS Enterprise-C, has also appeared online recently.

Meanwhile twitter has been a hive of news lately! The Collection's editor, Ben Robinson has set himself up with an account, and one of his first tweets was one of his desk photos, giving us the first ever look at models of the Steamrunner class, Saber class, and 23rd century Romulan Bird of Prey (see below)

In another tweet he also revealed Eaglemoss are working on more dedication plagues:

I have pictures of the Voyager plaque in my email waiting for approval and we've briefed out the Defiant plaque.

I'm not sure on the price, but around the price of UK specials. They''ll only be available to subscribers and in our e-shop.

And there's much more news than this. Prior to joining up himself, Ben recently ran a Twitter Q and A on The Collection's Twitter account, revealing all sorts of news of things to come in the series!

The Enterprise NX-01 refit, special #6

Perhaps the biggest revealed is that the Enterprise NX-01 refit has now been confirmed as the sixth special issue - Which hopefully means it will be a bigger model too!

Speaking of bigger models, one very interesting exchange raised the possibility of larger models of some of the other hero ships:

There are some issues to resolve but I think there's a lot to be said for bigger versions of some ships particularly the D and the E.

Quite a few ideas for specials were raised, as was the rationale for the run of nuTrek designs at the larger scale:

Because of the way our license works, all the JJ ships had to be done as specials. A lot of them are very desirable so they've taken the slots so far. There could be other specials...

Deep Space Station K-7 coming later?

Several starbases were requested, and it sounds like Deep Space Station K-7 continues to be the front runner for special treatment, while Starbase 375 and Earth Spacedock were also not ruled out.

Drydock models were also requested, talking about a Galaxy class under construction idea:

It would have to be big and special. I'd love to do something like that though. It will take a bit of work and there are licensing issues that we'd have to resolve.

And in a similar vein, The Motion Picture era dock:

I think we'd have to do it with a ship in it. I'm tempted by a partially converted TMP refit in space dock....

The idea of customised ships was also brought up, and while discussing that a mirror universe ISS Enterprise was confirmed!

I've often wondered if people would be interested in this. We could theoretically offer a service where you chose your own registry. But I guess it would be quite expensive.

I'll tell you what we are are doing. It's the first time I've announced this anywhere... the Mirror Universe 1701. I'm excited by that.

Many regular ships were re-confirmed, including all the First Contact ships, the Enteprise-J, and Romulan shuttle (which we've seen the new CGI model of already). The Breen are also confirmed:

I had two ships I really wanted to do when we started – the Breen warship and the Fesarius. Thanks to David Lombardi I've been able to get the Breen warship into the hopper. I still haven't got to the Fesarius...

Which Wolf 359 wrecks will be brought back into service?

With most of the CGI-era Federation ships now released or coming soon, there is a lot of interest in other Starfleet ships to continue to build up the fleet, and gladly Ben seems very open to that:

I am very keen to do as many Fed starships as possible, we're getting close to a full set... There's still the debris field from Wolf 359 to explore and some interesting Nebula and Miranda class variants.

When asked specifically about the Curry, Freedom, Yeager and New Orleans classes:

I'm just looking at the list for 75 to 90 and these are very high on my agenda.

He also gave positive responses to suggestions of the New Orleans and Cheyenne classes, and even suggested the Wambundu class himself!

The possibility of the Daedalus meanwhile seems a bit more distant:

It's not the ref so much as the fact that it's never been seen on screen. Sisko's model is quite basic when you see it. I admit to being tempted. This is kind of a phase-2 ship. It's definitely canon but we don't really know what they looked like in any real detail. I'm wary of making too much up! There are other ships like the Matt Jefferies' 1970s Enterprise, and the concept from the abandoned 'Planet of the Titans' movie. 

Hope for the Merchantman

There were quite a few people asking about freighters and some of the other less glamorous designs, and there's hope for fans of those ships too:

I have beautiful reference photography for the Merchantman. I hadn't thought about that for a while. I think we should do it, don't you? And the Batris made so many appearances in one form or another that I think it has to be done.

He also seems quite keen to do the smuggler's ship from Unification, and also suggested Gomtuu as likely to come before a Tamarian ship when asked about that.

When asked about the possibility of the Scimitar he raised the challenge of modelling all the antennae, while the Son'a offer their own problems:

I'm working on this at the moment. It's tricky because the company that made the CG - Santa Barbara Studios - didn't archive them and used their own software. Nothing is impossible though and I do have perfect reference.

He also confirmed the Enterprise-A is getting a paint-job upgrade compared to the existing refit Enterprise model, and had this to say about the Japanese Borg Cube getting a wider release:

It's not impossible but I have my own plans for Borg cubes...

Talking of ships from foreign lands, it seems there is hope for those of us not in Germany or France who want those shuttle models:

I can't tell you exactly how, but yes. We will find a way of doing them. It's unlikely that they'll be sold the same way as in Germany. But we get that people want them!

Ben also spoke a bit more generally about the series, confirming several times there is every chance of continuing beyond the currently planned ninety issues, if people keep buying. He also gave some insight into how he selects ships:

I try to balance Fed and non-Fed and the different series as much as possible. It's also a case of what reference I can find easily. There is an excellent archive of ships from Voyager and Enterprise. Less so with the other shows.

Eaglemoss run many other part-work collections, including figurines for various other franchises such as Doctor Who and several comic book series. When asked about the possibility of a Star Trek figurine collection:

We do talk about it. There are various reasons I don't think it's ideal but maybe a smaller collection of larger figurines.

Finally, all the usual non-canon favourites were requested; the Titan, Aventine, Enterprise-F, and other Star Trek Online ships. Ben reiterated his position on those:

It's not a priority... unless I'm confident I can sell at least 5,000, which is what the petition is all about.

The Titan petition is still getting new supporters every day, now over 65% of the way to the five-thousand name goal. So please, if you want a Titan, sign up! And share with other people who might want one too!

Also while I think we will have more luck by focusing campaigning on one non-canon ship at a time, I do get a lot of requests for an Aventine petition too, so I've relented and set one up! Perhaps support for the Aventine and Titan can reinforce each other and get us both ships sooner rather than later! Bring on the Destiny fleet!

You can read the full transcript of Ben's Q and A on Eaglemoss' Hero Collector site.

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