Along with the hundreds of concept artists and designers that have created the look of Star Trek over the years, including Matt Jeffries, Andrew Probert, Richard Delgado, Ken Adams, Rick Sternbach, Mike Okuda, Greg Jein, Neville Page, Syd Mead, Ralph McQuarrie, and John Eaves (whose book we reviewed here at borg), you need to include Dan Curry. From The Next Generation to Enterprise, Dan’s variety of Star Trek work has resulted in some of the series’ most memorable moments. Coming soon from Titan Books, Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry (available for pre-order now here at Amazon) chronicles decades of those key creations, and we have a 12-page look inside below for borg readers, courtesy of the publisher.
We previewed Dan Curry’s new look back at his work on Star Trek in September. The nicely designed full color hardcover, Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry is designed and reads like a true sequel to Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens landmark 1995 book The Art of Star Trek, once the only definitive look at the artwork behind the franchise (we’ve covered nearly all the Star Trek art books since then here at borg). Like any professional in the art and design fields for a television or feature film crew, Dan Curry had a variety of projects he handled. This book digs into Curry’s work from 1987 to 2005, basically Star Trek: The Next Generation through Enterprise, where he served as visual effects supervisor/producer, second-unit director, title designer, and concept designer, winning seven Emmys for his effort.
The next concept artwork and special effects book in the Star Trek franchise arrives tomorrow, this time taking a fresh look at the success and failures in the visual effects created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this past December. It’s all in Star Trek: The Motion Picture–The Art and Visual Effects, by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki. Diehard fans of the history of filmmaking will learn more about the most celebrated visual effects masters in the business as they did their best to rescue a floundering production back in 1979. You have today left to pre-order the book at a discount here at Amazon–this will be a welcome addition to bookshelves for fans of the franchise’s first feature film.
From Star Trek V: The Final Frontier to four Next Generation movies and the J.J. Abrams Kelvin timeline movies, and Deep Space Nine through the Enterprise and Discovery series, concept artist, illustrator, prop designer, and model maker John Eaves has designed ships and objects familiar to any sci-fi fan. This Tuesday the eagerly anticipated behind-the-scenes book Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves arrives from online retailers and book stores, and we at borg.com previewed a copy. Just as you would expect, the book is full of hundreds of concept art designs, most of them ultimately used for the final model or CGI renderings seen on film. John Eaves has developed his own style over the years, so in the past decade when even passing fans saw a ship on the big or small screen, they could usually tell when Eaves designed it. Take a look at our preview pages from Star Trek: The Art of John Eaveshere.
Eaves tells his story, referencing those artists of film that inspired him, some he would work with directly and others he admired from his youth: Joe Alves, Ron Cobb, Greg Jein, Grant McCune, Robert McCall, Nilo Rodis-Jamero, Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, Richard Edlund, John Dykstra, Syd Mead, and others. The shifting look of Star Trek, its ships, and props, began to take on a new look with his designs for the Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations, which required a modification to the Excelsior model to accommodate a key scene featuring Captain Kirk. For the update to the ship Eaves incorporated a design from the World War II Catalina PBY-5A airplane. Eaves grew up near an airfield, where he was first given a pad and pencil to make his own illustrations, and his understanding of aerodynamics can be found throughout his work. And as Eaves tells it, Star Trek designer Michael Okuda would often be nearby to point out relevant components to incorporate.
The Eaves design aesthetic is unmistakable, in the elegant Vulcan lander and Phoenix rocket in Star Trek: First Contact, in the arc-shaped Son-a warship concepts in Star Trek Insurrection, in the removal of the “neck” and compact configuration of the Enterprise-E, and in the Reman Scimitar, the Romulan Valdore, and Scorpion fighters for Star Trek Nemesis. The artist says his Discovery designs were inspired, surprisingly, by the rocket that took Taylor away and back in the original Planet of the Apes. You can see the inspiration in the view of the ship from below.
After delivering a dozen Star Trekbooks, fiction and non-fiction, authors Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann are back in the franchise, this time covering the entire first two seasons of CBS All Access’s Star Trek: Discovery in their new book The Art of Star Trek: Discovery. This is the latest concept art and film production book in a franchise of some of the best printed TV and film retrospectives. Star Trek: Discovery, which led the newest chapter in the television Star Trek Universe (followed by Short Treks, Picard and Lower Decks), follows the exploits of Vulcan-raised science officer Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery as they boldly go where no one has gone before. This book covers every corner of the series in an attractive hardcover full of great photographs.
Titan Books has released the first images of the next Star Trek book, and fans of the franchise will want to check it out. It’s The Art of Star Trek: Discovery, Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann’s latest look inside the extensive Star Trek universe. Star Trek: Discovery, the newest chapter in the Star Trek Universe, follows the exploits of Vulcan-raised science officer Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery as they boldly go where no one has gone before. You can now pre-order the book here at Amazon, and we have a preview of The Art of Star Trek: Discovery for borg readers below.
Coming later this summer from Titan Books is a new look at the concept artwork and special effects in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this past December. It’s all in Star Trek: The Motion Picture–The Art and Visual Effects, by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki. You can pre-order the book now here at Amazon, and we have a preview below for borg readers courtesy of the publisher. Keep coming back for a review coming soon.
Of all the attributes of Star Trek’s Deep Space Nine series, my personal favorite is the art direction. Because it is a visual account of the production of the show, the new Deep Space Nine Illustrated Handbook is a celebration of the work of key creative visionaries and futurist art designers Rick Sternbach, Michael Okuda, and Doug Drexler, and more. Reprinting key components from more than 8,500 mail order Fact Files cards published between 1997 and 2002, this attractive, hardcover, coffee table book will provide insight into Star Trek’s outlying, groundbreaking series for a new generation of fans now watching for the first time via Netflix and other streaming platforms. In this chronicle expect to find everything but a self-sealing stem bolt.
In many ways the most diehard Star Trek fan is going to be surprised when they flip open the new behind-the-scenes account of the original 1966-1969 series in the full-color, hardcover, coffee table-style book, Star Trek: A Celebration. Even if you’ve read everything about Star Trek you could get your hands on, you haven’t seen it in one volume presented like this. Star Wars fans have seen this kind of volume in the works of the late JW Rinzler, and although this book is not as dense, it will serve the same purpose for Star Trek aficionados. The wildly popular The Princess Bride–A Celebration was given similar treatment, as was the landmarkStar Trek: Voyager–A Celebration, released only this year, also by publisher Hero Collector. I can’t understate what a welcome book this is for fans of the original Star Trek series. As Star Trek fans across the globe celebrate 55 years of the Star Trek franchise, coinciding with the centennial of the birth of its creator, Gene Roddenberry, it’s well past time fans got a book to–yes–celebrate one of the greatest and most influential television series of all time. Star Trek: A Celebration is available today for the first time here at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.
Where Star Trek Shipyards is an in-universe library looking at the hundreds of ships of the franchise, Star Trek Designing Starships is a library about the creators and creative process behind those ships. The fifth volume of the encyclopedia of Star Trek ship design has arrived as publisher Hero Collector continues its series after volumes on the starships Enterprise,Voyager, the Kelvin timeline ships, and Discovery. The human adventure continues in Star Trek Designing Starships: Deep Space Nine and Beyond. It’s available now here at Amazon. As with the publisher’s previous books, Star Trek Designing Starships is known for its colorful, high quality illustrations in a coffee table-style hardcover edition, providing a near-exhaustive library to the array of the franchise’s highly-detailed spacecraft.
