Trekkin’ at Wonderfest Hobby Expo 2015

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Phoenix and Washington D.C. weren’t the only spots to get your geek on last weekend. Star Trek was represented loud and proud at Wonderfest 2015 in Louisville, Kentucky over the weekend. Learn more about this scale modeling and collectibles convention and get an update on Round 2’s plans for Star Trek models over the remainder of this year after the jump.

WONDERFEST AT 26
The 2015 installment of Wonderfest was the twenty-sixth gathering of scale modeling enthusiasts from around the country to gather in Louisville, Kentucky. Tens of thousands of model kits and collectables from virtually every science fiction, fantasy, and horror franchise were available, as well as real life military and aviation models. In addition, guests from various franchises were involved. While the principal guests this year were not related to the Trek franchise, members of the cast and crew of Star Trek: Phase II/New Voyages were present, screening their most recent release, “Mind Sifter”.

UPDATES FROM ROUND 2 ON TREK MODELING
Round 2 Models, the official domestic licensee for Star Trek scale models, was present at Wonderfest, sharing some of their upcoming releases. In addition to the Romulan Bird-of-Prey due out in June, several other items were in evidence.

First, a line of miniature display stands to accompany the Cadet Series of 1:2500 scale models is now shipping to hobby shops. These stands are single piece stands, sold in a pack of 3, and molded in glossy black plastic. While they probably won’t be able to hold the weight of, say, the Enterprise-C, -D, or -E in 1:2500 scale, they should work well with all the TOS and Movie era ships, as well as the Defiant and Galor class kits currently available.

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Second, a new series called Ships of the Line is due out this summer. These models are fully painted and detailed, and only require a few snaps to produce a nice 1:2500 representation of some of Star Trek’s iconic ships. Four vessels are being offered out of the gate: the Original Enterprise, the Defiant, the Reliant, and the Klingon Battlecruiser from the movie era. All four include their own display stand. These would be perfect for young children who have never built a model before.

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Third, Round 2 is re-releasing the long out of production 1:537 scale Cutaway Enterprise. Other than a slight re-engineering to allow for the use of the standard Polar Lights dome base, no significant changes have been made to the physical model itself. This kit should be shipping over the next few months to hobby shops.

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Finally, the major news out of Wonderfest this year is that Round 2 is working on a release of the USS Excelsior in 1:1000 scale. The Excelsior was originally released in the early 1990’s, but the molds were modified when the Enterprise-B was kitted in conjunction with Star Trek: Generations. As such, Round 2 will be re-engineering the kit. They hope to include options to build the ships as seen in Star Trek III or in Star Trek VI, and to improve several highly inaccurate parts of the kit. No firm release date was given, but the hope is to have it shipping by Christmas. This news is sure to please scale modelers who have been looking for the Excelsior to return to the catalog for many years.

MODELING ON DISPLAY
Many Trek fans shared their modeling skills in the Amazing Model Contest. An entire ballroom of the best in vehicles, figures, dioramas, and other models kept attendees’ attention raptured for hours on end. Several amazing Star Trek builds were present.

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New Voyages Special Screening
As a special Trek treat, the cast and crew of Star Trek Phase II was on hand at Wonderfest for a meet and greet plus a special screening of their newest episode Mind Sifter.

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I am drooling over all the models. I may need a bib. Some seriously awesome work there.

I wonder how many attended the Kentucky Trekby?

I wish there was a central website that would list all the places trek was going to be at so I could plan in advance.

Nice Show! Any plans to take it on the road?

Can you build those models a little bigger, say 1 : 1 ?

A 1:1 Enterprise model would be most excellent. No idea where I’d put it, though :P

I love seeing these models. Even before my disability I was not able to do models well. Now its out of the question. Its way to expensive to pay some one to build one.

If they’re retooling the model to make a 1:1000 Excelsior, I guess another run at the Enterprise B is out of the question. C’est dommage.

Love the NCC-2505 and the NCC-9701

All those models look amazing!

All of those are 15 kinds of awesome!

The Wonderfest show and staff are based in Louisville, Ky, so that ‘s the only location where the show will continue to operate. I’m sure that the 50th anniversary of Trek will be celebrated at next year’s show. How do I know? I’ve been assisting with the show for 26 years. Here’s to 26 more!

