Fan Photos of Four Fighters

As Klavs toils away at his next Wing Commander designs, the existing ships at Terran Fleet Supply are finding their way into more and more homes. This latest batch of fan photos come from the flight decks of Whistler, sndwv and Howard Day. They've captured the very popular Rapier, Arrow and Hornet here, plus the first photos of the new Ferret are also below. Although the technology still has a ways to go until it's perfect, I'm continually amazed that individual decals, vents and panel lines can be made out. We've come a long way from unpainted miniature 3D prints in a very short time!
My Shapeways fighters have arrived finally. Had a bit of an issue with their ordering system forgetting to tell the printer folks that a Rapier II was supposed to be coming down the pipe. Took a few days but they've arrived and I've very happy with the results. You can smell the paint they're so fresh. Not as heavy as I thought they were either. The material feels semi-fragile but sturdy, similar to one of those figurines you're mom kept locked away to stare at that if you touched the floggings would continue till the next noon.

I can see what Sndwv meant in that there might exist some slight room for improvement in making the walls of the engine nacelles and vector plates a little thicker, not much more than a millimeter or more. You can see this the easiest on the rear shot of the Arrow where a few of the thrust-vectoring vanes have snapped off. Interestingly enough, the Rapier II's engines look more intact compared to the Arrow's (citing Sndwv's complaint). Still very acceptable looking considering the materials used, but I'm more than happy with the outcome and look forward to future orders. The lettering is also a little hard to read on the Rapier's wings, but you can still make out TCS Concordia.

Now the troublesome part... which one do I get next?! :S

--
Update published on . View all news from that day.

Wing Commander CIC - Visit the front page

Official news, fan projects and topics of particular interest to Wing Commander fans.

GOG Discounts EA Games This Weekend
2013-10-12 -- Good Old Games has temporarily taken the price down on EA games, including the Wing Commander and Ultima franchises. It's a nice 60% discount this time around, which makes WC games just $2.39 each (including all expansions and WC1/2 counted as a single title).

WC vs History: Ships of the Victory Battle Group
2013-10-11 -- Wing Commander ships borrow their names from all nations and conflicts in history. Today, we are going to start looking at the ships of the Victory Battle Group from Wing Commander III. We'll look at one of the ships in each update, so be sure to check back in the coming weeks for complete coverage!

Cloud Imperium Games Celebrates Big Birthday
2013-10-10 -- The team over at Roberts Space Industries is celebrating the first anniversary of their Star Citizen announcement. A special live stream will take place this evening at 6:30 pm Central Time (-5 GMT). Chris Roberts and his team are known for pulling off exciting live events, so we would definitely recommend you check it out.

Sabre Adds Extra Muscle To Concordia Hangar
2013-10-09 -- Howard Day has added a new ship to his Concordia Hangar! The heavy attack Sabre now stands alongside the gargantuan Broadsword and tiny Ferret. Everything has been built to scale, so these shots do a good job of showing off that the Sabre is actually a pretty giant beast as well.

The Heart of the Tiger Comes Out Ahead
2013-10-08 -- In a fun contrast to yesterday's news that showed a 3D Hellcat transposed into a world of 2D sprites, today's update turns classic 2D Bluehair into a 3D model. dczanik has actually made two versions of Christopher Blair's head. The first is a stylized cartoon look and the second is his first cut at a three dimensional render.

Hellcat Masterfully Modded into WCA
2013-10-07 -- Howard Day and HCl have taken the wraps off an exciting fan project! They have released screenshots of their success in adding a Hellcat V into Wing Commander Academy. HCl provided much of the technical muscle while Howard created an awesome WC2-style interpretation of the modern WC3 cockpit.

Escort Carrier Gets Crisp Lines & A Full Hangar
2013-10-06 -- Klavs is back with some very nice enhancements to his Wake class escort carrier. We first saw the ship last month with a great comparison that showed off its large transport freighter origins. Today's version is significantly more polished with smoothly refined hull plate lines and a lot more detail.

Wing Commander on HBO Go and TV
2013-10-05 -- From October 15, the Wing Commander movie will be available on demand on the HBO Go service in high definition. This will allow subscribers of the cable channel to watch WC any time they'd like. Traditional viewers also have an opportunity to catch several scheduled TV appearances.

Freddie Prinze Eyes Star Wars Role
2013-10-04 -- According to the Hollywood Reporter, Freddie Prinze Jr. is in the process of being cast in Disney's upcoming Star Wars animated series. Star Wars: Rebels takes place between the two trilogies as the Empire is expanding and Luke Skywalker is growing up on Tatooine.

It's A Real Hot Button Issue
2013-10-03 -- Jumper's custom keyboard has arrived! He decided to go with modular addon keys rather than a completely premade board due to manufacturer issues. They look good!

Shrike Strikes Hard with the Right Pilot
2013-10-02 -- ScoobyDoo is back with another underappreciated Wing Commander ship. He's modeled the Shrike bomber in his characteristic heavy metal style. By some accounts, the TB-81 was a fairly average strike craft, but it did have a few surprises up its sleeve.

WC Documentation Guru Interviewed at RSI
2013-10-02 -- Roberts Space Industries has posted a new employee profile that introduces readers to an Origin vet that has a long history working with the Wing Commander franchise. David Ladyman joined OSI in 1991 and worked on pretty much every Wing Commander game from Wing Commander 2 through Prophecy. His primary role was editing game documentation for WC and other Origin series.

New Privateer 2 Patch Adds Deinterlace Feature & Numerous Fixes
2013-10-01 -- The release of Privateer 2 on GOG recently provided us with the perfect opportunity to release a project that's been in various stages of development for a while. We've been working on a Privateer 2 patch and are pleased to present the initial "beta" version to everyone. This patch will update your gamefiles to a Windows version with a number of bugfixes and minor enhancements, not the least of which include removing the interlacing from the FMV.

