Scale Modeling

In 1966, Gene Roddenberry was the first to set sail in the futuristic USS Enterprise which employed warp engines to fold the fabric of space/time and allow for interstellar travel, "To boldy go where no one has gone before.."

But this wasn't Roddenberry's ultimate mission. The crew of The USS Enterprise consisted of a female communications officer of African descent, a Russian navigator, an Asian helmsman, a female medical officer, and an alien science officer. It was in the late 60's when Afro-American civil rights, women's equality, the war in Vietnam, the cold war with Russia and resulting political zenophobia were of the greatest social issues in North America and the western world. Gene Rodenberry came to call with a vision of a better world where every episode would play out like a Shakespearean morality play.

In 1907 Albert Einstein developed his theory of special relativity, proposing that no particle with mass can exceed the speed of light as it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate that mass past the threshold. He also concluded that the effect of gravity 'warped' the fabric of space/time.

These kits offer some great possibillities with lighting and even laser effects. Polar Lights has a larger scale Enterprise kit (1/350 scale) with optional lighting kits, however these smaller scale versions do not. I've already sourced miniature elecrtic motors for the engine necelles, micro-LEDe, flashing IC circuits and wiring diagrams for the different lighting systems throughout the kit. I'm considering a means of back-lighting crisp, rectangular windows through the plastic using opaque masks. Where there's a will, there's a way..

The K'Tinga Class Klingon Battlecruiser is now a rare find among kits. Lighting systems should prove interesting as well. Finding source materials and movie photos for reference has been a challenge. Capturing still frames from an HD video version may be an option.