I have several drawings in my collection which I affectionately dub the “Enterprise Blowing S#!% Up” series. Star Trek was perhaps the biggest psychological and creative influence on my early life, even more so than Star Wars. My earliest memory of deliberate mischief is of sneaking out of my room after bedtime to peer around a corner and down our hallway as my parents watched reruns of The Original Series. Eventually they let me watch the show without getting in trouble, and I drank in every detail.
For some reason though, nothing enthralled me more than the scenarios in which the Enterprise dolled out sweet, phasery justice on the Klingons, Romulans, or other such bad dudes with starships. In Image 01, The Enterprise-A (post-Star Trek III revision, if I recall correctly) decimates the bridge of a nameless Klingon battlecruiser. I loved this match-up so much that I drew it four times, the three best of which I’ve featured here. I will point out, however, that the second actually depicts the match-up from the infamous TOS episode “The Enterprise Incident,” wherein the writers had the Romulans show up using Klingon vessels due to some sort of ‘alliance’ retconning. Even as a kid I knew it was a money-saving move, but I didn’t really care that much. All bad guy ships still blow up the same!
Art-wise, there are a few things I’d like to highlight in this series. First off, I took great pains to make sure the “NCC-1701” markings appear in the right place on the ship in every drawing, no matter how small. I was pretty particular about getting that correct. Also, notice in Image 03 how the Enterprise seems to be using its tractor beam and phasers simultaneously. I’m not really sure what effect I was going for there, but it looks kinda cool. Oh, and speaking of cool looks, I just want to give myself a pat on the back for remembering to draw in the shadow cast by the Klingon battlecruiser’s exploding bridge onto the back part of the bulb section. Details, people!
So I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson here. Namely, that the Enterprise is a mean piece of machinery, even when completely outnumbered. Quality > quantity.
BONUS: Though I drew the Enterprise many times, I only drew Voyager once. In this rendering, she’s surrounded by a few Kazon ships next to the Caretaker’s space station in a scene from the pilot episode. I guess I picked this scenario to represent the series because, let’s face it, when Voyager wasn’t poking along at high warp in the general direction of Earth, she was getting her ass kicked by some exotic Delta Quadrant species. Amiright?