Amberwolf's Comfy Den

My "Avatar"

One of my CD advertising logos

Probably my favorite and longest-standing custom Trek ship design. This came about originally by me tossing a bunch of broken model parts into a box to put away for later repair, after a cat of my niece's had it's way with the ones hanging from my cieling when I was a kid. I tossed a piece of an F14 model (the section from just behind the front landing gear to just in front of the end of the wing joints) in and it landed upside down on an Enterprise saucer section. My twisted brain said "AHA!!" and I began the mental trip that ended with the design you see here, after much kit-bashing over the years, and finally deciding to build it in CG instead.

My most recent and ongoing project ship, named Cahokia by the UFP, partial side view. This is my personal favorite of my ship designs at the moment, although it's carrier Chii is a close second.

Cahokia, 3/4 front view.

The original version of the "good guys" ship that later became the Cahokia. In this incarnation it was a huge space liner; the Cahokia version is *much* smaller, as you can see by the relative window sizes and amounts. This is an Aft Elevation.

This is a Forward Elevation of it.

This is a Port Elevation of it

This is an Upper Plan of it

This is an Upper Port Aft of it

This is an Upper Port Forward of it

This was a frame from a test shot of one of the explosions in the video, as the original version was torpedoed.

A later frame from the same shot.

A virtual set for use with the TNG transporter below.

This TNG Transporter by Brian Gillies and I is a replica the two of us felt like building, both as an experiment to see what it would turn out like, and to impress all the people at Westercon45 (which it did). The console has been signed by James Doohan on one end, and I keep wanting to get it to a con Colm Meaney would be at, but haven't managed to so far, to get the other end signed.
It has been played around with at Westercon45 by Rick Sternbach (who surprisingly enough actually remembered it and me after a few years, when I ran into him via email a couple of years back!). He kept going back to it and making his own sound effects, beaming people around, etc. It was pretty funny, actually, watching the Senior Illustrator/designer for much of Trek (and a space artist I've admired since I was a kid!) having fun like that with something I helped build. Somebody should have some video tape and/or pix of that, but I still haven't snagged me a copy yet.

A virtual set for use with the TOS transporter below.

This TOS Transporter was built by the UFP as a whole, back in the late 70's, and has been refurbished at least twice (I only helped with the refurbishment, not the original construction).

This is the (relatively) tiny sailpod from a ramjet/solar sail design I have yet to finish. You can see the radial array of cable reels to control the tilt of the sail, whose edge is also the ramjet's magnetic control ring. The idea is that the sail will accelerate the ship to ramjet speeds, then the sail is retracted into the edge of the ring in segments, and the ramjet activated. Once it decelerates near it's destination star too closely for the ramjet to be effective anymore, the sail is unfurled and can be used to assist control of gravity-slingshot maneuvers to either send it on it's way to the next star if there's nothing there to probe, or put it in orbit around the star if there is.

More shots of the sailpod.

This is a carrier (currently named Chii) for up to six Cahokia-type ships, to enable repairs, refueling, recreation, etc. It also contains the jumpdrive (the large generator panels are focused on the jump point source) for all of them, since by themselves, the Cahokia-type ships are only local in-system vessels, not capable of truly long-distance travel.

Here you can see the Cahokia exiting from the forward hangar.

More shots of the carrier, as it passes us, with the outer armored areas facing us. There are no windows on this side because the jump point begins pulling matter towards it quite intensely during formation, and the micrometeoroids and dust particles could cause a hull breach if there were no armor facing them. Besides, who wants to clean all that off their windows in a space suit?.

A long shot of the not-yet-completed carrier.

More shots of the carrier, close up on the forward hanger with Cahokia exiting.

A long forward shot of the whole carrier.

A long side shot of the whole carrier.

An intermediate version of what became Cahokia, with attempts to model the rooms inside the ship. Cakohia is a much finer version of this ship. I've actually modelled each of these from scratch each time, and there are several other intermediate versions that were never even completed enough to render, due to major design or modelling changes. This version was about mid-way in size difference between Cahokia and the original; the size changes came about due to changes in the script after modelling had begun.

More shots of the cruiser.

A virtual elevator set for Cahokia, from the doors. The arrow indicators are animated to see the lights moving behind them, to indicate direction of travel. Panels on the wall include communications, elevator systems status, etc.

A view from the back toward the doors.

A frame from one of the Cahokia's bridge stations, displaying one of it's 'artificial horizon' indicators.

