Why not try designing a few?

Some cool art there. That one with the three engines though....the prow sort of reminds me of Barney the Dinosaur. 

*ducks and runs*

Fire! Fire at will!

Notice that Dan very cleverly used pretty artwork to distract us and in the process NOT answer the original ETA question. Very tricky Cricket...BUT WE'RE ON TO YOU!
Of course, it is a very nice picture.
I love the bright, clean look of it.
The "flamethrower" effect of the plasma torp is pretty cool looking too.
Wait,
what were we talking about?
:?
Erik

Hot Damn, Dan!

And I HAVE been playing with Rom Designs (As well as digging out all my FASA Romulan minis as proxies! Using the Glorious "Winged Defender" as my Sparrowhawks and my "Bright Ones' as Skyhawks.)

You know, after the Millennium Con KA game i ran last year, I've had TONS of people pinging me about it and buying the game.

I think it hit their "Long Dormant Starfleet Battles" Nerve.

They all say the same thing "I used to love SFB, but I just don't have the time anyomore."

There is a certain amount of childish glee when you start rolling Photon Torpedo attacks and Disruptor volleys.

Can't wait for the Roms!

It looks a little "juvenile" to me, and the one ship type looks oddly phallic, but hey...
This is coming from a basically non-Starmada player, so it could be I just don't get it.
Kevin

I must second this. Sadly, what was once state-of-the-art now looks hopelessly dorky. Those small units (frigates?) have got to go, and the flying whale, too. Photoshop them out if you must (replace them with battle-damaged Feds?).

They evoke none of the menace and dread I should feel from the Romulans. Hey, ADB--time to put the Romulans in refit.

As a 'computer generation' SFB/Fed Com/Starmada player, I find myself in SHOCK! :shock:
Those are the 'Hawk' series ships- they are the new build Romulan ships form the latter parts of the General War in the SFU (think of it as WWI, WWII and several small civil wars all rolled into one conflict). Their shape is indicative of their design premise- the blocky, bulky aft parts are occupied by interchangeable 'mission modules', allowing a very few ships to fulfill a lot of roles with minimum effort. The round/sweeping forward sections are built to resemble the heads/beaks of birds, as the Romulans tended towards avian-inspired designs.

Like a Glock, or the South Dakota class battleships the 'Hawk' ships are have a 'beauty of design' that does not exactly equate to a 'beauty of form.' After you get the chance to play one of them, you'll see what I mean.

I don't care how kewl these units are on paper, I just can't get past the visuals. ("Space whale on attack vector!") I'm an art teacher and lifelong Trek nerd, so I feel like I've got some authority on the topic. Adam Turner's cover for Klingon Armada was quite nice, and I looked up some of his other stuff online--he's a talented chap. Looks like he does a fair bit of cgi-based art, too.

Hawks and other raptors bring to mind shapes that are sleek and sharp, (think of wings, talons and beaks) not rounded and bulbous. And those forward booms look too much like...er...um...broomhandles. If Hawks are the inspiration, they could go much more beaklike without wandering too far astray from the minis.

Other than the general outlines and shapes, my only suggestions would be to go dirtier, darker and maybe introduce some hull patterning to make them darker and more menacing.

The shape of the ships aside (these are ADBs) the more I look at the picture, the more I think that the artwork desperately needs some texturing...the ships look a bit like they were extruded rather than assembled.
Erik

I mentioned this over on the discus BBS, but the one thing which stands out for me is that the ships seem to be a bit disjointed in terms of orientation.

If the ships were made to look like they were all coming from a single point (or small area) of background space, it might flow a little better.