the USS Dallas, LA class Sub with DSRV riding piggyback at the rear
the D'Vahl and her rescue ship flying side by side
the two vessels docked
the Vulcan DSRV in docking collar
the stages of the D'vahl in the warp activation stages, note the directional arrow,, yes it was on the verge of becoming another Ruoffo disaster!!!in warp full mode
the sandal-ized , all American pigskin version
Doug Drex started the new architecture style with the big ring as the basis of all future Vulcan ships, here is his signiture ship "The Surak"
the DSRV rides piggyback on top of the SS Dallas
cu of the DSRV
Carbon Creek #27 was a great episode and the script called for a new Vulcan rescue vessel. Doug Drexler started the new Vulcan design aesthetics of the open ringed starships with his beautiful design of the Surak. Following his lead the sketches for the D’vahl started to be put down on paper. This piggyback idea of two ships traveling interlocked came from The US Navy. Pictured at the top and the bottom of Today’s post are pictures of both vessels, The USS Dallas, and the DSRV (Deep Sea Rescue Vehicle) docked together for a rescue mission. For the Vulcan ships the same theory applied. with the addition of a moveable warp ring. For the Vulcan rescue ship We could still use the Definition of DSRV by just changing “Sea” to “Space” the approval for this one was a fairly easy one but at one point the same guy who flopped directions of Ruoffo’s ship in ST Insurrection, was flipping this one around with a puzzled look on his face so I raced back to the office and drew a big forward arrow on it!!!!! HAAAAA that was a close one!! This was a fun ship on a bunch of levels, and that being it was going to have some animated pieces and the little rescue ship. Mathematically you could get a good range of motion with one hinge point. The modeling of this ship was awesome and My old man brain won’t let me remember Which modeling Deity from Eden brought this one to life. I am sure by the end of the day the real genus will be named!!!! HAAAA! the rejected idea came from a football shape cut open like a sandal, Ahhhh, not only can you fly around the galaxy in it but you can throw a touchdown for the winning point, and wear it to the beach after. Have a great Thursday and enjoy the movie to everyone going today!!!
all this baby needs is some paint and stickers and she's ready for trans warp flight!
Eavesdropping with Johnny 
Wow! Cool idea! Like a scene from “Red October”. An attached secondary ship seems to be an idea that was lost in most Trek productions — they all like shuttle bays better. It makes for a unique presentation in that respect. Great concepts, too, as always.
If your on face book by chance join the group Boss Films and there are a bunch of pictures from Red October there! Thanks to by the way!
This is a great concept. I really like the warp ring having to turn so the rescue ship can dock.
As for the ship going in the wrong direction, good call on the arrow. If you don’t do already, might be worth doing it for those designs where the direction might not be to obvious. LOL
It was funny because everyone got it but one guy,,, the wrong guy who was in charge!!! HAAA!
I actually like the movable ring concept that woulda been cool. Im looking forward to seeing where they take Vulcan design in the new movie(s) too. Very nice!
Perry
Animator
http://vimeo.com/4431322
Thanks and love that you have attached your animation link to your title!!!
haha well I’ve been out of work for a year and I learned from others to always
have my profile/links out there because you never know who might see it so..right now Im pimpin’
Did you do any work for the new movie as I just realized spocks ship has a ‘spinny ring thing’ (from what I saw in the trailers) maybe they took inspiration from your work!
Perry
Animator
http://vimeo.com/4431322
The last image, of the rescue ship, really reminds me of the “Blitzspear” from British comic strip Nemesis The Warlock for some reason. There’s little if any similarity, I think it’s just the angle (and the fact the inside of the ring makes it look like it has teeth). Lovely design, I never saw this episode.
I have been reading a lot of comments about ships resembling things from other shows and books!!! How funny to hear especially because I have never heard of most of the mags or shows talked about!!! Haaa small world and I wonder if everyone is inspired by everyone!!!!
“Like in the of the heady daysh of Shputnik and Yuri Gagarin.” 😀
Seriously, I’ve always loved these Vulcan ships. In, particular, I like the football version. I’m glad you nipped that flip-flopper in the bud, too.
You know looking at the rescure ship, again in that close up pic. It sort looking like the Oberth class. In Trek History could this be where that desgin came oringal came form?
“Nemesis the Warlock” is a classic of 80’s SF comic art from 2000AD. Back in the day (when I was young and stupid) I preferred the work of later issues done by artist Bryan Talbot, but over time I’ve come to appreciate the original work Kev O’Neill did on it.
I like to comment when I see something that reminds me of something else, John, but I’m also hesistant to do so because I certaintly don’t want to insult you or your own creativity or – even worse – inadvertently accuse you of plagiarism. I’ll try to rein it in!
HAAA! no worries about insulting,,, I am from Arizona, not cry baby California, I love hearing these stories and especially about great artists of all kinds. Who knows unless you mention it you might never know if I did indeed rip somebody’s stuff off!!! HAAAA! speak your mind here my friend because it is always OK if we all agree to disagree!
Those Vulcan ships really were some of the best designed ships on Enterprise.
And I just want to shake my head and sigh at the guy who wanted them to fly in the other direction.
