John Byrne's first photo-comic out this week, and much more to come

Out this week is the first Star Trek comic by John Byrne in three years, Strange New Worlds. This particular release is indeed a strange new world, not just as IDW's first Star Trek Annual (twice as long as a regular comic), but also due to the way Byrne has made it: Instead of the usual drawings you might expect in a comic, Byrne has created this new story using stills from the television series, endeavouring to create something that feels like a lost episode. Continue down-page for a preview of this issue. But first, the latest news on further photo-comics Byrne is working on.

If you've been following news on this comic you'll be aware Byrne has been charting how he has developed it on his forum. There Byrne has noted that he has almost completed work on a second photo-comic, The Mirror, Cracked, which he expects to be released next year, and has already released a teaser page for a month or so ago. In addition to this he has also revealed that he has created a further five-page story, which will be included with the first two longer issues in an eventual omnibus book.

Bryne initially started out using pure stills for these comics, but as he has developed the idea his technique has got increasingly complex, recomposing multiple elements into some panels. Here's an example which he posted on his forums, from the second photo-comic; the panel top left is the finished item, all the rest are sources for elements within it:

Going even further, Byrne has also started to create virtual sets. I've previously posted some of his new Klingon sets, here's the latest, a corridor:

As well as adding new locations Byrne is starting to use computer created sets for already established places, as he described on his forum:

This morning I awoke with thoughts of possible future photonovels floating in my brain. One of the things that is most time consuming about working on these projects is "clearing" sets -- ie, removing from images of the bridge, or the transporter room, or the corridors, etc, figures I don't want in there. Sometimes, in order to get the right angle, I have had to remove EVERY figure, and add in others from different shots.

So, since I have been somewhat successful building "sets" for Klingon ship interiors, I wondered if I might be able to convincingly recreate the Enterprise standing sets. I decided to spend today, pre-dinner time, building one. Started at 9 o'clock this morning on the transporter room, thinking it would be the "simplest". (And, oddly enough, it's also the set I seem to have the most trouble finding "clear" shots to use.)

Here is the first draft of that transporter room set Byrne posted, and then a much improved version after several further iterations (the red arrow in the second image is pointing to an errant shadow rather than being part of the decor):

This technique has also allowed Byrne to consider new views of familiar sets:

So it looks like we might be entering a second wave of John Byrne Star Trek comics, but not like any we've seen before. For a look at the first of the photo-comic, Strange New Worlds, continue after the jump for several preview pages. There are several extra features in this issues; an essay on photo-comics, and interview with Byrne. But it kicks off with John Byrne himself introducing the whole concept:

First look at Starships Collection's nuEnterprise

Coming some time next year is the second special issue in The Official Starships Collection, the nuTrek USS Enterprise. As was the case with the first special, Deep Space 9 (which is newly out in the UK and still to come in the US), the Enterprise will be larger than most models in the collection, coming in at about 22cm (8.5 inches) long, rather than the 14cm (5.5 inches)longest side of regular issues.

StarTrek.com have posted the first preview images of the model, but do stress this is not the final version:

It's already looking like a contender for the best model of the ship to date to me (with the exception of QMx's artisan replica at least). StarTrek.com also promise the magazine will provide the usual coverage of the ship, including concept art and computer renderings showing how the ship was reimagined.

The Collection's Facebook page also recently posted an image of the forthcoming Borg Sphere issue. It's the same image as previously released, but at higher res, so you can take in all the detail they've packed into this model:

For a listing of all the ships in the Starships Collection, including links to all my previous previews and reviews, see my index page.

Complete Nemesis soundtrack, and other music news

Varèse Sarabande have announced they will be releasing the final soundtrack (from the prime-timeline films at least) in the complete Star Trek movie soundtrack project. Coming early in January will be Star Trek Nemesis: The Deluxe Edition. I'm particularly excited about this one, as Nemesis has some of my favourite themes in all of Star Trek music, plus this new edition includes Brent Spiner performing Blue Skies!

This will be a limited edition of five-thousand. Here's Varèse Sarabande's summary of what's in this release:

Goldsmith’s complete score from Star Trek Nemesis is presented, along with a set of bonus tracks that includes source music, a set of alternate cues and mixes, plus a rare opportunity to listen in to the final moments of Jerry Goldsmith on the Star Trek scoring stage with his orchestra and director Stuart Baird.

