GREAT NEWS!! The Phase II Enterprise has been created in 1:500 by artist David Shaw! The even better news is that David is speaking with famed artist Jim Key about the possibility of kitting this fantastic piece to be in scale with the 1:537 models already in existence! This scratch build is BEAUTIFUL! Outstanding work David!

PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT DAVID or JIM ABOUT THIS. MODELER MAGIC WILL KEEP EVERYONE INFORMED AS NEWS AVAILS ITSELF!!

I’ve pretty much finished my study model of the Phase II Enterprise. This model represents a good approximation of what Matt Jefferies had intended the Phase II Enterprise to look like. This model differs from the studio model in a number of areas (where the studio model was different from Jefferies designs), so I’ll be going back and researching the studio model next to document it and do my best to figure out how it would have looked had Brick Price and Don Loos been able to finish it for the series pilot.

I’d like to do a larger model with internal lighting, but I’m not sure if that model would be based more on the Price/Loos studio model at this point.

And throughout the building of this model people kept asking for a kit version. While I make masters and molds to create final parts for my models, none of them are anywhere close to being kit-friendly. And I have no means for putting together a production setup for such a venture, so I hadn’t really taken the idea too seriously.

That changed when Jim Key contacted me asking if I’d be interested in his company making a kit of the design. I’d make the masters and he’d make molds and the parts for the kit. That made it all seem a lot more plausible. So once I finish drawing up my final plans of (Jefferies’) Phase II Enterprise I’ll find out from Jim what I’d need to build (and how) to work with his process for making kits.

The kit might end up being 1/535 (or 1/537) scale to match the AMT/ERTL/Round 2 models of the TMP Enterprise, Reliant and Cutaway TOS Enterprise (which I guess they are going to re-release soon). And Jim said we might be able to cast the major parts in clear so lighting the kit would be pretty easy.

But for now there is just the one model, and I thought you might like seeing some early images of it. These were taken to help me get a feel for how the design looks in camera (and how the model holds up in images). Hope you like them.

Thanks,
David