I really love this ship design, especially the fact that it has the little support ship inside its hoop.
It’s funny you call it “D’vahl” since it was identified as “D’kyr” in “Shockwave I”. The ship depicted in your drawings first appeared in that episode and would later be seen in many more episodes. The D’vahl was seen and identified as such in “Carbon Creek”, but that ship is of a completely different design, neither big ship nor small support craft match. Maybe the names were switched around the time when both Shockwave I and Carbon Creek were in production.
As to the smaller support craft inside the big ship: Was there are reason, apart from the coolness of it just being there, why the D’kyr was designed with the smaller support craft in mind? Whenever the D’kyr type appeared on Enterprise, in “Shockwave II”, “Cease fire”, “Storm front II”, “Kir’shara”, “United” and “In a mirror, darkly”, the support ship was docked at the center of the larger vessel and was never seen separately. In “Future tense” and “Awakening”, the smaller vessel was missing altogether, in “Impulse” it was not docked properly, so you could actually see, that there was a smaller detachable ship inside and only in one episode, “Bounty”, the smaller vessel was actually seen apart from the larger D’kyr class, roaming around the Tellarite space station in the far distance. It would have been really cool to see the ship actually detach from the larger mother ship, or see the small ship independently from the mother vessel, up close. Anyway, here’s what Bernd and I found out about the various appearances of the D’kyr:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/vulcan_ships.htm
Scoll down to “D’Kyr” and “D’Kyr support craft”.
Hey Jorg I was waiting for this comment,,, The D’vahl was it’s original script name and changed after the drawings were done. Since the name was already a part of the drawings I finished the comments off with the discrepancies in place!!!!! HAAAA! I love that you guys know everything!!! OH yeah and gal too,,, for Deanne!
The Hunt for Red October is on my all time favorite movies list (love the picture of the Big “D”). Very cool concept that adds another dimension to the Vulcan ships! I was always a little sad that we didn’t get to see them in more depth during the series.
I still have most of the models from red October in my garage,,, Just missing the Dallas!
Thanks for clearing that up, John! So, was there ever an intention to show the support vessel up close and on its own or was it just added to add realism and coolness to the D’Kyr and was just shown separate from the mother vessel in “Bounty” as an afterthought? I think I will run a more in-depth article about the vessel for EAS in the near future, to show the different appearcnes of the D’kyr and the support craft, docked and undocked.
I think that Doug hit the nail on the head with this concept!! I was looking at a few screencaps last night of one exploding…beautiful even then. 🙂 These would have looked ridiculous going backwards, but I gotta give the guy credit for a vast amount of imagination!Not crazy about the pigskin idea, but always like to see you putting toys to good use.
Don, very first thing I thought of when I saw that first pic was “Is this the filming of Hunt for Red October?” But I don’t think we ever see the DSRV above the surface. I love the line, “Fly, Big D, fly!” Maybe she was really meant to be a starship! I don’t know if they actually used the real Dallas with the DSRV for the movie, but I love seeing these two working together!!
Sweet thing! I’am glad ENT finally showed some cool vulcan ship designs.
The D’Vahl is really cool.
And talking about Submarines:
In “Minefield” Reed mentioned the submarine his uncle worked at. John, have you ever planed to make a concept of such a submarine of the 22nd century?
I always thought the DSRV was cool ever since I saw The Hunt for Red October for the first time as a kid. That’s always been my favorite of the film adaptations of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books. Plus, the DSRV is a really smart idea and I can easily imagine something like that being used for rescues in space, in fact I think one of the plans NASA has in the works is for something similar.
And, as always, I’m loving the concept art. You guys did an amazing job on those Vulcan ships for Enterprise. I really love the D’Vahl and Surak models but, having seen it better, that rescue ship is a sweet ride also. Speaking of submarines, the Surak really has that nautical look to it if you take off the warp ring. 😉
The Vulccan ships were cool. And the best thing about them is they had some color. They weren’t either gray or green, that was a nice change of pace.
Thanks for clearing this up, John and Jörg. I was already questioning my sanity when I read “D’Vahl” and “Carbon Creek” in the post as well as on the drawings.
Great design! I was very excited when Jörg first pointed me to the existence of the support/rescue craft.
Lovely design, both yours and Mr Drexler’s. In hindsight, it was really neat to have a docked ship idea. Gos way back to the Vulcan shuttle in TMP. And I have always imagined that the Vulcan lander in First Contact is only a part of a larger ship. Very nice work.
Have to agree that the VUlcan ship designs are some of the best work on Enterprise.
This is a gorgeous design, and like folks above have said, it’s really cool how almost all the Vulcan designs (from the T’plana Hath back in First Contact right through to the T’Pau in Next Gen, and the the Enterprise-era vessels) have a common design lineage and look, either through the colour schemes or the ‘annular-nacelle’ design.
Re the D’Kyr/D’Vahl, was there ever a class name decided on for this design? Most folks out there go with D’Kyr (as that’s the first vessel of the class to appear on screen), but Archer mentions the Maymora class in ‘Breaking The Ice’ for an unseen Vulcan cruiser he’d been on a few years back. I always thought that name fit really well with the D’Kyr.