Here's the track listing too. Tracks in bold are new to this release, plus "A New Ending" is two minutes longer than the previous album release (the shorter version appears to be in the additional music section now):

DISC ONE
1. Remus (2:01)
2. The Box (2:21)
3. My Right Arm (1:04)
4. Star Field** / Positronic Signal (1:57)
5. The Argo (1:17)
6. Odds And Ends (4:39)
7. Your Brother / Course Plotted (2:07)
8. Repairs (6:27)
9. The Knife (3:10)
10. Perfect Timing / Allegiance (2:21)
11. Secrets (1:28)
12. The Mine (1:30)
13. Ideals (2:16)
14. Options (0:55)
15. Bed Time / Transport (1:38)
16. Blood Test (1:23)
17. The Mirror (5:23)
18. The Scorpion** (2:24)
19. His Plans / Data & B-4 (2:39)
20. Battle Stations (2:40)
21. Attack Pattern (2:22)
22. The Invitation / True Nature / Let’s Go To Work (4:38)
23. Lateral Run (3:55)
24. The Viceroy (:20)

DISC TWO
1. Engage (2:14)
2. Full Reverse (1:41)
3. Not Functional (2:54)
4. Final Flight (3:49)
5. Firing Sequence (:54)
6. A New Friend (2:38)
7. That Song / An Honor (1:24)
8. A New Ending (8:30)

Source Music:
9. Riker’s Strut #1 (Mike Lang) (1:07)
10. Riker’s Strut #2 (Mike Lang) (1:09)
11. Blue Skies (Vocal By Brent Spiner) (3:17)
12. Blue Skies (Instrumental) (2:37)

Additional Music:
13. Secrets (Alternate Mix) (1:29)
14. The Mine (Alternate) (1:33)
15. Options (Alternate) (:57)
16. Options (Alternate Mix) (:58)
17. Data & B-4 (Alternate) (1:39)
18. Battle Stations (Alternate Mix) (2:44)
19. Attack Pattern (Alternate Mix) (2:24)
20. True Nature (Alternate Mix) (1:30)
21. A New Ending (Alternate) (6:11)
22. Director And Composer (2:35)

So the only movie left without a complete soundtrack now is Into Darkness, which is also in the hands of Varèse Sarabande. I hope it comes soon! In the mean time there is a little Into Darkness music news I've yet to report. A little while ago (back in September in fact!), John Tenuto let me know that after a little delay from the CD and digital release in May, the promised vinyl release of the Into Darkness soundtrack has indeed become a reality. As far as I can tell this is the first Star Trek film soundtrack release on vinyl since The Final Frontier, all the way back in 1989!

In other Star Trek music news, Star Trek Soundtracks list three forthcoming releases from La La Land Records. They suggest still to come this year (although maybe that has slipped by now), will be a follow up the 2011 TNG soundtrack collection, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 2. While in 2014 they are anticipating soundtrack collections for the music of Voyager and Enterprise as well.

Painting starships, with Bye Bye Robot's Charity Wood

Bye Bye Robot recently released their first ever Star Trek: Enterprise print, and the artist, Bye Bye Robot's co-founder, Charity Wood, was kind enough to tell me all about it, and share a look behind the scenes:

Before you tell me about your latest piece, could you tell me a bit about you as an artist, and Bye Bye Robot. How did you came to create the world of Star Trek art the robot brings us?

I'd be happy to. I'm one of those people who picked up pencils and paint-brushes as (little more than) a toddler and then never put them down again. I've been making art as long as I can remember, so when it came time to choose school and career, art was the obvious choice. I've also been a sci-fi fan as long as I can remember, and as soon as Star Trek: The Next Generation hit the small screen, I was hooked. Fast forward to some years later, after working in several art fields and absorbing as much Star Trek as I possibly could, I realized that I wanted to have Star Trek art on my walls but couldn't find what I was looking for. The natural thing for me to do seemed to be...create Star Trek art for myself. So, that's what I did. My first Star Trek painting was the painting named "NCC-1701" and I just kept going from there. After I began receiving complements from friends I started to think that maybe others would enjoy these paintings too, and kaboom! Bye Bye, Robot was born! It took a bit of time, working through the legal side of things with CBS, but finally we made it and launched the shop. We ramped up our artwork offerings slowly so we could grow organically with the business, and now we work with almost a dozen artists, and are adding new art prints on a regular basis. Our next step, on the horizon, will be to branch out and begin incorporating more genres and licenses to our gallery.

Your latest piece features the NX-01, and is Bye Bye Robot's first Enterprise-inspired design. How did you go about bringing this one to life? Were there any particular challenges, or things you enjoyed, about depicting the first starship Enterprise?

Since painting "NCC-1701" and "Boldly Go" it's always been my intention to continue my ship series adding many more well known Star Trek ships to the roster. The Enterprise NX-01 was always on the list, but when we saw that Scott Bakula was going to be attending the Austin Comic Con last month (which happened to be right in our neck of the woods) I got giddily inspired and began focusing on that one, in particular. I pretty much worked on it non-stop till it was finished, and got it done just in time to bring its prints with us to that convention. Yay!