Starships! Hooray!

I liked the Ticonderoga best. Nice saucer design.

The robot girl @ top right aint bad either. ; )

@ 14. TrekMadeMeWonder – June 9, 2015

“I liked the Ticonderoga best. Nice saucer design.”

The crew was really nice, too. I remember when they violated the temporal Prime Directive just to beam pencils down to my kindergarten classroom.

CBS booth at recen tLicensing Expo in Vegas:

http://jimhillmedia.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer-Blogs-Components-WeblogFiles-00-00-00-00-03/5355.Vegas_2D00_L21.jpg_2D00_500x0.jpg

I wonder what the story’s behind the movie NCC-1701-A looming over it? I mean if that’s a CBS licensed product then their Trek merchandising is farther afield than I ever imagined.

Likely it’s a simple matter of the 1701-A being the most recognizable version of the Enterprise from Star Trek’s long history. It was used from 1979 until 1991, a total of 12 years.

TOS Enterprise: 1966-1969, 3 years
TOS Enterprise (Refit): 1979-1991, 12 years
TNG Enterprise-D: 1987-1994, 7 years
TNG Enterprise-E: 1996-2002, 6 years
ENT Enterpise-NX: 2001-2005, 4 years

So the TOS-refit is by far the model with the longest association to Star Trek, almost double the next longest-tenured. It’s also used in a lot of other generic Star Trek merchandising.

Anyway, that’s my guess.

17. Disinvited

Nah. Media seems to never get that ship design correct.

Even that Enterprise does not appear to be correct. Especially the primary hull’s saucer edge window layouts.

I wonder how much they ever enforce their copyrights. Unless it’s a fan film.

#18. TrekMadeMeWonder – June 10, 2015

In another thread, I realized that original designs for the upgraded Enterprise actually originated in the Phase II TV production of the 70s which actually would give CBS more claim on that design than I originally knee-jerked thought.

As for copyrights, I think Disney’s made it pretty hard to lose those but trademarks still have to be fiercely guarded against for if the trademark words can be shown to enter into common generic usage it can be something easily lost.

Phase II, good point!

@NFXStudios

The refit Enterprise/Enterprise-A:

BEST VERSION OF THE ENTERPRISE! :-) EVER!

That version of the Enterprise just screamed “Majestic”. It was just an awesome design that has stood the test of time.

@Chain of Command

Agreed 100%

The original series version comes a close second, but the refit is one of the best space ship designs of all time, period. Such an elegant and extremely well-detailed piece, both in terms of little details like hatches and running lights and paint scheme.

#22. Chain of Command – June 10, 2015 , 23. NFXstudios – June 11, 2015

And, if I am not mistaken, not only is the refit that but Matt Jeffries’ original suggestions for the refit were incorporated into the complete ship Mike Minor sketched. So it has a nice pedigree as well.

Wasn’t the refit designed by Andy Probert?

# 25. NFXstudios – June 12, 2015

Wasn’t the refit designed by Andy Probert?

That Probert had access to and was working with the previous Mike Minor artwork is fairly easy to establish. From this archive backup of Probert’s own web site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110829055133/http://www.probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/CargoBay-1.html

“Thoughts on the new Enterprise cargo decks were already visualized by Star Trek veteran, Mike Minor, before I had a chance to address it. He was working on the Paramount lot while I was at the Robert Abel (Special Effects) facility designing various pieces of space hardware.

And here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100212011239/http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/P-2_Enterprise.html

you can see that while they couldn’t use the 4 foot Phase II model and had to build a new bigger one the Phase II clearly influenced their designs, i.e. it was his starting point. While the physical movie model itself was built from scratch, the art and design of it clearly was not.

Cool. I knew of the development of Phase II and have of course seen photos of the design for that show, and their similarity to the eventual model used in TMP. I had never actually read too far into the Phase II design process before. Neat info.

Did Polar Lights have any materials or announcements regarding their proposed larger scale AND accurate Galileo Shuttlecraft?

For news and updates on Round2 models, visit Round2.com and click on the “Blog” button. Once the blog page appears, click on “Star Trek” in
the right pane.