Cardassians

Reinforcements have arrived for the Cardiassian Order. Previously, for 1:7000 scale, you only had the Galor and Kheldon from Studio Bergstrom and the Hideki that I produce (the Hideki that Studio Bergstrom are nice, however, I personally feel they are way too large for 1:7000 scale). The ships are (from left to right, front to back) the Sartan and Damar frigates, Kheldon (Studio Bergstrom), Legate and Vasad destroyers, and in back the Bralek DN, Rasilak BC, and Galor (Studio Bergstrom). A better picture to compare sizes is shown below:

Again, in front from left to right are the Hideki, Sartan, Damar, Legate, Vasad. In the back from left to right are the Galor (Bergstrom), Kheldon (Bergstrom), Rasilak, and Bralek. The additonal ships fill out the fleet rather nicely. I'm debating whether to make a Hutet, however, there are enough ship classes to create a reasonable fleet. Please see the gallery for more photos. Ships are available for purchase.

Klingons

Some new ships arrived on my painting table. The Klingons now have some reinforcements to expand their fleet. In Star Trek Canon, the only official ships were the Negh'Var, Vor'cha, K't'inga, and B'rel (I'm ignoring the K'Vort as this is a scaled B'rel). This gives the Klingons a small frigate, an ancient destroyer, a cruiser, and a dreadnought/battleship. Since some of these designs have been in use since the TMP era, I wanted to modernize the Klingon fleet and include ships that could have been built during the TNG era. The results are what you see above. A top view shows the relative size of the ships:

The ships from left to right, front to back are: Kel'Var destroyer, Qa'cheng frigate, B'rel escort (Romando), Riskadh heavy destroyer, Goralis cruiser, Bortas battlecruiser, Negh'Var Battleship, and Keth Ke Se Battlecruiser. I view the ships as 2 generations, the B'rel, K't'inga, Riskadh, Goralis, and Keth Ke Se in the generation just preceding the TNG era and the Qa'cheng, Kel'var, and Bortas are the contemporaries of the Vor'cha and the Negh'Var. All ships (except for the B'rel) are listed on the "Ships for Sale" page. Additional views can be seen in the gallery page.

More Romulans

Managed to get additional Romulans built and painted. Here they are next to the original Romulans painted in a TNG color scheme. The new Romulans are painted to mimic the painting scheme for Star Fleet Battles Romulan miniatures. Here is a close up of the T'Korex heavy cruiser.

The SFB pained T'Korex has been upgraded to a heavy command cruiser variant. You can see the addition of upper engine pods. the underside has a bridge which is not visible on this view. Here is a picture of the underside:

The bridge is more visible on this view. All the other Romulans have, except for the V'Tir light cruiser have extra components to allow upgrading. Additional pictures can be seen in the Romulan Gallery.

Romulans

Been a while since I had time to post. Had the Romulans on my workbench for a while. Finally found time to post them. These are some early casts of the ships. They were based on designs from the PC game Starfleet Command (at least the larger ones were). From left to right, they are (SFC designations), they are the the T'Korex (Firehawk), Thersus (Skyhawk), Vadak (Seahawk), and V'Tir (Sparrowhawk). A Hallmark D'derix warbird and a Talon/Theta escort are in the shot for size comparison. The grid consists of 1 inch squares.

With the exception of the Sparrowhawk, extra parts are included with the ships to make variants. I'm currently working on them and should have additional photos up soon. Ships are available in the "For Sale" section

Federation Constitution class cruiser

This was one of the first miniatures I painted. I got into miniatures through Amarillo Design Bureau's Star Fleet Battles. Some of the earliest miniatures I possessed were the Federation ships by Lou Zocchi. After seeing numerous painted samples of this ship online, I wanted to try my hand painting one. There aren't that many surface details on this ship, so I looked at a considerable number of pictures before deciding how to paint it. The coloring pattern is based of the painting guide from ADBs website. I added panel lines to the saucer section and some homemade decals for the registration. They are more easily seen in this shot:

Painting consisted of a white basecoat followed by panel lines in light grey. Several thin topcoats of white were added to reduce the contrast. Grey and red details were then added. The warp engines were painted red then orange lines were added to simulate active engines. Decals were then added. Aside from the decals, everything was hand painted.

I even added some details to the underside.

This miniature won one of the painting contests sponsored by ADB when they were starting to release new metal miniatures for their Starline 2400 series ships. I am rather fond of this mini and am very happy with how it turned out.

Expanded Jem'Hadar Fleet

I have been busy clearing my workbench for the past 2 months, hence the lack of posts. One of my active projects was to flesh out and complete the Jem'Hadar fleet. I can now say that the fleet is almost complete. I need just a few more Attack ships, however, the capital ships are done and here is the results. The fleet consists of 1 Battleship, 2 U-type battlecruisers, 2 V-type battlecruisers, 6 Cruisers, 8 destroyers and 14 attack ships.

Here is a close up of some of the cruisers. It follows the lines of the battleship and functions primary as an fleet escort. A closeup of the destroyer is here.

It is based on a preliminary design from John Eaves for the JH Battlecruiser. I decided to turn it into a destroyer. Its is designed for independent patrol and support for the Attack ships (in case more firepower than a squadron of attack ships are required). In a fleet action, it functions in a similar role as the attack ships to kill off damaged ships and protect against small attackers. It took a long time to make and paint these ships, however, I think the effort was worth it. Definitely an imposing fleet with a consistent design aesthetic. Probably my favorite fleet.

