Eaglemoss Hero Collector is offering Vo. 1 and 2 of their Star Trek: Designing Starships, which are available now. These books showcase the design processes of creating many of the starships shown in Star Trek over the franchises long history, including from television shows and cinematic releases.
Covering the genesis of more than 30 ships including all seven Enterprises, the book is packed with original concept art, showing fascinating directions that were explored and abandoned, and revealing the thinking behind the finished designs. Featuring interviews with the ship designers and screen model builders, the design history of every variation of the U.S.S. Enterprise is covered, including three that were never seen on screen. The authors have also combed the vast archives of CBS and Paramount Studios to bring to light hundreds of physical and CGI model development photos, including concept art, blueprints, sketches and schematics – some shown here for the first time anywhere.
Like all Eaglemoss Hero Collector books, Designing Starships, Volume 1: The Enterprises and Beyond (ISBN: 978-1-85875-527-4) may be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Indigo, independent booksellers, and select specialty stores including comic shops and gaming stores. It is priced at $29.95 in the US and $39.95 in Canada.
The second and third volumes in the Designing Starships series, Volume 2: Voyager and Beyond and Volume 3: The Kelvin Timeline, are scheduled for publication on January 8, 2019 and April 30, 2019, respectively. All three volumes are part of Eaglemoss Hero Collector’s “Premier Editions,” exquisitely designed, painstakingly researched visual guides and books that delve deep behind the scenes of some of most beloved icons of comic and sci-fi fandom.
Thank you to Eaglemoss for providing their Star Trek: Designing Starships Vol. 1 book for review.
Availability: October 2018
Star Trek: Designing Starships Vol. 1 is a hardcover book that includes 157 pages of detailed information on how the designers went about creating some of the most memorable Starships seen in the franchise. The book kicks off with a look at how The Enterprise, as seen in Star Trek: The Original Series, was created and how this design was the building blocks for every Federation ship that was created afterwards. This includes the Enterprise A,B,C,D, E as well as the NX-01 that has been seen in the television series and movies.
The design of the Enterprise was by artists Ben Adam and Ralph McQuarrie (Star Wars fans know him for his work on that franchise as well), and gives fans a detailed behind the scenes look at how these ships were created by the two artists. Both artists has worked for a potential spinoff television series in the 1970’s for Paramount, but sadly and as you are aware, the was abandoned, and what came was a new movie that didn’t happen until 1979 (Star Trek: The Motion Picture). In 1987, Paramount introduced a new television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and with it came the Enterprise D, a new ship, a new crew, and all new stories set around eight decades after the events of Kirk’s time.
With a new show, came new starships, including the Enterprise B, which was shown in Star Trek: Generations, and the Enterprise C, which was used in ” Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Each vessel has pages dedicated to showcasing how these were designed, along with sketches and images from the studio. The Enterprise E was introduced in Star Trek: First Contact, as this was a tougher looker vessel to fight threats such as the Borg.
Of course, this book is not all about the Enterprise and the variations of it that were created. This also covers the shuttles and designing those, as well as other Federation Starships such as the U.S.S. Reliant, U.S.S. Excelsior, U.S.S. Stargazor, U.S.S. Akira, U.S.S. Centaur, the ECS Firtybatem, SS, Botany Bay, as well as Alien vessels. This volume has a chapter on Borg ships, such as the Cube, Sphere, and other ships, which the designs were inspired by Egyptian art. The Borg Tactical Cube was created to look more menacing and used against highly resistant species, and the new design includes additional armor on the outer hull. The Ferengi’s Marauder and Bajoran Solar Sailor are also shown as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek: Voyager fans will also remember some Alien vessels of the Delta Quadrant that were shown, including Species 116 Sentry Vessel that used in “Hope and Fear”, where a member of that species attempted to get Janeway and her entire crew assimilated by the Borg by making his ship look like an advanced Federation starship sent from Starfleet called the Dauntless. The designs of the Dauntless are described as half the size of Voyager, bullet shaped and built for speed. Some Delta Quadrant vessels shown in this book include the Krenim Weapon, Species 8472 Bio Ship (also called the Undine in Star Trek Online), the Malon Export Vessel (also called Malon Freighter in the show), and the Hirogen Warship. A Romulan Drone, Tholian Starship, the Nausicaan Fighter and the Surak Class (Vulcan ship) is also shown with full design details.
Overall, Star Trek: Designing Starships Vol. 1 is an excellent and well researched book with images, interviews and sketches available no where else. Life long Star Trek fans will definitely enjoy browsing and reading through this as some of the information in it was previously unknown (at least to us). We throughly enjoyed this book, and strongly encourage life-long fans to pick up a copy today.
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