Hey there.
My name is Luke and this is my first developer blog entry on the Excalibur website. I'll have recently worked on the Breen Bridge set for Excalibur and in this blog post, I am going to go over the design process with you.
If you watched DS9, you'll know that a Breen bridge was actually seen on screen. However, due to the involvement that the Breen will play in Excalibur, we wanted to see them have their very own bridge and not a quick 5 minute makeover of the Jem' hadar 'Bug' bridge.
Given that the only dedicated (i.e.not a redress) interior we saw of a Breen ship was of the brig and an adjacent corridor, I didn't have much to go on.
From screen-caps of these sets, I took the shape of the door and the design of the decorative wall fitting and made sure that I incorporated those in the Excalibur Breen Bridge set in some areas.
From there it was a blank canvas and when you’re tasked with making a Breen bridge, you have to think: “What makes something look Breen? What is the exact piece of visual stimulation that is going to convey the message of 'Breen' “?
To be honest; I hadn’t even the foggiest idea, after all, I can only place so many doorframes and wall decorations, so I thought of ways I could incorporate the refrigeration 'theme' into the ship, in an attempt to relate the ship to its crew. Also, in conjunction with that, the Voyager episode “Scorpion”' suggested that Breen ships have biological parts incorporated into them. So I drew up a few ideas, before finally deciding on going with a large refrigeration tube - the idea being that whatever runs throughout the Breen suits also runs throughout their ships, relating back to The Breen ships being semi-biological, as one could say that the tube is a big artery, with the smaller tubes being veins.
The LCARS were interesting, as again, I wanted to make something the Breen could call their own, so, after some thinking, I discovered that there was a
graphic displayed on the doors, so i thought about incorporating that into the LCARS. The result is a little bit mishmash, but the Breen ships themselves look a bit mishmashed, so that’s my excuse.
Why an upper level?
This got asked a few times in the dev section and if I’m honest, the answer is 'because I like it'
I think the upstairs emphasizes the “alien-ness” of the bridge, as well as adding a good opportunity for someone to be thrown over the edge at some point in the game
Overall, I think I've created something that people will see and think of as Breen, with a few giant Breen logos on show for good measure.
Thanks for reading,
- Luke
P.S: Find attached a sketch I did before moddeling the bridge, for your viewing pleasure