The Breen Fleet

The Breen are an interesting race in the ST universe. Their ships are partially organic and they are apparently a very Machiavellian race. Class for class, their ships are smaller than the corresponding ships from the other factions in the Alpha quadrant, however, because of their energy disruption weapon, they can be particularly deadly. Here is a size comparison of all the Breen ships (the Tha Taan, the "official" Breen ship, is the second on the right). I tried to capture the design aesthetic of the Breen with a large boom on the right, sweeping curves and the asymmetric design. I think the unofficial ships capture the aesthetic well and the ships look like they were created by the same race. It does make a impressive fleet.

Additional pictures can be seen in the galleries.

Breen Ghor Taan Battlecruiser

Here is the Breen Ghor Taan Battlecruiser. The ship was designed in response to the development of the Klingon Vor'Cha and the Federation Nebula class ships. Designed for fleet combat, it is always surrounded by escorts. The energy disruptors coupled with the increased phaser armament means this ship packs a punch. The larger mass also allows it to take an increased amount of punishment as well. Painting this ship required painting all for parts separately then assembling the ship (the underside boom is more easily seen in the following photo). Final details were added after assembly.

Breen Ghan Lak Destroyer

Here is the Breen Ghan Lak Destroyer. The Breen energy draining weapon allows it to tackle large than expected for its size. It is designed for independent operations and in a fleet combat situation, runs in wolf-packs to harass and soften up opponents, as well as finish them off once the major fleet elements arrive. When designing this ship, I tried to maintain the general lines of the Breen cruiser so it is immediately recognizable which race the ship belongs to. I think I was successful in this case.

Breen Ral Koan Escort

In Star Trek, the Breen are a treacherous race allied with the Dominion during the Dominion War. Their ships are unique due to their assymetric nature and use of organic omponenets. We only see one Breen ship during the run of DS9. However, a fleet cannot be made by only one ship and one can only wonder what are some of the other ships were like. This is my interpretation of the rest of the Breen fleet. Here is the Ral Koan escort. This ship is designed for independent scouting duties as well as to escort larger ships.  It is equipped with a cloaking device as well as the dreaded Breen energy disruptor.

Klingon Negh'Var

The Klingons started out as enemies and eventually became allies during the timeframe from the original TV series to the Next Generation and DS9. Their ships are sleek and aggressive. We first see the Negh'Var in the finale of TNG, "All Good Things" (although it was actually a variant). The Negh'Var proper was seen during the DS9 Dominion war arc. There has been other Negh'Var models made, notably the Micro Machine model, however, I wanted one in scale with the Jem'Hadar models (1:7000). This was the result. Overall, I am happy with the paint job, although, it could use another coat of paint to tone down the contrast. It is a very detailed model with a considerable number of scribe lines. The bottom is also detailed:

This was a difficult ship to construct. I started over about 3 times before I had a hull form which I liked. All in all, it was a very rewarding to see the finished product. Additional views can be seen in the gallery.

Cardassians

The Cardassians were the main antagonists for most of DS9. Their ships are reminiscent of rays with the wide front and thin body. As far as miniatures go, Studio Bergstrom produces a Galor and Kheldon which are very close to 1:7000. His Hideki, however, is a little on the large side, so I created my own. Here is a picture of the official Cardassian ships (from left to right: Kheldon, Hideki, Galor).

Breen Tha Taan Cruiser

According to Wikipedia, the Breen are a treacherous race who were powerful allies of the Dominion. Their ships have organic components and are equipped with an energy dampening field which they used to great effect during the battle of Chin'toka. The asymmetric design of the ship is fairly unique in the ST universe (the Borg renegade ship is the only other one I can think of). There are no good references for the size of these ships. The dimensions from Ex Astris places them about the size of a light cruiser/heavy destroyer. A comparison with a micromachine Vor'cha is shown below.

This was a fun ship to make and paint.

Jem'Hadar Attack Ships

The workhorse of the Dominion. The attack ships pack a large punch for their small size. I made these ships during while taking a break from making the battleship. They are part of a series of smaller escorts from various races:

From left to right we have the Cardiassian Hideki, Federation Defiant, Jem'Hadar attack ship and Romulan Theta/Talon.

Jem'Hadar Battleship

This is the ship that gives Federation admirals nightmares. This was such a menacing appearing ship on screen that I had to make a model of it. It took about a year of on and off effort to make, but the results speak for themselves. The ship is about 9 inches long. Here is a top view of the Battleship with a ruler.

As far as starship design aesthetic, the Jem'Hadar are probably my favorite race.

Jem'Hadar Battlecruisers

After watching the DS9 Dominion war arc, I wanted to create a Dominion fleet. Since the only commercially available Dominion ships at the time were the attack ships, I decided to create my own. These were my first attempts to create a miniature spaceship. They are scaled to 1:7000 because I had a number of 1:7000 scaled Federation ships from Yamato/Furuta. The ships are about 86mm long. There are 2 versions. The one on the left is the V-Type, the one on the right is the U-Type (based on the excellent analysis by Brent at his Ex Astris website). The only difference between the two is the arrangement of the warp nacelles at the end of the wings:

These are some of my favorite ships from any universe.

Jem'Hadar Fleet

The lack of Jem'Hadar ships was the primary reason I started making models. The only one that was commercially available was the attack ship and was considerably out of scale with the larger ST ships that were out there. I decided to correct the situation by creating my own Jem'Hadar fleet in a consistent scale. Since I had a number of 1:7000 scale ships made by Furuta/Yamato and with the assistance of the excellent Ex Astris website from Bernd Schneider, this was the result.