Hudson-class Runabout

If you've visited The Garage here on the blog since the recent reboot, you likely noticed the work-in-progress photos of this project, so I thought it was about time to put it out there.  

Here's the backstory:

The Hudson-class is a descendant of the earlier Danube-class, and is similar in size, and capacity, while offering improved range and speed, with a maximum of Warp 9.1.  The more angular appearance of the Hudson-class vessels is due to the use of a stronger, more rigid space frame which, in conjunction with more powerful warp engines derived from those found on the larger Defiant-class vessels accounts for the increase in speed.  The larger size of the now-shielded warp coils made in necessary to relocate the impulse drive to separate pods above the main warp engines.  While the Hudson-class vessels share the modular construction of the earlier Danube-class, most of the vessels built early in the production run were preassigned to dedicated functions and constructed at the shipyard in such a way that it precludes them from being reconfigured. 

During the Hudson-class' early stages development, a need arose for several small ships to be assigned to Starfleet Headquarters for use as diplomatic couriers and transport vessels, and several of the Hudson-class vessels were requisitioned for this purpose.  These ships were assigned Starfleet Command registries and wore a different livery that the standard Starfleet vessels.  The U.S.S. Hudson, during its testing phases, was the only ship of the class to wear both liveries, and for a time wore a mix of the two, though it retained its NX registry designation throughout.

The Model:

This model began as a side-effect of my larger Jefferies-class Frigate project, when I began playing with docking ports on the rim of the larger ship's primary hull.  I thought it would be cool to include a Runabout type of ship which could be docked to the ship.  

By this point, I was well into the design of the frigate, and had already roughed in the basic shape of the shuttlecraft for the open shuttlebay, so it wasn't too difficult to double the little shuttle design in size and dress it up a bit as a new class of Runabout.  I liked the finished look of the tiny, little ship so well, that I decided to do a larger, better detailed version, and that's what we've got here.  I've added separate parts for many of the surface details to break up the texture a bit, but I'm sure that a few builders I know will take it far beyond what I've done.

When it came time to name the ships of the class, I made a list of all of the possible names for runabouts that hadn't been used on Deep Space Nine, and the first two river names that came to mind were the Hudson, and the Jordan.  These also just happen to be the names of old cars, so while I started with good intentions, I quickly decided to satisfy my own sense of humor, so all of the Hudson-class ships are named after old cars, instead of rivers....

You can download the models, here:

U.S.S. Dodge, NSC-82838

U.S.S. Fargo, NSC-82830

U.S.S. La Salle, NCC-82822

U.S.S. Packard, NCC-82823

Happy Modeling!

Perhaps It IS A Good Day to Die!

Next up is a non-canon Trek ship, originally designed by Conrad Mitchell. Designed to fit, size-wise, into the Klingon fleet somewhere between the movie version of the Bird-of-Prey and a small cruiser, the ship retains the smaller ship's ability to land on a planet's surface, while being big enough to utilize and carry a pair of shuttlecraft.  

Original model by Conrad Mitchell

Ever since I first downloaded the original version of this model, I've enjoyed the finished look achieved by what is really a rather simple model, and I liked the way it was thought out, the design builds easily, with interior reinforcing as if the model itself were made to take abuse.  I also like how well it fits into the established design aesthetic so that it's instantly recognizable as Klingon, even if it's not of of the ten Klingon ship classes used on screen.

Updated model by Paul McCool

The biggest shortcoming of the original model was the low resolution of the original art, as it was only an 832 x 1268 bitmap in six colors, so the surface detail was fairly rudimentary. Another drawback was the overly complex construction of the warp engines, which, at least for me, required three or four attempts to get a serviceable pair.  With these two issues identified, I made correcting them the ultimate goal in my updating the model.

I enlarged the images by 270%, allowing for a resolution of 300 d.p.i. which enabled me to improve the level of surface detail, and soften some of the blockiness of the original.  While I kept to the same basic hues that Conrad had used, I did add several different shades of each to add a bit more depth.  The higher resolution also allowed me to add finer details that were absent on the original, such as running lights and even a tiny little Klingon in a window.

