For the benefit of everyone else, I wasn't actually attacking Azel or WZ for the B-10, and since I don't want to start to leave anything that could be construed as unpleasant, I think I should explain my earlier comment...
I knew Azel would understand my disquiet, and as he said - we've discussed aesthetics on many occasions and we pretty much know where we stand on certain issues (I'll say no more on warp nacelles
). In fact most of the time we agree, and come up with similar ideas, because we tend to share a similar aesthetic taste. Azel, arguaby showcases his beautiful organic designs better than anyone else and better than I ever will - and I doubt I'll ever reach the point where I can even sniff WZ's modelling and texturing prowess.
Anyway, as for my particular opinion of this particular model, I HAD to post, because it is unique, in that this is the ONLY design I've ever seen either from WZ or Azel that I've actually loathed. As I pointed out, my original post would have highlighted my reasoning in greater detail, but when I re-read it, I felt it was just too negative and frankly could have been construed as inflamatory - neither of which would have been helpful nor desirable - so I changed it...
Now for the benefit of others, about my personal ideal on Klingon design... form is as important as function. This IS a personal ideal and you're free to disagree, but if you look at what we've seen of Klingon culture so far, you might understand why: the weapons, the architecture, the ships, the glyphs of their writing, even their cultural crests - all stem from a common aesthetic - clean, sweeping lines and hard edges - simple, elegant, functional and menacing. For me, this is what is lacking in the B-10... there are certainly the lines and edges, but these are interupted and give a disjointed appearance. There is too much going on in one small space and the elegance is stolen. Rather than appear menacing, she appears awkward and clumsy. Now, for a race of warriors, it is surely important that intimidation of foes is an essential aspect of any warfare, so this awkwardness is clearly not in their best interest. The psychological aspect of catching sight of one or more of their ships on your tail is clearly an important one. Even in our own culture this is true - size alone is not the critical factor in intimation - or else we'd all be scared of everyday things like buses or multi-storey buildings. Menace is designed in. It's may not necessarily be a conscious decision, but it is often there... In our airforces, the fighters tend to emulate the shapes of fast avian predators - now if you think about that, you'll mostly find that throughout (natural) history, these predatory forms are stripped down to the bare essentials to enhance their function - hunting. It could be argued that in our airforces this is can be mostly pegged to aerodynamics, but since these designs progressively emulate nature to various degrees, these shapes are ones that a great deal of lifeforms naturally identify with predation and therefore link directly to the notion of threat, danger and intimidation. Now if we look at more mundane things like cars - again this should be evident. Someone mentioned the likes of Ferrari etc... here again form reflects function and I'm sure you'll agree, common emotive descriptors for sports type cars are 'mean' or 'fierce', both descriptors of intimidation and fear. However, in addition, there is a strong notion of beauty and desirability - which links again to the notion of elegance... I could go and on and bore you silly (or confuse you with my overly prosaic explanation), but you can see that I've actually thought about what it is I don't like, and why I feel this way about this particular design - it's much more than a 'this sucks'.
In balance, I must admit, that based on the more hideous original source material , this is a well constructed model and beautifully textured to WZ's usual high standard - and so, I respectfully tip my hat to you both!!
MajorRacal
PS - WZ/Azel keep 'em coming,..
PPS - Azel, I finish working on Wednesday so I'll catch you over the holidays for another marathon blether - but I still have homework and four case studies to do for before my Hypnotherapy exam in mid January, so my time will likely be limited.
Topic: A Klingon Khristmas (Read 7340 times)