By Steve Fronczek
20 January 2008

Future-Past.com is pleased to share this interview with Charles Adams who worked as a freelance conceptual artist for the Battlestar Galactica Miniseries. This exclusive interview was made possible by the great folks from Happy Mushies Marshmallow Snacks, Caprica City, Caprica.

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Charles, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this interview today.

No problem, Steve! It’s been a few years since the Miniseries first aired, but there continues to be lots of interest in this new take on a sci-fi classic.

Before the interview, you mentioned you created two ship designs for Battlestar. As a "spaceship designer," could you elaborate on what your role as a conceptual designer entailed?

My role was strictly limited to creating a design for one vehicle that was needed for the show. (I would be given the opportunity to design a second ship and I’ll talk more about that a bit later on.) You see, the script called for a certain sequence to be filmed and this gave the producers some ideas as to what they might want to do. As it turns out, this was to be an important part of the Miniseries, so a lot of thought and work went into creating it.

In the opening shot, the audience visits a place called Armistice Station. The initial concept called for showing the space shuttle seen in the original incarnation of Battlestar Galactica arriving at the station and docking there. This would then be mixed with footage of a new and different craft arriving at the same station. The idea was to visually demonstrate the passage of time over a period of several decades.

Ironically, this would have mirrored what was going on behind the scenes on the show. You see, the original Galactica shuttle was designed more than 25 years earlier, most likely by Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie, two talented artists who worked on Star Wars. The model was built at Apogee under the direction of Grant McCune by some of the same talented artisans who had built spaceships for George Lucas’ epic blockbuster.

Fast forward to 2003 and a new shuttle was needed – we called it the MK II – one that would appear to be a more modern version of the original. I was selected to help update the now-classic design. As you can imagine, this was a real thrill and honor for me since I was working on a subject that had originated with some very famous and talented people. That’s why I worked very hard to make sure the updated design would represent a new era in the Galactica universe while, at the same time, having obvious ties to the classic show.

As it turns out, the opening sequence of the Miniseries was shortened and only the classic shuttle was shown. Since a lot of work had been invested in creating a new MK II shuttle, it was used as prominently as possible in other sequences such as when we see the interior of the Galactica’s landing bay. You can also see it ferrying personnel from one ship to another – including the new President-Elect of the Colonies, Laura Roslyn, played by actress Mary McDonnell.

I had a great deal of art training while in secondary school, but chose to pursue a totally different field of study in college (engineering). After that, I went in a different direction once again and became a partner in a small creative design firm. There I worked on graphic design, layout, illustration, and communication in the sales, marketing, and advertising arenas. I was able to combine my artistic and technical abilities to become a proficient technical writer and illustrator.

I have also practiced the art of model building most of my life. When I didn’t have the time, space, or resources to build models, I read up on the subject to learn as much as I could. In the last ten years or so, I’ve met many talented modelers through the Internet and found a number of excellent resources online. I’ve also learned a lot about computer-graphic or CG modeling in recent years.

For me, the most rewarding projects are those where I can combine my artistic abilities with scale modeling. While studying engineering back in college, for example, I had the opportunity to learn drafting. This has proven to be an incredibly useful skill that has come in very handy in all sorts of ways. In fact, I recently wrote a book on model design and blueprinting that, as far as I know, is the only text of its kind on the subject.

How did you become involved with the BSG production through Zoic Studios?

This was a unique and very special opportunity. You see, with a typical movie and television production, an Art Department is created to handle conceptual designs. The Art Director for the show supervises the process and, if the production is large enough, hires one or more conceptual artists to do much of the work.

In this case, the Art Department was already in place and several talented designers had been hired to create conceptual artwork for the show, including fleshing out designs for the new Battlestar and Base Stars. That kind of work is not easy to get, and I probably never would have had the opportunity to get involved were it not for three seemingly random events that all fell into place at the right time.

First, Zoic Studios was given the chance to create some spaceship designs for the show. Now, this in itself was pretty unusual. Like I said, the Art Department is normally charged with that task, so a special effects company is typically handed most of the designs when they begin work. In this case, perhaps due to work overload, scheduling conflicts, or the sheer number of different designs needed, Zoic was left to fill in a large number of "blanks." In fact, they got to create many of the background ships seen in the show such as members of the Rag-Tag Fleet.

Next, a well-known artist by the name of Lee Stringer was assigned the duties of CG Supervisor for the show. It just so happens I had gotten to know Lee several years earlier through a hobby we both enjoy – building replicas of science fiction studio miniatures. As it turns out, Lee had hired a mutual friend of ours to work on some of the CG models that were being built for the new Galactica. Part of these responsibilities included submitting designs for a new shuttle.