View of original, removable shuttle bay.

Aside from the engines, I had to make a few changes to the structure of the model where the neck attaches to the engineering hull, and the construction of the shuttle bay.  On the original model, the hangar was designed to be a separate assembly which could slide out of the rest of the model, turned 180 degrees, and slid back in, to depict the shuttle bay as either open or closed.  It was a neat idea, but it made the stern of the ship look clunky, so in my repaint, I replaced the slide out hangar with a fixed assembly which could be modeled as an open bay by cutting out the doors.

Revised shuttle bay assembly

The shuttles got an updated look as well, as I used a design I had been playing with for a Star Fleet shuttle and painted them green.

The revised engines are more faceted than the originals, but they build up easier, and still look pretty good on the finished model.

The last big change for the model was a "stealth" version, in black, done at the request of someone on the forums at papermodelers.com.

The models, and instructions can be downloaded here:

Klingon Scout Ship

Klingon Scout Ship - Black

Instructions

  

You Think You Hate It Now, But Wait...

Fan-Built Replica of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster in
"Showroom New Condition"

The model of the Family Truckster came about while I was looking for a new, Non-Star Trek, model project after finishing the Chaffee.  As I was only starting to learn the mathematics involved with creating models from scratch, I needed a simple shape, and began looking at the boxy cars of the 70's and '80's. When I realized that no model of the Family Truckster, from the 1983 movie, "National Lampoon's Vacation", had ever been done before, in paper, plastic, or resin, I decided that it was going to be my first all-original paper model. 

From this...

Designed as a complete joke, the Truckster was a rolling condemnation of the auto industry of the time.  The Big Three's hot sellers in the early-'80's were the Chrysler K-Car, the Chevrolet Citation, and Ford's mid-sized LTD, worst of all, 1983 saw the birth of the minivan.  Today, these cars are all pretty much regarded as big steamy piles of bad design and poor build quality, so the Truckster fit right in.  It was loaded with bad design ideas. from its hideous fake wood paneling and "Metallic Pea" paint, to ridiculously having eight headlights, the car was so ugly it was funny. 

To this...

Five cars, all based on '78 to '81 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagons, were built for the movie. All of these were used in the opening scenes at "Lou Glatz Motors" where Eugene Levy uttered that famous line, "You think you hate it now, but wait 'til you drive it.", but none of the original cars have survived as they were either destroyed during filming or crushed after the film was completed.  For "Hotel Hell Vacation" a 2010 short film based on the original movie, a fan-built Truckster replica was used. 

To this...

The Truckster was first shown in the film as a brand new car, absolutely showroom fresh, but which, over the next ninety-odd minutes, is slowly transformed into a rolling junkyard.  

To THIS...

Depicting the feeling of that ongoing destruction was something I really wanted to capture with my model, so I decided early on to design the model so that it could be build in most of the different levels of damage shown in the movie. 

Optional parts include wheels with the factory hub caps  a second set of grey steel wheels without caps in two levels of detail, and a second passenger-side panel with the "Honky Lips" graffiti added.  The front-end damage can be done by omitting the front bumper.

The other "must have" for the model was Aunt Edna.  In the movie, Imogene Coca's character dies in the middle of the family's road trip, and when the kids refuse to ride with a dead body in the back seat, the scene cuts to a shot of her sitting up on the roof of the car with the luggage, and covered, rather irreverently, with an old tarpaulin.   I wanted to include a representation of the crotchety old lady , without being too gruesome, so the finished assembly for "Aunt Edna" is a bit abstract, but still recognizable to folks who have seen the movie.  

The model, as originally released, had suffered from a couple of issues which adversely affected the fit of the body on the chassis, and I've taken the opportunity while converting it to a .pdf format to fix these.  I've also condensed the parts on the pages a bit dropping it to five pages instead of seven, and went a step further by doing a smaller 1/50 scale version, as well.  

Test build of the small scale Family Truckster with "Aunt Edna"

You can download the model by following the links, below.  

1/25 Family Truckster

1/50 Family Truckster