A logo I've used for my musical endeavors, Opporknockity Tunes Studios, Uninked.

An experiment in TrueSpace2 for the 3d CGI elements (moon, columns), and PaintShopPro4 for the compositing with some elements from Hubble photos and hand-painted elements. I just wanted some interesting wallpaper at the time.

This was made for one of my old black-backgrounded Geocities webpages, which was taken down when Yahoo took over and attempted to claim all site content for their own by changing the terms of service, and forcing us all to agree to them to even access the site to take it down. I hope Yahoo dies a very agonizing death for all the shysters involved.

A silly logo for a fictional CPU. I still keep forgetting to print it out and stick it on my case.

This is a frame from the animation below, which was created when Paramount/Viacom was hunting down all the webpages that even referenced anything to do with Star Trek, and sending them letters to take it all down or pay up for usage of trademarked material; even pages that were just things that said "I like Star Trek". It was going to be a logo people could put up for free to protest the assimilation of all things trek by Paramount and the ViaBorg. The only part that isn't there is the final insertion of the Viacom and Paramount logos (or recognizable variations thereof) on the Borg Cube as it turns toward you.

The full animation. You have been assimilated.

A logo made for the Coppercon21 webpage.

A silly attempt at using USGS and NASA maps at planetary surfaces, along with a little creative editing to add MoonBase Alpha to Copernicus.

This was my first render in TrueSpace2, other than the tutorials.

This is the cover of my Uncommon Ground CD, which you can find snippets of music from at Opporknockity Tunes

Another graphic for the defunct Geocities page.

A joke membership card I made a long long time ago (this is a recreation using MSPaint, since I can't find the original actual laminated card I drew).
Panel of Silliness
This is a flash-created program I made that just runs a simulated display panel for a bridge set, goes with the meatball display up a few items above.

Sketches

"Amber II over GNoenIst", a pen-and-ink rendition of the ship in the top CGI shot on this page, from long before my PC days.

A more recent design study for the Cahokia.

A recent design study for the Chii carrier rendered above.

More views of the study.

A version of Chii I didn't build yet.

More views of the second version.

Some ships playing 'tag' inside a huge station, from a story I started but never finished. It's autographed by Nichelle Nichols, because at the moment I had the opportunity to get the autograph, I had nothing else with me!

Another view of that station, from some time later. I included the TNG Enterprise as a size reference, although I dont' know why since it's not in the Trek universe.

A design we never used for the UFP t-shirts. A variation with a phoenix instead of cacti was decided upon and used instead.

A very old sketch of a model I built from the back end of an F14 Tomcat (more parts from the model described at the top of this page. I got a lot of mileage out of the F14!).

A very silly sketch from late high school

The world of the aliens in the station sketches above.

A sketch of an ad made for the DeVry student paper in 1988. Scans of the paper itself will be up here eventually.

A bad sketch from early highschool of a battle in Star Blazers, which I didn't yet know at the time was the second anime I had seen (Speed Racer was the first, which I didn't find out was anime Mach Go Go Go until a few years ago)

A 'tour guide' sketch, in colored pencil I think. Also from highschool.

Models

This pic was taken for me at PhringeCon3. The one on the left is my tricorder design, based on Sternbach's original sketches from Starlog, but only loosely. Haven't you ever wondered why you would make a device for primarily Right Handed people, which will probably be held in the left hand and operated by the right, so that the screen will be covered up by your hand every time you control the buttons on the left side? Well, I did, so I built this one. In the middle is a "real" one from the show that Mike Okuda and Ron Moore showed up with, and were gracious enough to let me do the side-by-side. The one on the right is built by Brian Gillies from parts by T. Melendez, with graphics from my leftover stuff from the original tricorder design.
Apologies for the horrible quality of the pics below, they were taken with my old Veo digital camera, which seems to have a closest focus capability of about 3 light years.

This was built from the sketches that showed up in TV Guide before Voyager actually aired, when no pics were yet available of the ship, by vacuform (the plaster molds used are also shown) and plexiglass sheet (the yellow stuff), and was never finished. Technically, it belongs to Lee, and I have been too lazy to finish it for him. My abject apologies--someday I will actually do this.

My favorite DS9 vessel, designed by Rick Sternbach. I had not yet seen the sketches of the ship without the mission pod, but had heard that it was removable (probably in homage to the Eagle transporter from Space:1999), so I built my version without the pod. I didn't know about the corridor that was built-in from front to back, so I didn't put that in. The decals have become damaged from handling.

