WOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEEEEEEE, I forgot how many drawings went into the making of this Monster!!!! Today are the drawings of the wing tip armaments and all of the overall plans that make up all the mechanics of the Scimitar. If your in the mood to model this one, here is all the stuff you’ll need! Each wing had to be drawn individually because every one was vastly different in shape. The detailing and panel break up was identical from top to bottom, and the only change in this was on the main hull and central structure of the ship. On the wing plans are a set of registration circles that, when aligned in layers, use these circles to scale everything accordingly. Also are some beautiful CG renderings by Digital Domain artist Rory McLeish. Rory was the one that modeled this beast for Nemesis, and I had a great time working with him. He filled in a lot of holes and added a lot of his own imagination to the final design. Rory had the thickest Irish accent on the phone and I almost could never understand him, so I would just say yes a lot and then call Jay Barton and have him decipher what Rory had just said to me, HAAAAA! Lots of good times between our two departments. Anyway, here is a cornucopia of stuff to look at, and I have to get to work so hope you all have a great Friday and enjoy all the pictures. Next week we’ll wrap up the Scimitar and hit the Valdore, and if time allows, I’ll start that week of Robert McCall.
each wing was different and so was the tip weaponry. Here are some of the smaller wing details
breakdown of the big Wingtip focusing device.
VFX sequence on how the tip would deploy and open up.
Some screenshots of the wingtip focusing device deployment:
3/4 view "open" to go with the next series of images
belly details of main wing and under hull
belly view, hull details
top detail minus the Warp nacelles
this is the modified top view that should be used as the accurate layout
base wing
wing 5 counting from the top to the bottom
wing 4
wing 3
wing 2
wing 1, or the top wing
paneling detail of the hull
back view closed
back view open
bottom view closed
bottom view open
front closed
front opened
3/4 view closed
3/4 view open
side closed
side open
top closed
and finally the top open
OK have fun!
Eavesdropping with Johnny 
Wow – the level of thought, design, and detail that went in to this one ship is amazing. Was this the most complicated ship you have ever designed?
Did the Valdore and the Scorpion fighter undergo similar design progressions?
These “3 Days of the Scimitar” have been great John – thank you for taking the time to post all of these great images! Take care and have a good weekend!
Thanks Richard and it is funny how you think all the little stuff thru and especially all the things you make up just by being so close to it.
Wow, just great! And the final cgi, it is the final, right? is just fantastic, the designer´s did an awesome job on this monster!
It was awesome to see the modeling take place and it cut thru space oh so menacingly!!! GREAT WORK DD!!!!!
What an incredible monster. Excellent design work, as always, John.
My problem with this ship was it’s function, which I realize was dictated by the plot. But the “ramp-up” for the weapon to work was just tedious from a viewing standpoint and absurd from a tactical one. We have this ultimate weapon, but we need several minutes to deploy it. Minutes in which your ship could get blown out of space. It would have needed a fleet to defend it properly. Also, we’d seen this “ramp-up” so many times before. The Genesis Device, Soran’s missile firing, the Sona weapon. The concept was roblematic from the start.
Thanks Don and your right, this one suffered from a great many technological issues and more so story wise, where did the Remans build it and why didn’t the Romulan’s destroy it under construction??? The red matter in the new movie was so well executed in even though it could have been drawn out,,, same scenario as the Thalleron but but managed with great simplicity in ST XI.
PS,,, they had a mighty garrison of scorpions that never took flight,,, there would have been one unwinable battle if you had to deal with a swarm and the Hornets nest all at once.
I always liked the Scim and Scorpions, but looking at it that way, I like ’em even better!! I guess I’m just evil….
All plot points and ship comparisons aside, I love this ship! I remember watching the movie the first time and simply being blown away by the detail and pure evilness. I appreciated the similarity in look with the Romulan warbirds, yet it just oozed it’s darker purpose.
Fantastic job on this, John. Did Dave help you out on the final wing design? I’m sure his great ideas from yesterday helped bring it into focus. Definitely one of those uber cool alien ships!! Thank you, thank you for finally getting it all up here for me (and everyone else, of course)!!
There are weak points to the Reman character builds and the central plot, but as others have pointed out on other posts, this is definitely not the least of the ST movies. The threat that this ship imposed was something to take seriously. I believe that Shinzon’s cockiness and overconfidence made him feel certain that his mighty Scimitar could easily take out the measely Enterprise, making him overlook the wisdom in having support vessels at hand.
thanks D there is a huge understory for this and the Valdore, and I am saving it till next week,, to busy to spend the time on a lot of text this week.
I’ve never liked the fact that two of my favorite ships weren’t really liked by you and Doug when you designed them; I’m just glad that Scimitar and the NX-01 turned out like they did!! 🙂
Looking forward to next week!
Wow! Thats geat! The Detail Level s awesom. Whats is the final Polxcount at such a level of Details?
I don’t know but I remeber them joking about the size!!! it was all greek to me.
Man you really went to town with this one.
thank you for showing this, it was very insightful on how this desgin went from Concpet to final version and getting to see all the little things you put into this, to make it up.
I look forward to went post your changes to the ENT-E from Frist Contact though to Nemesis.
Now that everything is in front of me again it is fun to see all that went into this one.. it is my least fav ship from Nemesis but it was a great challenge to put it all down on paper this way.
Yeah – not only great pictures but also explanations within the drawings!!! Cool 🙂
I did see if I could link them to bigger versions, but this was it. Been that way all week.
Glad you like em and hopefully you can read the tiny text too
Wow!! I tried doing a CG model of this beast 3 yrs ago. Failed miserably. I just couldn’t find enough reference to do a proper model. I got so frustrated with trying to figure out how the wings worked I made my wings solid wings with layers. Honestly after seeing her in this detail I would’ve never been able to do it. Leave it to the artist at DD to pull of this beauty. I do kind of wish the renders were a bit bigger.
Funny thing is I gave up on the Scimitar to do Deep Core 2 which ended up being an even bigger nightmare. But I did manage to finish that one though for the most part. I’ve got a bad habit of picking extremely difficult CG projects.
Anyways, excellent work from both you and everyone else involved with this beauty : ) You’ve got to give us at least a week of stuff on the Big E-E : )
Hoo! I think “beast” is an accurate term for this bad boy! My heart goes out to Rory on this model. It must have taken years off his life! 😀 I love how it all came together in the end. It’s a pitty that we only got to see this thing for a short period of time and in only limited capacity. Something this beautiful really deserves more screen time!
Was never my favourite ship from Nemesis (that was the Valdore!) but it certainly looked interesting. I was thinking about building a model of this ship a few years back, but the shear size and complexity scared me off. With all this new refrence material though, im starting to think twice about constuction of this one.
A truly intimidating design. While working on that crash between the Scimitar and The Ent, I never knew what the ship really lloked like. When I saw the movie I was really amazed at how it helped define Shinzon’s character.
Really unique and cool.
Thank you so much for these!!! I’ve been wanting to build a scimitar model since 2002 but never had the right reference. I am wondering if I could bother you for high res versions of the wing drawings?