When it comes to the Chase Skiff, the biggest struggle has been getting the mesh to work around a preconcieved design. A lot of the skiff's development was in the form of various sketches on pieces of paper during my brief stay at college, scanned in by a friend on campus. This was the first and last time I would work from an already existing design theory until my work on the Coronado bridge in 2002.
The sketches here are all low quality and there are no preview clips; where possible I have tried to explain things on the pages in its associated text. The sketches are copyright Dennis Busse, 1998-2002.
This sketch deals mostly with the exterior appearance of the skiff with a front-on view and a possible alternate set of cockpit windows at the top. The basic tail shape follows, modelled after a normal airplane tail. The 'cuts' into the tail were for the aerodyne steering system, while the bulge at the bottom was originally intended for use as a vehicle parachute. (That parachute, though ambitious, was quickly dropped.) Next down are cross sections to the wings, including the Kline-Folgleman (sp?) airfoil.
A basic wing construct follows, complete with the phaser/aero intake system on the end. Variations and different angles on that particular system are below. The bottom sketches show the placement of the deflector dish, its proposed appearance, and its 'FOF' - field of focus.
Page two is pretty sparse in terms of sketches, though they do show a good deal of planned detail for the interior that has yet to be rendered; at the top is a glance at what the forward part of the cockpit, including control surfaces and windows, might look like. The bottom sketch shows a corner of the cockpit, with a wrap-around window and how the control surfaces might fit. Given that these were done around the time of Star Trek: First Contact, you can how the movie influenced how I wanted the LCARS consoles to appear.
Page three continues our look at the interior of the cockpit; on the left is a dream I have yet to manage to realize - an honest-to-god chair. (For some reason my attempts at creating 'upholstered' surfaces has yet to pay off.) To the right of the chair, a look at how the back wall would have been configured. This was later abandoned when I realized that the exterior of the skiff would have some significant problems when trying to fit such a long wall inside. Note at this point I was providing detail as much for myself as for the specs and for use in the PBeM - such as the jump seat and the storage for pressure garments.
We continue down, seeing how the doors might have looked like, then to the right of that, an airlock. The airlock was also abandoned for later versions of the skiff as by then the cockpit had grown so compact that there simply wasn't enough room left (as shown by the lowest diagram.)
From here out we begin to get more and more of a glimpse at the technical side of the render; Page 4 consists of sketching locations for the auxilliary core, feed lines to the impulse engine, a rudimentary sketch of the warp core and its placement in the aft end of the skiff, and placement of various power and utility conduits through the cargo bay.
Page five shows the cargo bay's blueprint on both levels and the rudimentary placement of the other rooms. Note that this design was made to fit within the V1's interior and exterior renders.
This page details the living quarters on the skiff, namely how the upper bunk would have appeared when viewed from above or below.
Page seven shows a basic 'wiring diagram' planning where and what various conduits might feed. Bonus points if you can figure out the abbreviations. (grin)
The last major design sketch for the skiff was actually done during the development of the V2 Exterior - a cargo elevator system. It was an oversight on my part to make the skiff dependant on being loaded by transporter only, and the new exterior gave me the chance to put in a system to allow for the skiff to pick up cargo while landed. This elevator would later be abandoned in the
V3 exterior design, to be replaced by a loading ramp on the V4. Future versions of the skiff exterior will likely see the return of the elevator.