Starships Collection updates: USS Enterprise, Relativity, and more hints of things to come

Ever since he joined Twitter, The Official Starships Collection's manager, Ben Robinson, has been pouring out hints and images, and generally discussing the series at length with tweeting collectors. Continue below for the latest highlights from those tweets, starting with two new images of the original USS Enterprise, which is coming as issue fifty in the series, due in the UK in July (and following at the usual pace in other markets).

Issue fifty-nine, due out in November, comes from much further along in the timeline, the 29th century Wells class timeship, USS Relativity. Ben posted the first ever image of this model (still work in progress), with its subtle purple/green iridescent paint job.

Continue after the jump for more news and previews from the series.

Ben also teased two ships not yet confirmed (with issue numbers) for the series, the Bajoran Raider, and the SS Aurora (as seen in the remastered version of The Way to Eden). I think we can take the fact Ben is examining CG models for these as a good indicator of them showing up in the series at some point.

Discussing some of the other ships in the works, Ben suggested October/November will be the likely release date of the extra ISS Enterprise issue - a regular sized issue, outside the normal issue run.

He also discussed the shuttle models, which are currently on offer to German and French subscribers as part of a premium subscription offer, and are due to be released in other markets by other methods. He mentioned he is considering giving the shuttles different names in different markets. Currently Germany is down for getting the Galileo as the TOS shuttle, Goddard for the TNG type 6, Chaffee for the DS9 type 10, and the Cochrane for the Voyager type 9.

Meanwhile, the most recently released issue in the UK was the Enterprise-C, and Ben posted a flurry of images to mark the occasion. Here are pictures of the physical model:

Plus some unused renderings of the CG model:

Ed Giddings made that new CG model, and it's now his first for the series, he also built the new DS9 model, which you can see more images of on his own website, CG Reactor, where you'll also find other projects from the Trekverse and beyond.

Likewise, on Mesh Weaver you'll find some of Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz's renderings for the series, like these:

PS, don't forget, if you'd like to see some of the best non-canon ships in The Collection, make sure to sign the petitions for the USS Titan and USS Aventine. We are inching ever closer to the magic five-thousand names for the Titan!

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

And if you're on Twitter, make sure you follow Ben, and me!