Behind the scenes starship bits: New-old TOS, Discovery ships, designing the Enterprise-D, DS9 kitbashes, and more!

Got some fun stuff to share with you today: Loads of behind the scenes starship bits and pieces, spanning everything from TOS to Discovery, with TNG, DS9, and the Kelvin timeline in between. Continue below for some new and rare views of starship miniatures, CG models, and concept art.

We'll start as far back as you can go: Star Trek visual effects artist Daren Dochterman recently posted a video with composited versions of the newly discovered unused shots of the original USS Enterprise miniature, as featured in the Roddenberry Vault. Check out these new views of the Enterprise (as well as Deep Space Station K7 and the SS Botany Bay) brought fully back to life:



Then coming right up to date, starship modeller Pierre Drolet, has posted on his ArtStation portfolio recent work from Discovery, including a nice up close look at one of my very favourite designs from the show, the bizarre dragonfly-meets-peacock Klingon raider:

There's also a look at the illusive Cleave ship:

And a couple of beauty shots of the USS Shenzhou:

Dipping back in time a bit, production artist Doug Drexler has recently been teaching a class on design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and has called upon some of his old Star Trek colleagues to share some of their work and process with his students too. One of those was Andrew Probert, and Doug has been kind enough to share this half-hour video with Probert, going really in depth on the design of the USS Enterprise-D. Here's how Doug introduced Probert:

I don’t think Matt Jefferies would mind that I put Andrew Probert up on that same Star Trek design pedestal he is on. Andy revolutionized the look of Star Trek, an almost impossible task… and I don’t care who you are. It takes a person who is not only a brilliant industrial designer, but a guy who truly understands the underpinnings of Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry’s love affair with technology. His brilliance makes me crazy. I am a huge fan.

It's a really fascinating look back:



Meanwhile in Bajoran space... Illustrator Ricardo Delgado shared this photo of the huge Deep Space 9 miniature.

The original shooting miniature of the space station for Star Trek-Deep Space Nine, back when models were shot on blue screens. Previously unpublished. This had to have been '91-ish(?) not sure. The man in the photo is builder Tony Meininger, and that day was the first time I'd ever been inside a model shop, taken there by the ever-generous and humble Michael Okuda, and I think Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler were there as well. Perhaps the late Gary Hutzel also. 

Getting a bit more obscure, I recently came across (thanks to posters on the TrekBBS), a forum post from 2013, sharing some rare photos from visual effects artist Dan Curry, of some of the DS9 kitbash fleet. Including really good shots of the USS Curry model:

And better yet, a ship I had never heard of before, the USS Trieste; a bizarre Miranda class mashup with Galaxy class nacelles and massive turrets! (Another for Eaglemoss to add to their list!)

That was built along side a fairly standard Excelsior class, USS Excel, and another Miranda class, the USS Antares.

Finally, artist John Eaves has shared some cool alternate takes on his design for the USS Kobayashi Maru from the first Kelvin timeline movie. He's worked up variations with both TOS movie and TV era nacelles:

For a bit more on the design of the actual Kelvin timeline version, Eaves posted a good blog about the ship some time ago. Indeed he has really good coverage of a lot of his Kelvin timeline work.

Plus, while it's not been officially announced yet, it was revealed recently Titan Books are working on a retrospective of John Eaves' Star Trek work, spanning decades of work from TNG to Discovery. Speaking of which, he's a nice illustration of the Discovery itself, also care of Eaves:

If that's just wetted your appetite, then make sure to check out Eaglemoss' Designing Starships book series for loads more behind the scenes starships goodness from across the franchise. Plus there's the new art of the Kelvin timeline book from Titan Books for a lot at that timeline's design.