3D World

3D WorlD June 2018 31 http://www.youtube.com/3dworld

Feature

Star Trek: Discovery

Above: Backgrounds
were warped and
particles were
added coming off
of the characters
when they were
teleporting

Right middle:
Additional arms
were digitally added
to the Crepusculan
to make it appear
more spider-like

Right bottom: A
massive practical
set was built for the
bridge of the USS
Discovery

Benefitting from the reinvented

design, creation and execution

process were the Klingons. “The 3D

prints were done as hard parts and

then we would make silicon moulds

of them,” explains Hetrick. “Then

we would do a clay brush into that

mould. The guy sculpting would

get the raw forms from the life cast

and take the piece with hot clay

underneath. They put down the

clay and set in the detail like a brow

or a neck which was blended into

the sculpture.” Revisions were not a

problem. “If we wanted something

different it was easy for Neville to

go back into ZBrush, change those

forms, and print out another shell

unique for a main character, such

as L’Rell or Kol. The upside to this

process was we would have these

moulds of 3D-printed parts to make

clay out of and you didn’t have to

use the whole thing. When House

of Mo’Kai Klingons were needed

we would come up with a new face

or a modular adaption because they

are covered with tribal scars.”

A franchise mainstay are the

Andorians. “I took existing features

and refined them because that’s

what it needs to be sometimes,”

notes Page. “It’s evolved.” Several

different undercoats of paint were

utilised to create a realistic blue

skin tone. “Light goes through

our skin and bounces back to our

eyes,” explains Hetrick. “We have

a semi-translucent task colour

and translucent layers of paint

on top of that. Only the last layer

has an opacity to it so that light is

passing through layers of colour

and coming back to the eye. We

were using green blues, true blues

and almost a grey. We wanted the

Andorians to have an ethereal

angelical quality to the skin.” The

boar-like Tellarites changed into

something more elegant. “The

originals were a pig face mask,”

notes Hetrick. “Then there’s an

iteration where it looks like the

Boarman created by Stan Winston

for The Island of Dr. Moreau.

They’re hybrid boar humans that

are tough and tribal. The hair was

used as a visual cue for what their

culture might be, but we kept the

tusks and pig nose.”

3D WorlD June 2018 31 http://www.youtube.com/3dworld

Concepting for spacewalk began

with storyboards followed by

previs, which led to several

meetings between visual effects,

stunts and special effects to discuss

how to best execute the scene

Feature

star Trek: Discovery