17 June, 2025

Review: FanHome’s Enterprise-G

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I have been pleasantly surprised with FanHome’s pick-up of the Eaglemoss Starship Collection, thus far. They’ve gotten all of the eight ships (so far) out on time, and after dumpng OSM as their shipper, they’re hitting their shipping windows consistently. (To be fair, OSM was consistently getting me my shipments one day later than the estimated time, save for the Christmas season, and that’s to be expected.)

Again, the presentation is far superior to the Eaglemoss packaging. the standard graphics for the boxes is much more pleasing to the eye that the bland blue from Eaglemoss. This box, as with the Enterprise-F XL, has an embosed Star Treklabeling that’s quite nice. It comes with the XL-sized Enterprise-G and a booklet about the design process for this Picardseason three hero ship. The angle on the stand is better than it was on a few of the earlier models, which were a bit too flat; too much chance of the model falling off if bumped.

What you get…

They did a grand job with this one, as with the “F”. The detailing is excellent, and one place FanHome has excelled over Eaglemoss is the detailing on the ventral side of the models. A lot of the previous models skimped on the undersides of the vessels; so far, most of the FanHome products have given more attention to the underside. Hatches, ports, phaser banks, RCS props are all well detailed.

The underside gets similar detailing on the engineering section, if a bit less so on the saucer:

I was particularly fond of this design and for obvious reasons — it’s a modern take of the refit Enterprise from the original movies. It’s a design that combines the classic modern look of the TOS ship with the more realistic portrayal of the movies, then toughens it up around the neck and tosses in the new nacelle design (meh). No negative space design with holes in the spaceframe that don’t need to be there; it looks tough in a way the Akira and the Sovereign did. It’s simply a fantastic looking ship.

So is it worth the $70 or so? If you’re a collector, if you like the look of the 25th C. vessels, if you’re looking to have the whole alphabet in your collections — absolutely. It’s really a gorgeous model. This and the Stargazer have won e over to the new 25th C aesthetic in a way the F did not.

 

2 June, 2025

Review: FanHome USS Titan

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Riker’s ship has warped in from FanHome. I wasn’t real jazzed up for this one, (Ba-dum-bump…) but now that it’s here, I’m really liking FanHome’s model of Titan. I was worried it was going to be more cartoony — in keeping with the aesthetic of Lower Decks, but no, it’s a pretty good model. As with the other FanHome products, presentation is a cut above the old Eaglemoss. Box, booklet, all have better graphic design and look good.

There have been definite improvements for the subscription service. The change of shipper has smoothed out some of the kinks from the beginning of these releases, and my models have been coming in, like clockwork, on the last estimated day for delivery, or one after. So far, I’ve had no damaged boxes of models.

Titan has that TNG movie period aesthetic — the nacelles are similar to the look of the Akira-class, and the saucer section has similar queues from the period. The quality of the model’s paint job and detailing are very good — I think they did a better job on this than the preceding models, though it does seem to have more plastic and less die-cast in this particular release.

The lifeboats, the emitters are all nicely visceral. The windows seem to mostly line up, and the aztec paint job is good. This model did not skimp where most do — the underside is equally well done.

Hathces, docking ports, warp core hatches — all painted with warning lines. Other than the seam on the underside of the tail, it all looks good.

They really did a nice job with this one. So if you like the TNG movie period vessels, this is definitely worth getting.

 

24 December, 2024

Review: FanHome’s USS Stargazer (from Picard S2)

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The latest drop from FanHome did not disappoint. Even though I’m not much on the look of a lot of the 25th Century ships but Stargazer (Sagan-class) is well executed. It arrived about a week late thanks to the holiday season (and to much online bitching), but again — the packaging is much better than the bland blue of Eaglemoss, similar packing, the usual booklet on the design, history, and appearance of the ship with good quality gloss paper.

The model itself is well detailed, but in the mold and the paint job. The portholes really pop on this thing, for some reason (I think because they’re a light blue rather than white.) 

There’s a bit more detail on the undersides of this and Titan from last month than Eaglemoss often would do on the Discovery period ships, so that’s a plus.

Overall, I’ve been pretty impressed with the model quality and presentation so fan. Can’t wait to see a Strange New Worlds ship to compare with the previous Pike Enterprise: next month: Farragut. 

Is it worth it? If you’ve been collecting Trek ships from the previous manufacturer and are a completist, absolutely. If this was a ship that really sang to you, yes. Price should be $65 w/ shipping. The subscription knocks off $10 and shipping. Allegedly, you can cancel the ones you don’t want, but I’ve yet to test that with FanHome (although Eaglemoss did it for my Galactica subscription, no questions.)