The bottom of the model.

Built from the kit for a friend, this is the Jupiter2 from Lost In Space, the movie remake.

Bottom of the ship.

Built for the same friend, also from the kit, is Babylon5. It's pretty light for being 5 miles long.

A badly-aged balsa wood model of a ship from my unwritten story.

Bottom of that ship.

Some battle-damaged engines from ships I no longer seem to have.

The other side.

A 'drop ship' by Bell Orbital. These were built from office deskphones, turned upside down, with parts of all sorts, including ladders made from the heater elements inside vaccum tubes, all sorts of plant-ons from harddisk head arms to pencil-lead dispensers to the insides of keypads from different phones. I still don't remember why I started building them.

A better shot, also showing one unfinished version.

Another not-so-good shot, with the viewable side of the unfinished one.

An 'ugly gun', built from the interior of an RC race car housing, some brass tubing, etc. There are some uncompleted electronics in there for a flash and sound to be triggered when firing it, and lighting for a 'targeting scanner' on the top rear.

An attempt at mosaicing a pattern on the silly and incorrect panels that are engraved into the surface of the Enterprise A model kits by ERTL (I wish they had at least *tried* to use the right pattern).

A 'ghostbusters' type prop built from a copier toner cartridge. It has lights running thru the grillework, but they don't work anymore. :-(

very small models of the Yamato and Klingon Bird of Prey. (from kits).

New prop built on 8-5-06 in about four hours, with basic junk laying around. Crutch, 8" floppy disk drive heads, 8mm film camera, PVC pipe, 21" monitor internal casing, wiring harnesses from computer power supplies, Atari 2600 games (the cartridge electronics), assorted model pieces, a roadside emergency flashlight's internal reflector casing, solar cell panel from an ancient GIJoe set, some stickers to be used on a Compaq 486 laptop's replacement casing, phone handset cord, static strap cord, motorcycle kickstart pedal, hacksaw handle, Darth Maul lightsaber candy dispenser, water bottle, amperage gauge, front plate off some 110 film camera, part of a laser printer toner cartridge, and other stuff I can't remember at the moment.
Personal photos:

An old picture of me from when I had hair (in highschool), and still carried around my models to meetings. That's the Amber II there, in an abandoned paintscheme, but it's the same ship design as in the top pic on this page. I don't remember who took the photo, but it was at a UFP clamless bake, one of the last ones we ever had. (And no, I don't remember why it was called that).

A newer picture of me, trimmed and touched up for avatar use.

"The UFP met at David Acosta's house to watch the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a group. A reporter showed up to take this picture which appeared in the Phoenix Gazette." From the UFP web page at http://www.u-f-p.org. I'm the 5th head from the left, with the glasses and beard and shiny forehead, in the light grey shirt.

My favorite dog of all the ones I've had: Lady. She picked her own name by her dainty behavior, which was kind of funny to watch in a dog her size at the time. Smart, loyal, and well-behaved, she was a samoyed-wolf hybrid (I don't know what percentage). I rescued her on her very last day at the pound, though she picked herself, practically bending the cage mesh trying to get to me to tell me she was there, as if she already knew me. She was always protecting us, even from things we didn't even know were a problem at the time. She had a happy life of about 12 or maybe 13 years, but finally died of a kidney infection that wouldn't go away. That was the hardest loss of a pet I've ever gone thru, back in October of 2002, and I couldn't have felt much worse if it had been one of my other family members.

Of course, I couldn't stand the quiet, so went back to the shelters and found this little mess (actually she's not all that small, I think she's about 60+ pounds!), Bonnie. She's still doing fine, although she eats too much, and we have a hard time keeping from sneaking her a treat or three she shouldn't have--she's like a little kid; totally opposite of what Lady was like. She was on the street for at least weeks, if not months, before she was picked up by the shelter, and her collar had grown into her neck, it was so tight. There's an awful scar where they had to surgically remove it...I don't know all of what she went thru before she was picked up, but it must not have been fun--you can feel the scarlines on the bones in her front legs, where they were broken or fractured and didn't heal quite perfect, and she still trips over them when she runs too fast. She's terrified of noises, especially booming bass, or motor sounds. The MetLife blimp is one of her most hated enemies, and if she could jump high enough, that thing would be *sooooo* tattered!

Another of Bonnie.

Bonnie keeping an eye out for that darned blimp.

Story Outline
My eternal-work-in-progress story outline: