Monday 25 February 2019

Ships of the Line 2020 preview

With the recent reveal of the 2020 Star Trek calendar range, there was one calendar awaiting finalised artwork, my personal favourite every year, Ships of the Line. Well fear not starship fans, distributors Andrews McMeel Publishing have updated there listings to reveal both covers and some interior previews. Continue below to check them out:



It's a nice diverse offering this year, including a fairly decent offering of non-Starfleet ships, and a really cool cutaway centerfold. Surprisingly no Discovery made it in this year though.

I've had to squint a bit to make out some of the names of the artists, but I'm fairly sure I've figured out everyone involved. So if you can't quite make them all out, here's what I spot on the covers:
  • Front cover: 
    • The ISS Enterprise meeting Nomad.
    • "A Weapon for the Empire" by Doug Shrock.
  • January: 
    • The USS Voyager encountering a lot of Species 8472 bioships near Copernicus Station (the first print image of that station maybe?). 
    • "We Have Engaged Species 8472" by Doug Drexler and Ali Ries.
  • February: 
    • Two alternate Saber class ships the the USS Defiant flying into a Borg ship.
    • By DM Phoenix (who's unique Saber class first appeared in the 2015 calendar).
  • March: 
    • A Starfleet shuttle (Sheckleton of the USS Endurance) and an alien shuttle meet on a planet.
    • By Bill Krause, using a physical miniature for the Starfleet ship and real location image.
  • April: 
    • The Enterprise NX-01 (presumably) with Vulcan and Andorian ship.
    • By Alain Rivard.
  • May: 
    • Klingon Bird of Prey and an Oberth class (presumably the Grissom).
    • By John Eaves, and thus I imagine this would be a painting.
  • June: 
    • Tholian ships battling a TOS TV era style Miranda class.
    • By Dan Uyeno. You can see some other views of this Miranda design on Uyeno's blog.
  • Centerfold:
    • A cutaway illustration of the Daedalus class.
    • By Matthew Cushman, making a return to Trek after creating several amazing cutaways of other ships as posters before.
  • July:
    • An Ambassador class at the mercy of several Romulan warbirds, presumably the Enterprise-C in the Battle of Narendra III.
    • By Matt Boardman.
  • August:
    • Lots of ships travelling through Deep Space 9 (Doug Drexler tells me it's the Defiant facing off against the Jem'Hadar).
    • By Gabriel Koerner.
  • September:
    • A whole bunch of ships, including Voyager and Vulcan ships, doing a flyby over Starfleet Command.
    • By Doug Drexler, and featuring a favourite subject of his, the New York World's Fair, in the form of the General Motors pavilion which he helped turn into Starfleet Command on DS9, and seems to have given an update here to better match the original architecture.
  • October:
    • The USS Saratoga meeting the cetacean probe.
    • By Michael Wiley.
  • November:
    • A Romulan warbird dwarfing several D7s.
    • By Tobias Richter
  • December:
    • The Enterprise-E and whole lot of Borg Cubes
    • By Jeff Summers
The current preview pages for the interior frustratingly only offer half of two spreads, but at least give us a closer look at those:



But Bill Krause at least gives us a more complete preview, as I previously reported, sharing his work for the calendar on Facebook:


UPDATE: Here's another more complete preview, from Jeff Summers, who shared his image from the calendar with the Star Trek: The Art of Miniatures, Props, actors, writers and composers Facebook group too:


If you're eager for a closer look, we've got a little wait yet; Ships of the Line 2020 is currently expected to arrive in August. To check out the other 2020 Star Trek calendars on offer, see my previous report.



2 comments:

mark bernero said...

I like the Battle of Narendra III image, but I would think that the Enterprise-C would have fought against Warbirds of an earlier design than the D'Deridex!

Unknown said...

I have been watching all the Treks on H&I, they keep negating Trek history. First two seasons of Trek Next Generation, the peace treaty with the Clingons seems a recent thing, as no one knows anything about them, even Worf. Then that was retconned to Yesterday's Enterprise 22 years earlier, however no contact with the Romulons was made for 80 years in The Neutral Zone. Then that was retconned further back with Star Trek VI. If they could just clean up the mess. I don't like the animal Clingons who then all of a sudden have “honor” or the cannibal reptilians in Discovery. Real Clingons are dangerous humanoid conquering competitors to the Federation. I would say they were once a human colony who settled a star with radiation that changed them physically to a more barberic mindset and they established an Empire. Their D7 ships look similar to Federation ships. Thecsame with TOS Romulon ships, they could have stolen Constitution design plans posing as Vulcans to build their WarBirds. Enterprise just can not count, all the ships and tech are too advanced.

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