Fabio Passaro
Fabio Passaro  is a self-taught digital artist who has made a number of contributions to the Star Trek franchise.

Passaro's very first professional assignment came when he was contacted by Foundation Imaging's Effects Supervisor Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz who commissioned a digital version of the . Lebowitz, along with Doug Drexler, were among the few publication editors who granted young and aspiring amateur digital modelers a chance to create work for official Star Trek print publications. 

Despite the availability of a suitable production-used CGI model, Passaro's Reliant model was prominently featured on the cover of the 2002 collector's edition of , which was rendered by Lebowitz himself. (; ) Recalling his first professional assignment, he said, "The client required it to as photo-realistic as possible...to be featured on a front cover of a magazine and with the possibility of a multi-page spread inside the magazine – which was later dropped. The mesh itself took 2 weeks (60 hours) to construct from what reference I was provided with and the texturing a further 8 days. As always with the world of textures – a texture can never really be good enough and I could go on for ever making nicer and nicer textures for this ship." 

His next official Star Trek contribution came during his employment as a digital artist at Threshold Digital Research Labs where he co-created the Borg Chamber for the 2004 Borg Invasion 4D-ride at the Star Trek: The Experience-attraction. Passaro recalled, "I was commissioned to create a part of the Borg Chamber used in the ride. The scene consisted of nearly 3 million polygons or so and was built to strict outside dimensions although I was asked to detail the inside of the chamber to my own tastes but in fitting with the Borg theme." 

Since 2013, after being introduced by him by Lebowitz (Star Trek: Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2151-2293, p. 6), Passaro has been commissioned by Ben Robinson, the project manager of Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, to construct new CGI models for starship designs that are presently unavailable, have never been previously created, or have earlier live-action production models re-rendered that were deemed too low-resolution for practical print representation use. Part of Passaro's responsibilities include the conversion of remastered  models by CBS Digital from the  software into the  software format and adapting them into a  file.  His most recognizable work for the publication however, are, unsurprisingly, the various incarnations of the , the digital recreations of the  starships – the original computer files being lost – as well as the Battle of Wolf 359 Federation starships, of which no production digital counterparts were ever produced, with his digital construction of the ethereal  to boot alongside his re-rendererings of the other Alex Jaeger designed Battle of Sector 001 Federation starships. As usual with this partwork, Passaro's digital models were used as templates to construct the display models that came with their respective issues of the publication. 

Starting in 2017, Passaro also became contracted for the conversion of Pixomondos  production CGI models from Maya into LightWave 3D (and their first conversion into CAD files) for the Official Starships Collections follow-up project, the Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection. Although this work was featured on his website in the Summer/Autumn of 2019,  Passaro opted (for unknown reasons) to remove his Discovery renders from the site. 

In March 2021, Passaro indicated that he was adapting and converting original studio models for the Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, while his site stated that Meshweaver had completed 220 models for Eaglemoss/Hero Collector. This staggering total includes the models that Passaro has built from scratch, and the conversion, re-texturization, and "revamp/update" of other artists' 3D models, for a number of the company's product lines.

Career outside Star Trek
Being of Italian descent but born in Wales, Fabio Passaro has had a keen interest in graphic novels since early childhood. In particular, he found Marvel Comics' work which had been imported to the UK from the US to be the most appealing. In the early 1990s, he acquired one of the earliest PCs available to the general public and started to try his hand at digital modeling, very much inspired by the groundbreaking Babylon 5 series. Despite having had some formal education in art, photography, engineering, and the fundamentals of three-dimensionality, digital modeling remained something of a hobby until Adam Lebowitz came calling in 2001. 

For Passaro, his association with Lebowitz turned out to be particularly beneficial, as he recalled, "My first break In the TV/Film industry came after I was asked to model the USS Reliant for the front cover of Star Trek magazine which ultimately led to the BSG [Battlestar Galactica] mini series gig and the rest thereafter." 

In order to market his skills more professionally, Passaro decided to establish his own company in 2001 under the name Meshweaver Productions.  Through his company, he continues to create new digital works as a contractor. He also sells digital odds and ends (often referred to as "greebles and nurnies" by digital modelers) to try "(...) to make other 3D artist lives easier. On many occasions when an artist has built a model there are many areas left empty and need to be filled." 

One of Passaro's first professional assignments was a commission to create meshes for models which were used in the creation of starship miniatures for the Babylon 5 Agents Of Gaming range, a role-playing game comparable to FASA's . He has subsequently worked as a digital artist on Ronald D. Moore's 2003 Battlestar Galactica mini-series, the 2005 television series Captain Scarlett, the 2007 direct-to-video Babylon 5: The Lost Tales (especially pleasing to the consummate Babylon 5 fan Passaro), and Battlestar Galactica: Razor (alongside a slew of other Star Trek alumni).

In reference to his hobbies, Passaro has identified an interest in ocean and fly fishing, clay and target shooting, motorcycling, photography, and home-based herpetology. 

Passaro communicates with the outside world (and his employer) through  under his pseudonym "DarthPistachio".

Bibliography
 (uncredited)
 Volume 3, Issue 5, September 2002, Collector's Edition – Cover Co-Illustrator
 Volume 3, Issue 12, April 2003 – Co-Illustrator (p. 113)
Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection (uncredited)
Issue 12, 2014 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 14, 2014 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 20, 2014 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 47, 2015 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 54, 2015 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 61, 2015 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 64, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 73, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 75, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 79, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 80, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 85, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 86, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 91, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 92, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 93, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 95, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 96, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 100, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 104, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 105, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 108, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 110, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 114, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 116, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 118, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 120, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 122, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 126, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 127, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 138, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 143, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 159, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 161, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue M1, 2015 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue SP3, 2014 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue SP4, 2015 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue SP7, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue SP9, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue SP11, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue XL9, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Bonus issue 5, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Bonus issue 7, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Bonus issue 11, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler, Interviewee
Shuttle issue 5, 2017 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Shuttle issues 13-16, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
, 4th ed, 2016 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler (uncredited, but acknowledged)
Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection (uncredited)
Issue 1, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 3, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 4, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 5, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 6, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 7, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 8, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 9, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 10, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 11, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 12, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 13, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 14, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 15, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 16, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 17, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 18, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Issue 19, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
XL Edition issue 1, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler
Star Trek: Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2151-2293, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler (credited)
Star Trek: Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2294 to the Future, 2018 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler (credited)
Star Trek: Shipyards - Klingon Fleet, 2019 – Co-Illustrator, Digital Modeler (credited)

Appendices

Footnotes

External links 
  – official site
 
 
  and 

Star Trek reference artists
Exhibit and attraction staff
Merchandise staff