You ask about the challenges and enjoyment of painting my first Enterpise focused piece. The answer to both sides of that coin is the same...detail. Huge amounts of detail! I never realized how detailed that ship was compared to the "later" versions of her. The NX-01 has so many tiny parts and hull plates. There are so many seams and outlines that I needed to keep clear. Oh...that's another thing...my style. I'll give you the short version. I begin my paintings on a black canvas, so the outlines that you see are unlike "typical" outlines that are put on lastly over top of an image. My "outlines" are actually unpainted areas that have to remain totally unpainted during the entire process, so that the black canvas shows through. You can think of it as a kind of reverse painting. So, knowing that, painting something with a lot of detail...and a lot of lines...takes quite a bit longer than not. The detail in the NX-01 was both challenging and zen-like. I found that when I wasn't cursing my hand for making a near miss of a stroke, I was fully absorbed in the work and completely unaware of my surroundings. I found that balance of emotions quite enjoyable. In fact, the overall experience of concentrating on that amount of detail has influenced my next choice of subjects. I will be tackling intricate detain again in the near future.

Charity also sent me a couple of behind the scenes photos, showing how her NX-01 came together. So here's how that "reverse painting" works. Doesn't the ship look nice in black!

Continue after the jump for more from Charity, discussing some of her other pieces, and plans for the future:

Latest Round 2 box art

Star Trek Argentina has posted new box art for two forthcoming starship model kits from Round 2 Models. Due out this month is the latest re-issue of the AMT 1:1400 scale USS Enterprise-E model kit. The kit was first released in 1997 has had several re-releases over the years, the most recent being Round 2's first reissue back in 2009. The 2013 edition features new artwork by John Eaves:

Also revealed is the new box art for Round 2's re-release of the the 1:420 scale USS Defiant kit. According to Memory Alpha this one was first released in 1996, and hasn't seen a reissue since 1997! The new release is apparently due in February:

Thanks to my reader Alex Sz for pointing me towards these.

Review: The Official Starships Collection #6 - USS Voyager

Out in the UK a month or so ago, and due in a couple of weeks in the US, is issue six of The Official Starships Collection, the Intrepid class USS Voyager. Here are my thoughts on the model and magazine, as well as the subscriber "gift" Enterprise-D dedication plaque which I also got with this issue's shipment:

I really like this model; with the arrow-head design just making it look like its always going somewhere, I find the most irresistibly swooshable ship of the series so far. However it does have a couple niggling issues that stop being quite as impressive a model as most of the others in the series.

The biggest downside of the model is the odd inconsistency between the top and bottom. The top side of the saucer, and the upper spine of the engineering section are the metal component of this model. While the underside the saucer, the rest of engineering, and the nacelles are all plastic. The plastic parts of this ship are amazing! Every panel line, phaser strip, escape pod and hatch is very finely molded, with painted sections further picking out details. In contrast the upper metal sections of the ship have quite ill-defined edges on the molded details; it seems almost out of focus in comparison. Even with the same sort of detailing picked out with the painted sections, the paint just doesn't look as good on the less defined surfaces. That's not to say the metal parts are bad per se; if the whole model had that finish it would still look like a very good model of the USS Voyager, but the plastic sections are just so much better, the contrast is quite jarring. I find it particularly odd, when Eaglemoss have already demonstrated on other ships that they are capable of producing very fine details on the metal parts of their models.

The other unfortunate detail in the construction of this ship is the join between the metal and plastic components. Eaglemoss have generally been really good when it comes to hiding joins; if you're looking for them you'll be able to find them, but they're normally quite discretely placed. It's not worked as well as usual with one join on Voyager though, which has quite a noticeable zig-zag on either side of the engineering hull where there is a notched step in the metal section. It's a a problem common to many renditions of Voyager over the years; the flowing curved shape of Voyager is not especially forgiving to the limitations of molding techniques. From many angles this isn't an especially noticeable detail, but it is quite obvious from the side.

While certainly not the best ship in the series so far, it's still a really good model overall. It's also really sturdy; thanks to Voyager's design being a bit less spindly than the other Starfleet ships so far released, the model overall feels a lot more solid, and a lot less like you're likely to snap a bit off. Which also helps with that excellent swooshablity it has.

I've only owned one other model of Voyager before, a tiny snap-together Revell model kit. This model is a huge improvement on that little ship, but how does it compare to other renditions of Voyager? Well, at a similar scale we have many of the usual suspects: Johnny Lightning and Furuta have both released similar sized models before, while Hallmark have done a comparable Christmas decoration. As best I can tell, Eaglemoss have once again topped them all, with much more carefully created details; the features on all the other comparable sized models seem to be much more exaggerated.

