Let me start this off with a
BIG FAT [censored] DISCLAIMER, okay?
PLEASE READ!!!
- I am not a modeler, and I have no sketches or designs to show to "prove my credentials". I'm gonna state my opinion about this sort of thing anyway.
- This post is NOT a veiled insult or comment about anybody's models. I'm just drinkin' a beer and chillin', and I thought I'd go on at length about my opinion on something, and since I don't feel like one of the usual "War in the Middle East" posts over in the OT forum tonight, I'm gonna post about kitbashing. Variety is the spice of life, y'know?
- I'm bored, drinking, and not sleepy yet, so this might be long. Tough. Besides, what else do you guys expect from me by now?
Now that
that's out of the way, lemme get started on my little rant. <Turling cracks knuckles...>
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First off, guys, let me avoid offending the folks who kitbash by saying that I have nothing against it
per se, and my SFC shiplist file has kitbash models that others have created. I'll cite Mackie's ships as being some fine kitbashed designs. Kitbashing has precedent in Star Trek - the first being, I believe, the
Hermes-class Scout,
Saladin-class Destroyer and
Ptolemy-class Tug. The
Coventry and
Surya class ships (I don't know when they originated) seem to be popular designs, and deservedly so; they not only show the TOS origins of the
Reliant, they're attractive, functional-looking designs in their own right. Besides, who doesn't love the
Reliant design?
There's even precedence for kitbashing in the real world - what in the world is an F-82 Twin Mustang, if not a kitbash of a P-51 Mustang?
F-82 Mustang (foreground), in formation with a P-51 Mustang (background). 
I've also heard of a twinned version of the Messerschmitt 323
Gigant, a German WWII transport derived from a huge glider, and I've heard of proposals for twinned versions of the C-5 Galaxy and the 747. So not everything is a brand-new, from scratch design, of course. There's no reason why Starfleet couldn't have decided to develop a few new classes of ship based on the obviously successful
Constitution class.
Kitbashing becomes a problem, however, when common sense takes a vacation and the designer either indulges his imagination to such and extent that he ceases to acknowledge considerations of aesthetics, practicality and good design, or else uses mix'n'matching parts
instead of imagination. It's not real tough to take a
Constitution class primary hull, create some mostrosity and call it a secondary hull, hang X number of
Constitution class warp engines on it, and call it a new ship. That is,
unless you do it right and think about what's going to look right and what isn't. As I say, some people do it right and others don't.
But there's a limit, right? The original
Constitution heavy cruiser being spun off into a destroyer - the
Saladin - was stretching the concept as far as it can go. But, I've seen designs for battleships, battlecruisers - which are
not supposed to be bigger and better cruisers, by the way - light cruisers, destroyers, frigates - which are
not troop assault ships, whatever the guys at FASA thought - carriers and corvettes, all designed using parts from the TOS
Constitution design, the TMP
Constitution, or else the
Excelsior or
Galaxy designs. Wouldn't it look a little absurd to see a gigantic battleship designed with a saucer hull just like the one on the
Enterprise being escorted by a few little frigates, which
also have that same design of primary hull, except that the battleships' primary hull is about twice as wide as the frigate is from bow to stern? If the windows on the frigate were proper size, the ones on the battleship would be huge f*ckin' monstrous picture windows. Silly.
Now that I've gotten that out, don't you want to see just what the hell sparked all that hot air? Well, take a look at this:
K'ehleyko class Troop Cruiser 
Need I say more?
Here is a link to the picture, and
here is a link to the home page at that site. HUGE numbers of ships on display by a bazillion different people, but you folks sift through those designs and then try and tell me that 95% of the guys designing those things weren't either blind or on crack. The
K'ehleyko stood out as being singularly absurd, but there's no shortage of just plain ugly design to be had. Some of the things look like the
Enterprise got its secondary hull replaced by a huge block of LEGOs stuck together at random. Yeesh.
Like I say, I'm not writing this stuff just to bust on somebody's work for cruel thrills - well, maybe a little - but rather for these even better reasons:
- I'm bored...
- ...I'm drinking...
- ...and I'm not sleepy yet.
Much more admirable reasons, right?
Topic: I feel like ranting about kitbashes, and nobody can stop me! (Read 7699 times)