For whatever reason, that part didn’t work out as planned, and that’s when the third event happened. Lee and I had a conversation where he mentioned the need for some additional help. To demonstrate my abilities, I showed him a number of spaceship concepts I had created on my own, with no input or direction. I guess he liked what he saw, because the next thing I knew, I was presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new spaceship for Battlestar Galactica!

Did you get to interact much with other artists involved with the Miniseries?

Very little, actually. Since this was a freelance assignment, I did the work at my home in Seattle. Zoic was in Los Angeles, so materials were sent in via e-mail. I worked primarily with Lee Stringer and he acted as Art Director for this particular assignment. Once my designs were approved, they were turned over to a team of CG modelers who were charged with building a model of the ship in the computer. That was also under Lee’s leadership.

One or more artists were in charge of actually building the CG model; called a "mesh". Once completed, it was turned over to another team of artists who created textures for the model. These were bitmap images created to give the model color, markings, and the appearance of having been weathered.

Even a detailed CG model can be very plain looking before it has been textured. The process of adding textures is just like painting and adding decals to a physical model that sits on your desk. The biggest difference might be that a physical model is most often built by a single person while models made for a movie or television production are typically a team effort from design through construction and then final finishing.

When you heard about the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, what were your initial thoughts? Were you a fan of the original?

I was a huge fan of the original show. When it aired, I was in my pre-teen years and this was the coolest thing to ever show up on my TV screen. After being blown away by Star Wars, I was in seventh heaven watching shows like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Those were the days, as I’m sure many of your readers can relate.

By the time the new show was being talked about, I’d pretty much lost faith in Hollywood’s ability to create quality sci-fi entertainment for anyone over the age of about 12. And, of course, our culture had changed quite a bit since 1978. Needless to say, like many others, I was very cautious about embracing a "reboot" of the original concept.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by the finished results, at least for the most part. Overall, it was quite a bit better than I anticipated!

You created a very successful and popular website called StarshipBuilder.com where hobbyists can get great info on building traditional physical models. Did you draw from your experience as a traditional modeler to help create the designs for the two ships?

Thanks for the plug. :) The answer is, "You bet!" My website, online since 1996, was one of the first to explore the area of researching, documenting, and recreating famous Hollywood special effects miniatures. This niche of the scale modeling hobby has since become known as "studio-scale" modeling.

The knowledge I gained in this hobby came about from studying the history of studio miniatures and the people who created them. This led to my getting some hands-on experience actually recreating some of these miniatures. That was a huge help in this project because I was already quite familiar with the original Battlestar Galactica shuttle design, the people who created it, and how they did it.

Did you use any inspiration from the old show to incorporate into your designs?

Absolutely! Lee Stringer wanted the new ship to resemble the original, but appear more sleek and modern. (Though its shape was quite distinctive, the classic shuttle was very boxy with hard edges and squared-off corners.) His idea was for the cockpit windows to wrap around the model like those on a modern jumbo jet. I loved this idea, and I also wanted to maintain the form and "flow" of the original design as much as possible so it would be instantly recognizable as a Galactica shuttle craft.

The original design was brought to life by building a box-like structure in sheet plastic and then covering it with details called “greeblies.” This term, coined by the model makers at Industrial Light and Magic back in the 1970s, simply means parts harvested from commercially available plastic model kits. The process of using these kinds of details is referred to as "kit bashing."

Because I had been working to build a replica of the original Galactica spaceship from the 1978 series, it just so happened I was in possession of many of the plastic model kits that had been used to detail the effects miniatures built for the old show. The new shuttle design would draw upon this tradition and feature many similar kit-bashed details.

In fact, some of the original detailing parts from the classic Galactica shuttle were recreated in CG and applied to the finished computer model of the MK II. This was Lee’s idea and was done by the CG artists who worked on the show. For my part, I created specific areas on the ship knowing these details would be added later.

By the way, bumpy surface details on a modern CG model are often referred as "nurnies." This term was coined by Ron Thornton of Hollywood’s Foundation Imaging, an FX studio that did most of the visual effects work on Babylon 5 and also did a lot of work on some of the newer incarnations of Star Trek on TV.

How much time did it take to create the shuttle design from concept to the final rendered version?

The design process started in April of 2003 and took about three weeks from start to finish. Modeling took a few more weeks after that, so the completed CG model was probably ready sometime in June. Even though the show wasn’t scheduled to air until December of that year, we were operating on a deadline and had to get everything done in a timely fashion.

There was a lot of back and forth in the process, but things went very smoothly. It was a real pleasure to work with Lee. He was easy to communicate with and I felt we worked very well together.

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