The redesigned look of the Klingon Empire seen in Star Trek: Discovery has not been without controversy, as almost all aspects of the familiar Trek species has been updated for the new series — everything from the new look of the aliens’ prosthetic makeup, to the costuming and prop designs, to the warrior race’s starships have been revamped for Discovery.
When it came to the classic Bird of Prey starship design, Discovery concept artists Sam Michlap and John Dickerson were tasked by former series showrunner Bryan Fuller to make the ship more “aggressive, Gothic, and much more textural” for the new show.
Michlap knew that Bird of Prey needed to stay in general two-wings-and-a-neck neighborhood of the classic Nilo Rodis-Jamero-designed ship first built for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. After creating a basic working concept, he altered the proportions and tapered the wings to give the revamped Bird of Prey a shape that “make[s] it feel like [it will] stab you” like any Klingon bladed weapon
As a result, while a significant departure from the classic BOP design, the ship does seem to mimic a true bird of prey in shape and wing curvature.
The first season of Discovery never really gave the Bird of Prey much of a focus, only appearing in fleeting battle scenes, zooming past camera without allowing viewers much of a chance to examine the new design.
Whatever your thoughts on the Discovery Klingon aesthetic, Eaglemoss’ model of the new Bird of Prey is something quite interesting — the first entry in the company’s like of Discovery Klingon vessels features a great deal of intricate design and paint application which makes this ship unmistakably unique in their Trek fleet.
The neck of the ship, along with a few spots around the rear and lower spine of the vessel, has a near-aquamarine splash of deep blue coloring painted on its hull, a detail really not visible in the ship’s limited on-screen appearances.
The inner curvature of the wings also feature thinly-painted gold piping along the conduits and structural elements of the ship, allowing for some nice metallic shine along the edges of the ship. The outer surface of the wings, while mostly flat and physically textureless, do also have a feathered sponge-paint-like design imprinted on the surface to provide the illusion of a weathered hull.
Moving around to the rear of the ship, the boxy engine assembly of the classic Bird of Prey has been replaced by an curved-inward pod, with heavily-textured elements that can’t be described with any word other than “spinal.”
A series of vertebrae-esque protrusions span the length of the back half of the ship; while they don’t seem to have any technical benefit, they do give the Bird of Prey the sense that it’s designed to mimic an organic animal.
While the model certainly seems to reflect the design team’s on-screen Bird of Prey rather well, there are some rather noticeable seams in the construction of this ship that are a bit distracting to the eye, starting with the top join that bisects the length of the model’s center.
This seam runs right down the middle of the Bird of Prey, splitting front-facing and underside blue portals right in half. It’s unfortunate that the joins don’t run out to the edges of these circular markings to keep from breaking up the blue; as it is, the seam is somewhat distracting.
A surprisingly-obvious seam also runs along the top ridge of each wing, down to where the top of each wing is adhered to the lower body; a few recipients of the model have reported that the plastic overlay has separated slightly from body in a way that needed a bit of touch-up work after unpacking.
The Star Trek: Discovery Bird of Prey model is the first, but not last, entry into the new series of Klingon warships set to come down the pike from Eaglemoss – additional battleships planned for future releases include the Qugh-class battle cruiser, seen in both “Battle at the Binary Stars” and other episodes from Discovery’s first season, and several other Klingon designs.
In addition, early plans for the massive Klingon sarcophagus ship – the so-called “Ship of the Dead” – are underway to bring that vessel to market as a special-edition release (though no timeline for that ship has yet been announced).
The Discovery Klingon Bird of Prey is shipping now to Eaglemoss model subscribers, and is available for order in the company’s webstore as well (for $54.95 in the US and £34.99 in the UK).
The next ships from Discovery, set to arrive later this summer, include ill-fated USS Europa from the Discovery two-hour pilot, and Sarek’s Vulcan cruiser from “Lethe,” both of which are on display at this week’s Star Trek convention is Las Vegas.
What are your thoughts on this reinterpretation of the Klingon Bird of Prey ship? Sound off in the comments below – and keep checking back to TrekCore for the latest Trek merchandise news and reviews!