Year 5 Enterprise by Rebellion Creations – Orne Montgomery

This “Year 5” Enterprise with a back-story is fantastic! Very creative indeed! Nicely done by Rebellion Creations artist Orne Montgomery!

Img_0333 a copy

REBEL_CREATIONS_290X50

Scratchbuilt USS ENTERPRISE/NCC-1701 in 1/350 scale.

Article and photos Copyright 2008 by Orne Montgomery

`           “Captain’s Log, StarDate 2270.3…..We are a weary ship.  Intelligence reports have reached Enterprise that a Romulan armada is massing beyond the Neutral Zone.  A brief yet thorough upgrade of Enterprise has recently been put to the test, with the Klingons, restrained by the Organian Treaty from overt hostilities, supporting an immense Romulan military buildup.  Violent forays into the Federation, launched through the Neutral Zone by Romulan ships with improved cloaking devices, have led StarFleet Command to bolster a stern presence.  Enterprise has been at the center of every engagement.   Those few suspected Romulan ships that evaded immediate destruction, in turn self‑destructed to avoid identification.  It may only be a matter of time before the Romulans decide that StarFleet is weakened by the constant incursions, and unleash their juggernaut.

“We are a weary ship……but Enterprise stands ready.”

“Chief Engineer’s Log…..To counter the loss of half the Constitution cruisers in StarFleet service since the beginning of our five‑year mission in 2266, Enterprise was put through a rapid upgrade, adding phaser and photon torpedo emplacements, and a radical armoring of the hull utilizing neutronium foils ‘skinned’ from the hull of the Doomsday Machine, a procedure crafted by Commander Spock and successfully rendered by StarFleet’s Corp of Engineers.  A new warp‑engine ‑ developed from data collected by Enterprise during several alien encounters which upgraded the ship’s propulsion system ‑ now capably delivers Warp 11.

“There’s an old Vulcan saying: “Does it have a Hemi?”  The old girl does, in spades…..”

In 2004, Polar Lights released their 1/350 scale USS Enterprise refit; rumored plans to release the TOS version in the same scale came to naught when the company was sold.  My little dilemna – I wanted a TOS Enterprise in a matching scale with the Refit kit.  The sole option: build one entirely from scratch, pulling .040 plastic shells from poplar vacform plugs turned on a 14″x40″ lathe.  The final ‘look’ would be a conceptual take on the ship’s appearence during the fifth year of Kirk’s original mission.  The upgrade was a blend of some TMP Enterprise features (phaser-turrets and a separate photon torpedo bay built into the extended main pylon), and a few extrapolated technology twists suggested by events from the original series – ‘neutronium’ armor-plating stripped from the Doomsday Machine, and a Warp 11 stardrive developed from instances of advanced technical intervention by entities such as marauding Andromedans, Nomad, and the archly-named ‘Dove’.

The model was spraybombed with basecoats of Duplicolor sandable grey primer; the primary colors were spraybombed Duplicolor Pewter and Light Blue metallics, with Krylon clears for finish. Lettering is from the Polar Lights Refit kit and Greywolf decal sheets. The pennants were cut from Goldberg adhesive trimsheet. The windows (with crew-figures painted in some), sensor/nacelle domes, and nav-lights were painted with acrylics mixed with glow‑medium.  Gridlines were drawn in with ink pens, and the weathering  finished with a combination of black/white charcoal pencils, and Pentel brushpens.

IMG_0033

IMG_0034

IMG_0042

IMG_0036

IMG_0115

IMG_0038

IMG_0040

IMG_0114 copy




Post break