Okay, I've gone back over it and absorbed it further, and I've broken down my comment by area. The sawtooth on the secondary hull has grown on me. I think its the darker parts that come back to the center-line is what helps. Also, I think that the fact that it follows the contour of the secondary hull perfectly works well, too.
That was the area I did first before shelving the project for a month, and probably the area that I was most happy with on the model, the next area being the engines. it was also where I had based the appearnce of the ship from, it was well working on the engines I started the over all change from the secondary hull look. It was also something I probably should not have done as I think you hit it on the head as to were things started to look not quite there. Over all the quality came out good, but yes there are two distinct patterns and I should have stayed with one.
think the over all look is still good, but I see your point pretty much on how I should have stayed to one idea.
The sawtooths on the top of the saucer don't work for me. I feel like it breaks its own lines, repeatedly. I think that the first (forward most) step is good - even make it a bit steeper, and then it goes in a straight or slightly bowed (either in or out) curve to the edge of the saucer. I can produce an image if you need.
Nope, I know what you are talking about as I was trying to blend a look. I was trying to get the top if you looked down at the ship to flow from middle of the saucer all the way down to the shuttle bay. I also wanted to follow the contours of the bridge and moved to a gray-green base with a green top look. So the dark area flowed out and then sucked in so to speak, should have just followed the brdge area for the effect to work right instead of getting overly ambishious. Good point I did add the hull pattern to it and should have left it to its own saw tooth pattern like I did on the secondary hull, and made the saucer pattern match up were it need to.
The bottom of the saucer is the same as the top.
No not really the pattern is the same but it was meant to match the work on the neck. It is closer to say the lower saucer was meant match the neck and be break away armour plates for a seperation. The top should have had its own pattern, and not matched the bottom. The lower part should be used to tie the neck and saucer together, the top should be a stand alone area.
The top of the neck, the jury is still out, but I'm leaning on not liking it. Again, it kinda confuses the lines, criss crossing them repeatedly.
Think if I had left grayish area solid and not applied the hull lines it would have worked better. The neck hull lines could have been easily made to adapt to the saw pattern. Again it suffers from the same problem as the top the saucer bowl curves up and then the outer area slopes in and then out. Think the saw areas suffer from the change in angle, and would work better on a standard Connie for that area.
The front of the nacelle, is eh. I didn't notice it at first. I would say just have one step but make it slightly bigger.
That one I think is ok as it matches the ratio on the saucer top. Plus the area it occupies starts to strech a bit on the curves their not much but it blurs the lines and I wanted a clean look there. There was no way to fix it or remap it to make it work, and I did not want the gray area any farther back. The TNG one allowed a different solution to the area and the better look for the engine front.
Over all you are correct in your observations I went from hull pattern to a painted on pattern somewhere while working on it. Don't know why I did that unless that break I took made me change my mind on how I want to continue to work on it. Will have to keep an eye out for that on the next version I do. I think the look still works as they do blend in well enough to hide most of what you saw, you really have to work at it to see things like that.