There’s Coffee in That Printer: A Voyager Miniatures Project

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Continuing my journey into the world of FDM-printed miniatures, this time I've turned my attention to the bridge crew of Star Trek: Voyager, using the excellent models created by Drakonius and available on MakerWorld.

Whenever officially licensed Star Trek miniatures are released, the focus almost invariably falls on The Original Series or The Next Generation. While those shows are undoubtedly popular, it often leaves the rest of the franchise somewhat overlooked. Even within the unofficial miniature community, characters from Voyager have traditionally been less common, perhaps due to concerns about attracting unwanted attention from Paramount's legal department.

The original Drakonius models were designed primarily as display pieces, standing approximately 18 to 20 centimetres tall. As a result, they required significant downscaling to bring them into line with the miniature collections I already own.

As with many of my previous projects, scaling presented an interesting challenge. Rather than simply resizing every model to the same height, I wanted to preserve the relative proportions of the cast. To achieve this, I looked at the real-world heights of the actors and scaled accordingly. Jennifer Lien (Kes), for example, is approximately 5'2½", while Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris) stands around 6'0". In fact, four members of the bridge crew are under 5'5", resulting in a surprisingly varied set of miniature heights.

Jeri Ryan presents an additional challenge. While she is reportedly around 5'10" in real life, the costuming department frequently enhanced Seven of Nine's height with heels, making the character appear even taller on screen. Deciding exactly how tall to make her miniature therefore involved a degree of artistic interpretation rather than strict mathematical accuracy.

The results can be seen below. Despite the limitations of FDM printing at this scale, I'm pleased with how well the characters have retained their distinctive appearances and relative proportions. They certainly look the part when assembled together as the senior crew of Voyager.

Captain Janeway & Chakotay

Ensign Kim & Tuvok

7 of 9

Neelix & Kes

Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres

The EMH


Location: Southampton, UK

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