Ahh the delicious crustaceans!!! King Crab legs, Lobster, Crawdads, Langostino,,,, MMMMMMM,MMMMMMMM! I so love all of these things and after enjoying a generous portion of these fine aquatic delicacies, I got the assignment the next day to start working on the Xindi Insectizoid ship. Having those big buttery crab legs still on my mind, my subconscious mind doodled out the starship version of my dinner!!!! I was very happy with the first pass of this flying seafood dinner starship and so was my boss, Herman Z. We drew up a couple of size charts and off it went to Mr. Berman’s office…the drawing came back with a hard line through the middle of the legs that translated out to be, “cut em off here,” so the next version featured a shorter version which got the approval in red ink and an actual written note!!! WOW, that didn’t happen too often!!! Anyway, the ship then went to Eden where the magical CG wizard, Pierre, went to work, and I love how he split the central core of the ship into two segments instead of a symmetrical three piece section to match the three extrusions. The Xindi were a very fun race to draw for, and I so loved the costumes that Bob Blackman came up with for these nasty space demons!!! Enjoy, and Happy Friday. johneaves
crabs...in...space!!!!!!!
cajun crabs...in...space!!!!
- some scale comparisons
bigger is not always better
the nasty Xindi creeping crab ship!
OHHH Pee-Air, this is awesome, check out the directional arrow...Pierre must of had a run in with Mr. which way do he go, HAAA!
#2
top
bottom
side
front
back
3/4 rear
Some screenshots: 
Eavesdropping with Johnny 
You have an uncanny ability to take mundane things, like crab legs or torn pictures on a wall, and turn them in to beautiful starship designs. You know, every time I see a Ninja style motorcycle I think strap some warp engines on the sides and you’ll have a starship.
Based on the amount of postings, it seems like Enterprise called for a lot more concept art than previous series. Was that the case? Thanks and have a good weekend.
because of the CG work dropping he high costs of practical models and motion control they could have anywhere from one to five new ships per episode and for some episodes this was so very true!!
This might be a weird place to ask but its clear from your previous posts that you are a big fan of Bob McCall, are you also a fan of John Berkey?
I so love his Ituff and even did an homage to his work on the first pass of the Scimitar from Nemesis renderings,,, i’ll put those up Monday for you.
That would be awesome John – can’t wait to see you homage to Mr. Berkey. Thank you!
Oops, typing too fast, I meant to say “your homage” not “you homage”. I love John Berkey’s art also, just wish there were more collections of it available.
Xindi starships are very cool, I think my favourite are the aquatic ships, escpecially the large one.
OH LORDY, the ” arrow ” kills me…. 🙂
Let me guess, the ” powers that be ” that ran
the show didn’t GET IT so Pierre had go all
Grade school on them and dumb it down !
LOL…;)
Updated with some screenshots.
Absolutely fabulous! A sweet eye-catcher. I have to admit that I find the design rather agile and elegant than uncompromisingly aggressive.
John: Could you also post pics of the “four-leg-version” as seen in “Hatchery”? This two “wings” and two “ears” design always reminded me of the vessel of my favorite PC-game “Descent” (I+II).
Wow, I actually agree with Rick Berman’s decision there, I think it does look better with shorter arms. The original drawing looks too obviously like a claw IMO, so the shorter version gives a similar impression without being too in your face. 🙂
At first glance I thought the shorter look was better, but when I started thinking about how out there the Insectoids are, well the long one sure fits ’em!
Yeah, they are one of Trek’s more unusual species, so I suppose nothing is too over the top for them. But I think something subtle makes a change from ships where you instantly know they belong to the bad guys because they’re shaped like a big claw or look like an angry face, etc. The final ship has the right balance in my view. 🙂
I know that the whole Xindi season wasn’t everyone’s favorite, but I truly enjoyed the different races, the great ships and even the overall story (some episodes I could do without). Crustacean inspiration certainly seems better suited to the evil Insectiziods as opposed to the Aquatics. Too bad they cropped it off!
Thanks Jörg for the caps that have some nice shots of the fabulous Reptillian ships, too!!
John these organic ships are very interesting. I remember an itnerview with Andrew Probert wehn TNG came out and he said his Ferengi Maurader was based on a horseshoe crab.
What’s that thing doing on the Defiant viewscreen? :p
Wonderful stuff! There’re so few images of the Xindi ships out there it’s a real treat to see these. Thanks for posting them, John! (is the reptilian ship coming soon? That was my favourite of the Xindi fleet 🙂 ).
BTW what is your policy re reusing your images? I’d love to include some of these insectoid views on my Trek ship reference site with your permission (and fully credited and with a link to the blog), but would understand of course if you’d rather they weren’t used elsewhere.
Mark, this is Doug’s ship…he did a short post on it on his blog…
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/xindi-reptillian-vessel/
I’m absolutely sure we saw screen caps and other stuff, but I’m not sure which blog it was and can’t find it right now. I guess I shouldn’t say “absolutely”, but it sure seems like it!! 🙂
please use what ever you like Mr.Gill
Thanks John, that’s very kind of you!
(Mr Gill …that’s what the kids call me at school! 🙂 Nearly the summer holidays… 😉 )
Love this design! It has B.A. (that’s bad attitude :D) Xindi written all over it! I’m with Dea on this one – love the final design, but man it would have been awesome to see it with the longer leg extensions.
One of my favourite Xindi ships ! It was the first one I modelled in 3D (that was around 2006 and I didn’t knew anything about CGI – some trek designs of yours were the first one I ever did !). The design is pretty simple but the details are amazing and that’s what makes all of your ships so memorable ! You’re a great source of inspiration John, wish I could extract at least 10% of your skills from your brain ! 😀 (nah, not going to do that, I think I can just look at the images)
Anybody else think of the Liberator from Blake’s 7 when they see that rear 3/4 view?
I just love that first concept. Must be like giant talons coming at you when it closes in for an attack. Yet for it’s drastically organic design and all it’s alienness it still looks like a star trek ship.
Lobsters! I had no idea. For a moment, I thought those were inspired by the phantom tie fighters from a star wars game.
I love this ship, it shame we did not get see as much of it, like we did with the Reptaile ship.
cool stuff..
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