Ryan Dening

Canadian-born Ryan Dening is a production/concept illustrator who has worked on the first three seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, where he was responsible for many of the starship designs seen on that show, most conspicuously the Section 31 starships. His first ship he designed for the series however, was the somewhat unusual The Festoon, the space yacht of Baron Grimes, Harry Mudd's father-in-law, that made its appearance in the first season episode "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad". While working on the first season, Dening worked under John Eaves, who was the lead Federation ship designer on the show at that point.

After Eaves had left the show at the end of the first season, Dening took over Eaves' vacant position on the show for Season 2 and beyond, and his first contributions as such became the USS Hiawatha and the landing pod. (Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection, issue 22, pp. 9; issue 20, pp. 8-14; issue 23, pp. 8-14), which was followed by his first Section 31 design, that of the NCIA-93-type (an Eaglemoss Collections' model of which Dening is holding in the picture on the right), making its first appearance in "Point of Light".

For season three, Dening became responsible for the (co-)design of all 32nd century starships (including the upgrade redesign of the "hero"-ship USS Discovery, but save the Friendship-class and Dresselhaus-type which were designed by freelancer Daniel Burns and VFX Art Director Willian Budge respectively [1][2]), starting with Booker's ship, this time assisted by the staff of North Front Studio, his own Toronto-based design company, he brought along in order to divide the workload. (Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, issue 11, p. 11)

Dening's design work was not limited to starships only, as he also worked on the USS Shenzhou bridge and transporter room, Michael Burnham's second season environmental suit, and the Red Angel flight suit. [3] And while Dening's Star Trek commission had him almost exclusively work on Discovery, he was allowed to take one detour in order to contribute to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds's debut season. For that season he designed several interior upgrades of the USS Enterprise, and was asked to design the various Majalis planetscapes for that season's sixth episode "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach", which was Dening actually revisiting the craft he had started out his professional career with as outlined below. [4]

In a time honored Star Trek tradition, Dening was listed as R. Dening as part of the Tactical Ops team on the dedication plaque of the USS Discovery. Remarkably though and unlike his superior Eaves, he was not on the plaque of its mirror universe counterpart, the ISS Discovery. (DIS: "Context Is for Kings", dedication plaque)

Other official Star Trek work[]

Dening's first "Limited Edition" art print…	…his second one…	…and his third one for the Universe Starships Collection.

Dening's involvement with Discovery was not his first brush with the official Star Trek franchise; in the time period 2006 – 2008 he worked as the lead design consultant and concept artist for Perpetual Entertainment's development of its eventually unrealized version of Star Trek Online (STO), and designed several starships and environments for the game, [5][6][7]^(X) most notably its slated "hero"-ship USS Excalibur (β). [8] At Perpetual Entertainment, Dening met John Eaves, and was actually his superior at that company during their tenure, before the positions became reversed a decade later on the first season of Discovery. It was Eaves who had noticed at Perpetual that Dening's "passion for Star Trek was without limits". [9]

For Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection (the successor of the Discovery Starships Collection) Dening created the "Limited Edition" art prints, collection subscribers were sent in July and November 2021, and March 2022 as part of their subscription.

Star Trek starship designs[]

Note: The Section 31 ship class names were never established/confirmed in canon but are derived from the producer's notes as mentioned in Discovery Starships Collection magazines, and are indicated by quotation marks

Starships and space stations designed by Ryan Dening:

Career[]

A 2000 graduate from Oakville, Ontario, Canada-based Sheridan College with an Illustrators degree, Dening landed his first professional job upon graduation at Forrec Ltd., a company specialized in design work for theme parks and attractions, and where Dening was put to work on Legoland. He stayed at that company until 2005. [10]^(X) Afterwards he went to work as (senior) concept illustrator for computer game companies like Acony Games GmbH, Perpetual Entertainment (which included his work on Star Trek Online), Midway Games, and most conspicuously BioWare (EA) where he from 2008-2012 designed for the online Star Wars computer game Star Wars: The Old Republic. By then Dening had specialized in hardware and environment design.

Forming North Front Studio[]

His first motion picture job Dening landed at Activision as senior concept artist, designing landscapes for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008). After his tenure at Bioware, Dening decided to go freelance and in February 2014 he teamed up with fellow illustrator Tim Warnock to found their own company North Front Studio, Inc. based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The same year the company already landed their hitherto most prestigious account on the acclaimed SyFy science fiction series The Expanse, (2015-2022, served by former Star Trek writer Naren Shankar as showrunner) albeit uncredited – even though Dening and Warnock were individually. Aside from working on commission base for commercial clients, Dening also produces instruction videos at his company for budding concept artist hopefuls. [11]

However, the work dried up after SyFy cancelled the series in 2017 after three seasons, after which Dening found himself without sufficient work. It was then that he applied for, and got, a position on Discovery, the production of which having just fortuitously landed in his hometown. [12] On 26 May 2018 however, after a fan campaign to save the series – very similar to the one that saved The Original Series for its third season back in 1967/68 – Amazon conglomerate owner and CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company had picked up the production and exclusive streaming rights for the series, now as an "Amazon exclusive" for his streaming service Prime Video. [13] Dening subsequently temporarily left Discovery during its season 2–3 production break, and returned to his company to resume working on The Expanse which saw as of 2021 two more seasons realized.

North Front Studio staffers who worked on Star Trek: Discovery[]

When Dening returned to work on Discovery's third season, he brought along his North Front Studio staff to help out with the designs of the fleet of 32nd century ships. (Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, issue 11, p. 11)

• Lee Fitzgerald
• Tracy Généreux
• Frank Yang

Bibliography[]

External links[]

• Deningart.com^(X) – archived personal official site
  • deningart.blogspot.com – Ryan Dening's live, but inactive blog page
• Ryan Dening at the Internet Movie Database
• Ryan Dening at Linkedin.com
• Ryan Dening at ArtStation.com
  • Profile
  • Portfolio
• Ryan Dening at The Expanse wiki
• Ryan Dening at Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki
• North Front Studio – Ryan Dening's official company site
• 1 April 2007 Audio/Podcast Interview with Ryan Denning, Lead Concept Artist for STO^(X) at Hailing Frequency 'The Internets First Podcast Dedicated to Star Trek Gaming'^(X)
• 26 October 2019 Interview Panel with Ben Robinson at YouTube (Destination Star Trek Birmingham, UK)