Tholians Finished

Well, what the colors are 'supposed' to be are up for debate...

TOS had one Tholian episode, and the ship did appear with a red hue. But in the three Tholian appearances in Enterprise, their ships were a steel gray with blue highlights.

...And then of course there's the Klingon Academy theme of Blue hull and Orange highlights, all with a crystal texture.

However, Enterprise remains the only reasonably modern and canon reference for Tholian design, and since they also use color themes closer to TNG on that show (such as the Romulan BOP being green rather then the TOS light gray) I decided to use that as my color palette. Also, Atrocities STM for SE4 used the blue rather than red, so if nothing else there's an argument for consistency.

I am planning on doing TOS sets though, and I'll certainly consider releasing another Tholian set with the TOS red theme.

I'm hoping to do Federation, Klingon, and Romulan TOS. (not necessarily in that order)

After that I'll get back to TNG minor races with the Sheliak Corporate, and the Talarian Republic. The rest: Kazon, Pakled, Tamarian, Hirogen, and Son'a are light on available meshes, and I haven't decided if they're worth converting into full shipsets. I might just release a large pack of neutral races with portraits and flags...

We'll see what happens, nothing is set in stone.

Well, here's one "true trekkie" that thinks it counts, for ship lineage and design theme anyway...the continuity is completely bunk though (so is Voyager's for that matter, but thats an argument for another day).

I've watched every single Star Trek episode from every series (including TAS), and I practically grew up on TNG...my parents only let me watch one show a week when I was growing up, and I picked Star Trek. I own all the films, the tech manuals, the encyclopedia, and I have a rather large shelf filled with Star Trek models that I've assembled and hand painted. Long story short, I love my Star Trek (Excluding Voyager and Enterprise) which is the reason I made these sets.

Now that that's out of the way, back to the colors... All of the sets that I've made have been with the intention of being in the same time period; that being late TNG/DS9. This was so that they could all be used together without clashing, and potentially be combined into a mod someday.

So, why not red? One very simple reason: No empire from TOS has ever used the same design aesthetic since that series. With every other Star Trek race changing colors between TOS and TNG, history tells us that TNG era Tholians should sport a different color theme than the original ship seen 100 years earlier.

Say what you will about Enterprise's writing, but their VFX team used the TNG colors almost exclusively on every reappearing race. So, when the Tholians show up with blue and gray it's rather natural to assume that these are also the colors intended to be used on TNG era ships.

This is a TNG set, not a TOS set, and I'm not going to make them red. As I said, I'll consider a TOS set for the future, but for now this is what you get.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I prefer the originals too, 7 and 8 were good, but 9 was a disappointment, and I really didn't like 10. As for the new movie...who knows, a completely new creative team could either screw it up or strike gold.

But, back on topic...

I have more than enough Federation ships for stock + small/large freighters, light/heavy carriers, a baseship, corvette, and battle cruiser. No Oberth though, that's a TMP design...

I do wish there was something in star trek more analogous to a weapon platform though. For all my sets I've been having to pass off other things as WP's; upside down spacestations, satellites, or chopping off random bits of other models. The Gorn WP was the drive section of another ship that I pointed into the ground...