'Last Line of Defense' Goes on the Offense
2013-09-30 -- Here's a new scene from Wing Commander Last Line of Defense. It depicts a classic WC2-style strike wing comprised of two Broadsword bombers and two Ferret escorts. ScoobyDoo's models have been incorporated with a Confed space gray here, although RedBaron is likely to make a pass that syncs them up with the fleet color scheme used on other ships in the mod.

Mega Starship Size Comparison Adds Wing Commander Ships
2013-09-29 -- An enormous science fiction collage has been making the rounds lately, and Wing Commander has just been added to the melee! This incredible graphic features hundred of different spaceships from dozens of different movies, books, games and television shows. It was made by DirkLoechel who has provided background info at his DeviantArt site.

Nephilim Models Get More Organic
2013-09-28 -- Dark Sentinel has continued to refine his Orca model. We don't see a whole lot of Nephilim recreations out there, so it's great to see someone attacking these ships for a change. In addition to the iconic destroyer below, there's also a shot of the bugs' capship missile.

Heraldry Alive and Well
2013-09-27 -- A small treat from Klavs today: a roundel design for his Wildcat fighter concept. Military aircraft typically carry an insignia that identifies the nation or faction to which it belongs. A classic roundel is made up of concentric colored circles, but the Confederation star adds a nice touch.

Happy Birthday Wing Commander!
2013-09-26 -- The original Wing Commander game shipped to stores twenty-three years ago on September 26, 1990. Twenty-three isn't a round number or any particular milestone birthday, but it's still amazing to stop for a moment to think about all the years that have gone by. With so many WC games readily available on GOG, this is a great time for new Wingnuts or fans who may have missed a game years ago.

Daedalus Station Gets Its Second Issue
2013-09-25 -- The Maslas Brothers have posted the second edition of the Destiny's Way magazine. This Claw Marks or Star*Solder-style booklet is intended to maintain interest in their highly anticipated Flat Universe mod, but it's completely awesome as a standalone publication by itself. The artsy layout is well done and it's chock full of clever references.

Model Hellcat Gets Final Hull Coating
2013-09-24 -- Whiplash is back with some sharp new photos of his wooden Hellcat model. The ship has gone through several test coats of paint in order to find the perfect shade of space gray befitting the medium fighter. It looks pretty close to the original to me - now just the details remain.

Concordia's Ferrets Receive Slick Paint Job
2013-09-23 -- Here's some more gorgeous shots of Howard Day's Concordia hangar. The Ferret got some nice upgrades that include proper landing gear and cockpit equipment. Even the seats look spot on!

Tabletop Armada Goes Online
2013-09-22 -- capi3101 has taken the wraps off his latest project, an online edition of the Armada PNP tabletop RPG that he developed last year. The game utilizes the Vassal Engine to allow for flexible digitization of the pen and paper ruleset. As an extra bonus, capi has included some of the more famous Wing Commander sectors in addition to the ones that shipped with the original Armada.

Look Inside Some Wing Commander Ships
2013-09-21 -- Tyrranus tipped us off about a couple of neat YouTube animations posted by none other than dczanik. Mr. Czanik made the news last month with his set of very high quality 'reimagined' Wing Commander art.

Wing Commander's a Hit!
2013-09-20 -- Privateer 2's release on GOG combined with a stellar sale on Wing Commander titles to create a wonderful looking sales chart today. WC games took the top six slots on the shooters' best selling list. Hopefully you managed to snag any missing members of your collection while they were just a few dollars.

One More For The Confederation's Archives
2013-09-20 -- GOG took some more good screenshots for Priv 2, and we want to make sure they get saved and seen. It's also fun to see how exactly they summarize the key features. And this is a somewhat new method of presentation: the game page for P2 includes its intro video.

BREAKING NEWS: The Darkening on GOG
2013-09-19 -- Amazing news: GOG has released Privateer 2: The Darkening for digital download. The release includes manuals, wallpapers and a copy of Origin's Official Guide to Privateer 2! Pick up your copy here.

Wake Up To A Cool Carrier Render
2013-09-18 -- Klavs has taken a little break from the fighters and bombers that he is most recently known for in order to recreate a very interesting and famous warship. The image below is his interpretation of a Wake class escort carrier such as the TCS Tarawa seen in Wing Commander End Run. These vessels began as transport ships but were upgraded into affordable fighter-carrying machines for a variety of special missions.

Crossbow Receives a Plastic Tribute
2013-09-17 -- Howard Day recently stumbled upon an awesome Lego Wing Commander ship that we don't think has been shown off yet. It's a Crossbow bomber by DoctorMobius. Its design features the white and blue color scheme that was featured in WC2: Special Operations 1.

Concordia Gets Ferret Shipment
2013-09-16 -- Howard Day has significantly updated his Concordia Hangar tech demo. The massive Broadsword is now flanked by small escort Ferrets in the bay. Images below show some of the earlier shots of the Ferret before it got proper landing gear, cockpit equipment and textures.

Get Your Game On
2013-09-15 -- As the video game world transitions into a new console cycle, it's time to once again see which format fans would be most excited about. It's a good bet that PC would win if it were an option, but this question asks about all the other systems. EA is known for major AAA titles spanning multiple platforms, but our experience over the last generation shows that some intriguing possibilities exist for niche games.

Follow or Contact Us
Facebook Twitter RSS E-mail IRC

Forums: Recent Posts

    Current Poll

    Where to Buy

    WCPedia: Recent Contributions

      Site Staff