The Johnny Lightning version does have one notable edge: It features moveable warp nacelles, so you can recreate Voyager's warp-jumps. Eaglemoss have noted before that adding such features would make the models more expensive, so I'm willing to accept a well made model in place of a play-function. It undoubtedly looks better too, models that include moveable nacelles (Johnny Lighting, Playmates, and Micro Machines) all had to compromise the design of the ship in order to accommodate the hinge mechanisms.

Another Johnny Lightning release of Voyager includes landing gear, which is fun, but not something I'd want sticking out permanently.

Other than a well-made model kit, this version of Voyager is undoubtedly the best to be released so far. Looking around at those previous releases, they're all pretty expensive on the secondary markets now too. With DST not exactly enthusiastic about releasing a new large toy Voyager either, if you're a Voyager fan, this is a model you need to get!

Continue after the jump for a few more photos of the model, plus a look at the magazine, and the subscriber dedication plaque.

New Hot Wheels Star Trek cars

Hot Wheels will be continuing to release Star Trek toys in 2014, but maybe not in the form you expected. Star Trek themed cars will be included in Hot Wheels' "Pop Culture" range next year. Designs based on Star Trek Gold Key Comics will be joining the electric collection of Hot Wheels cars featuring artwork from popular films, TV series, comics and food brands. T-Hunted (in two articles, here and here) have posted images of six different Star Trek designs, each focusing on a different TOS character. You can see all six below, continuing after the jump:

December's retro prints

StarTrek.com have revealed the seventeen set of four print in Juan Ortiz's retro TOS series. They also posted their usual commentary from Ortiz on each design, highlights of which you'll find below:

The Changeling

The image derived from the opening scene where Nomad fires upon the Enterprise. I wanted Nomad to take on a more human-like form. The antennas here work as arms, while his body is removed so that I can add speed-lines. It gave me a sort of "super-villain" feel to it, so I added the copy.

Errand of Mercy
Speaking about how the Klingon battlecruiser ended up ingeniously used as a sword hilt, Ortiz noted:

It was initially a sword stabbing the planet. But as most fans know, that is the symbol for the Federation in the Mirror universe. So the challenge was to make it Klingon.

Return to Tomorrow

I again turned to Russian posters for my inspiration and I had always wanted to try placing an eye within the Enterprise hull, simply as a design element. The stripes are a recurring element within Russian posters.

The Deadly Years

The attempt was more of the implication of Death, looming over the Enterprise as Kirk and some of his crew rapidly aged.

The usual T-shirts and glasses featuring the designs have also been previewed. Continue after the jump for a look at those:

New Schedules and Guides page

Eagle-eyed regular readers may have notice a slight change to the link bar at the top of the site. I have added a "Schedules and Guides" page, which acts as an index for all my schedule and guide pages. Less current links, the 2012 schedule, and the Into Darkness guide, have been removed from the bar, but can still be found via the new page, along with all the more active resources.

I hope all the pages there continue to be useful resources for you all.

Attack Wing expansion ships, wave 2 and beyond

Out this month is wave two of Wizkids' expansions for the Attack Wing miniatures game. Each of the four packs in the wave consists of one miniature ship, and a set of related cards to modify your game play. The four ships in this wave are the USS Excelsior (Federation Excelsior class), IKS Koraga (Klingon K'Vort class bird of prey), RIS Vo (Romulan scout ship), and the Koranak (Cardassian Keldon class). Here's what they look like all packaged up:

Wizkids have previewed each of the ships, including details of all the included cards. You can find out all about them here: Excelsior, Koraga, Vo, and Koranak. UPDATE: Board Game Geek have also posted the images below, showing the full contents of each expansion:

These four new ships join the initial starter set and wave of eight individual ships, and the previous expansion wave of four. At least three more waves are planned for release next year. As I've previously reported, wave three, due in February will consist of the USS Equinox (Federation Nova class), IKS Somraw (Klingon Raptor class), Gal Gaththong (Romulan bird of prey), and the Dominion: 4th Division Battleship.

After this, wave four, expected in April, will be Voyager themed, including the USS Voyager (Federation Intrepid class), Species 8472 Bioship Alpha, a Kazon Nistrim Raider, and Borg Sphere 4270. I found the computer rendered images of these on Hobby Figure's Facebook page:

Wave five has also been solicited already! Devir posted details of this set of ships, which are due out in June. There will be just three this time: A Bajoran Interceptor, Vulcan D'kyr class, and a big Borg Tactical Cube: