About Me
Where to begin…
I am Basill. I love genre science fiction, architecture and engineering, science and astronomy, philosophy and history…
Naturally, a jack of all trades is master of none. So, I work in a library. 
Star Trek and Star Wars co-rule my sci-fi monarchy, with several other powerful franchise dukes and lords influencing my mood throughout the year (and a queen or two).
This page is in the experimental phases currently, as I learn what features this media has to offer and how to best display my work.
My work is all hobby, and mostly concentrated on my love of Star Trek, and I will probably stick to that theme for this particular blog.
I enjoy the arts and graphics of 2D and 3D CGI, and as I employ them I will display my work here. I have lots to display old and new, so I will be loading some up on this site as time progresses.
Peace and long life,
Basill
Hello Basill!
I just discovered your blog with these fantastic renderings.
I would be happy If we could exchange some emails since I would love to include work of yours in a serious fan film production I am doing.Keep up your fantastic work!Stephan
Hey Stephan,
Thanks for the comments!
What kind of fan film are you working on? What era does it take place in. Most of my work is in the Early motion picture era.
I’ve seen a few really good fan film endeavors in the past few years, and I bet they can be a lot of fun.
Basill
This site is phenomenal! Just spent a ton of time going through everything and am still blown away by what I’ve seen! Great work sir!
Do you have any more TMP interiors? Recreation Deck, Sick Bay etc.???
Thanks! Not sure how many interiors I haven’t displayed yet. Have I posted my Bridge work? Not sure at the moment. Currently I don’t have any Sickbay interiors as I’ve just never gotten around to that yet. I’ve had the Recreation Deck bug for a while now and just recently seriously began considering plans for one on the Phobos based closely on the TMP set, as well as one for the Miranda, based on the floor plans I’ve been referencing for that ship (though maybe a little smaller.)
I tend to start by building individual elements and then throw them together in a more set like fashion. A faithful TMP recreation deck would be easier once I had dabbled in one for the Phobos that didn’t have to be so exacting which would could also conform to the ship’s actual hull lines rather than forcing one into such a confined space that it could never actually exist in. A faithful TMP recreation would be such a set, though that won’t stop me from building it eventually.
I’ll probably try to get more done on my transporter room before I even start on anything like a sickbay, and there are of course tons of other incomplete interiors waiting in the wings as well. But if the bug bites me, I have no choice. ;D
Hi Basill,
First, I must compliment you on your attention to detail and clear talent with all your work. Second, THANK YOU for bringing to life the ships and places we love and long to see more of. Please, please post more of your work! I would love to eventually see a whole collection of “walkthroughs” (stem to stern)for the Akyazi and Loknar class ships as well as more “beauty” shots. I think you should even consider publishing them in a Tome for all of Star Trek fandom!! (I for one would buy a few copies)
Keep up the wonderful work!
Thanks so much. I love details. It is a blessing and a curse.
Stem to stern sounds like quite a project, but even if it takes me 40 years, who knows I might actually do it someday! I’ve done a lot more than I ever thought I would, and all because I just love doing it.
Thank you for writing so precisely about one of the very best ques in any Star Trek score, the “Rigel” landscape version of “Vena’s theme”: You wrote: “…taken from the scene where Captain Pike first appears on Rigel, this version has a drum that mimics a heart beat and has a psychic trance like twinkle or ripple filling the background while a siren like lady wails away the notes of the melody. It would be played for happy spore trances (This Side of Paradise,) telepathic mind control (Return of the Archons,) psychic and voodoo riturals (Wolf in the Fold- A Private Little War,) and others I probably can’t recall. It is one of the best tingly experiences in all of Trek…”
Have you ever found a recording of this version, and if so where? Can you let me know? I would love to find one. For some reason I don’t find it on the “Cage/Where No Man Has Gone Before” soundtrack CD, and that was a terrible omission. Thanks very much.
Alas, I have never found that track on any available Soundtrack, CD or otherwise. Hopefully, someday, someone will see fit to put more of the original music out again.
Hello there Basill.
I am a Concept artist and matte painter for a Star wars Fan edit in Episode III by Bob Garcia. I was impressed by the Alderaan City you ve made and i was wondering if you can help us doing your part
for more info you may look here:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/SW-Episode-III-Reign-of-the-Dark-Side/topic/11343/
I hope we can discuss this in depth if you wish
take care
-Angel
Hi Basil,
your jobs looks great!!! I’m working on an home made music clip, ed I need some location as in your job.
Cause of the cartoon look a like style I’d need to use some filters on your graphics.
Let me know if I can the images I find on thi blog and if I can use filters for my purpose.
Thank you very much.
My images are currently open to the public and you are free to manipulate them to your liking. Just please be kind and gentle with them.
Thank you very much
Hi,
here’s the link for my video… thank you very much!!!
Hi there, im making a film and in need of someone who can make sets and 3d models, only 2 ships an evil vilian and a hero called valentine, we are shooting at the moment.
If you are interested I can get you more details. As this is a low budget film, i’d still be willing to pay something towards your help. Don’t know wether you can do it but im also after the ships flying through space and one exploding. There is only 2 3d model ships and 4 backgrounds i.e. corriders im in need of.
Hope to hear from you nigel.
Where are you from?
Hey I stumbled on your Daily Planet/Metropolis rendering and I was wondering if I could use it for a background for a Superman picture I drew? I’d definitely credit you for the background and the artwork would go on my Deviant Art page.
http://tonyforever.deviantart.com/
or
mrtonyforever@yahoo.com
Thank you
-Tony
Sure! Have at it!
Hi there.
Have just seen your rendering of the Northampton class. The work a amazing. The Starship Obready club has used the Northampton class as the main ship in our fleet. And the ship itself is used to represent the club here in the Eastern Townsips (Canada). Would love to use your renderings with the understanding the a link to your site would be in effect to get any and all information on your work. This with your approval of course.
Thank you.
Admiral Robert G Kelley.
Your welcome to it, though I have to warn it’s still a work in progress with a long way to go.
Hi, Basil
First off, I’d like to say I’m a big fan of your work. I myself have been building Trek interiors (mostly TOS and movie-era) for years on an assortment of gaming engines. I still work with the aging Quake III engine (more specifically, the Quake III engine game titled Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force). I’ve never tried my hand at professional CG programs like Lightwave (never could afford them), but I prefer gaming engines anyway because they allow you to actually walk around what you’ve built, and, with the right programming, allow you to interact with the ship and crew. The only downside is that you have to keep your poly-count low before framerate starts to suffer.
Right now I’m working on a number of projects. A “Virtual” TOS Enterprise, Virtual Enterprise D, and more recently I began work on a Virtual TMP Enterprise. Your renders I have been using as reference, as well as the screencaps available at Trekcore.com, plus Mr. Scott’s Guide To The Enterprise book, as well as the Phase II manual with all the bridge station panel layouts. I haven’t gotten enough done on the TMP Enterprise to provide screenshots, but if you’d like to look at my work on the TOS-E and the Ent-D, you can go to the following links:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=145937
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=140357
Right now I’m working on the transporter room of the TMP Enterprise, and like you once did, I’m having trouble developing a 2D texture to use for the wall panel behind the control console. Would you be so kind to give any advice on creating this panel? The gaming engine I use doesn’t allow too many polygons before framerate starts to suffer, so I can render it in 3D…I’ll have to use a 2D texture. Or, even better, if you could provide a 2D texture for me to use? Any help would be appreciated. And, of course, when my finished project is released, if ever, I will acknowledge your help.
Love your work. I’ve been keeping up with it for a few years now. Movie-era Trek is my favorite era, but the lack of solid reference material makes it difficult compared to the plethora of screenies we all have available from all the series.
Sorry, the above sentence “The gaming engine I use doesn’t allow too many polygons before framerate starts to suffer, so I can render it in 3D…” should read “can’t render it in 3D”
Thanks. I was familiar with your virtual TOS Enterprise on the Trek BBS, but I hadn’t seen your Ent-D yet. Very impressive! (both)
I’ve seen some other mods for VOY: Elite Force; There’s a Starbase 11 mod that’s really cool and partially inspiring my current project. Though I’ve never played it, I can understand the desire for interactivity. The motion of interactivity, together with texture alone, can often compensate for any lack of detail, in terms of pure poly count. Recognizing the value of texture seems to be one of your strengths as well (currently my weakness, thus my more static methods 
).
That wall panel in the transporter room is pretty much all texture though, since it is a completely flat surface, textured with a self-illuminated image, with another 2D surface in front, textured with a grid pattern (with all the right settings for bump, spec, transparency, transluscency, etc…)to help break up the image with reflection and transluscence. I tried it with a 3D grid in front, but it simply took too long to render, so I went with that cheat instead. It may not look too fantastic up close, but it served my purposes at the time.
I’ll see if I can whip something up though, that could be simplified even further for a single surface texturing.
I used one of your old shots posted on this blog (as long as you don’t mind!) of the transporter panel texture and placed a transparent studded grid layer over it and came up with this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61505200@N02/6746036417/lightbox/
It’s not perfect, but I think it will do for my purposes.
Anyway, I only have a few strings of corridor and the transporter room so far. If you’re interested, here’s some screenies:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61505200@N02/6746021015/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61505200@N02/6746013947/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61505200@N02/6746028365/lightbox/
I got lucky and found a hi-def screen capture of the pipes and such on the transporter room floor, so I was able to actually render a model of those to place on the floor. I used a shot from TWOK when Kirk was walking out of the Bridge Simulator to meet Spock at Starfleet Academy as reference. The pipes behind Kirk seem to be the same on the transporter room floor, so I made a small section of them and then duplicated them across the floor. After looking at your shots of the transporter room, it seems you perhaps did the same thing!
I originally modeled the panels on the walls of the transporter room, but I had to make them simple 2D textures instead. Frame rate was lagging too much already due to the floor machinery models.
Lighting in the corridors I can’t seem to get perfect…I think it might be too dark. I still haven’t decided if I’m going for the brighter, cleaner TMP color scheme, or the darker, more hard-edged TWOK scheme. Maybe a mix between the two.
Well, color me impressed.
Yeah, those pipe placements were scattered all over the place for the first four films, and I fell in love with them. I loved that I could build one and then duplicate it as needed. They would often put them next to each other rotating them 180 degrees in alternating patterns. I thought I’d done a blog on the phenomenon some years ago, but I can’t find it now. Wishful thinking I guess. They were apparently some sort of cast structure that was easily reproduced in a solid form and placed anywhere there was a need for greebles. They even showed up in TNG in a few places.
Really awesome stuff you’ve done there, and totally the right idea with that grid-over-pattern method. But I have to point out, the graphic I’d posted on the blog ended up not being the one I used. It was an early version that I blurred thinking that was the effect. I tried playing with it today and realized, yuck, that wasn’t the final version I used. I’ll post that final version and some full renders I did for you today. They are free to use and might come in handy.
Again, awesome work in all eras.
I LOVE the Movie era, the look of the ships, the movies of that time, the uniforms, all of it. It is my favorite of the Star Trek Eras. You have done some amazing work here!