SP: I have loved SF and model building since I was a kid. I was brought up in the sixties when the human race took its first tentative steps into space, and news reports and TV coverage of early space missions really captured my imagination. I also watched all the classic old Sci-Fi movies that were on TV at that time. Things like Destination Moon, Tobor the Great, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth Versus the Flying Saucers and dozens of others. The Gerry Anderson TV shows were another big influence, from Supercar from around 1960 to Fireball XL5 and of course Stingray and Thunderbirds. These shows really showed me what models and imagination can accomplish.

SP: Getting that sense of reality about a model. It's not just in realistic detailing and painting, it's the whole design concept. Does this really look like it will fly, or function? Does it make any sense in the world it is presented in? Can you suspend in your disbelief that this is just a model and accept it as part of this story that is being presented?

SP: CGI is greatest thing since sliced bread! With CGI you can create realistic effects more easily and more cheaply than ever before. I've done CGI work for TV. A couple years ago TBS program called "Fire from the Sky" feature some of my CGI effects. A nuclear missile is launched at an asteroid to blow it up before it strikes the earth. The explosion breaks the asteroid into several large chunks that strike the earth anyway, causing even more damage! That was fun. Another sequence I did was of a mining base on an asteroid with a mass driver transportation system. I did these sequences on my home Macintosh Performa, a puny machine by today's standards, but they were shown on national TV!

SP: It totally depends on the project and the look you are trying to achieve. For a realistic type program or film I prefer to see both. CGI is not the answer to every effects situation. Some things are still more effective with models or full size sets and props. CGI is getting better every year. The audience is getting more sophisticated too, and can recognize some CGI effects and artifacts more readily. Computer animation and physical models are just tools to be used. The effects supervisor should have a full array of tools at his disposal, and pick those best suited to each image he is trying to create.

SP: It depends on the project. In general, yes, there is more creative freedom. You get to create something new, something never seen before. In some ways it is easier too. For example if you were to build a model of the Titanic for a Jim Cameron film, you would have to be able to create an accurate model down to the placement of each rivet. If you slip up, some history nut is going to rip into you for some little mistake, like for painting a deck chair the wrong shade of tan or something. But if you build an original model of a mile long alien space cruiser that no one has seen before, who can tell you it isn't right? You might include some interesting looking salt shaker for the engine exhaust. If your ship appears in a popular movie, some fan is going to try to build his own model of that ship and will go to great lengths to reproduce that same salt shaker you found at a garage sale. And some other fan will rip him apart not getting it exactly right!

BGR: In particular...what has drawn you to Battlestar Galactica?

SP: I loved Battlestar when it was first on TV. The aircraft carrier in space is a great concept, something different from the ships in Star Trek or Star Wars. Like those two, it is great space opera, a great escapist fantasy. Honestly, I kept hoping it would get better! I believe that Battlestar Galactica has tremendous potential to tell a great story, an epic struggle and quest filled with peril and triumph.

SP: It's interesting. I met Richard Hatch at a SF convention 3 years ago where he spoke about his concept to revive Galactica 20 years later. It immediately grabbed hold of my imagination and I began to speculate what upgraded Vipers might look like. I did a quick sketch and showed it to him.

He encouraged me to do some more. I did some sketches and computer renderings of the Vipers, new Colonial ships and Cylon ships. I built a model of the Scarlet Viper based on the reissued Monogram kit. I showed it to Richard a few months later at DragonCon. He loved it and asked me for the model so he could show his CGI team. They used the same basic design I came up with, except they turned the top fin around backwards! They also used a longer exhaust extension, something I had in an original sketch, but not in the model, which used a shorter exhaust extension so it would fit in a display case. I didn't know they actually used my design until DragonCon the next year where Richard premiered the trailer.

SP: This is a really exciting project where I can let my imagination go and come up with all kinds of new ideas. Stuff nobody has seen before. Richard wants giant space cruisers, futuristic tanks and fighters, space cities and all kinds of Sci-Fi hardware. It's real epic. I'm not doing modeling work so much as design work. A couple of my ships are in it so far. The Magellan project, like the trailer for Richard's Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, is using all CGI for the effects work. What preliminary effects I've seen so far are really spectacular!

SP: Paying ones! Seriously, we all have to make a living! Science fiction is number one with me. Personally I would love to a space story, say it's about 50 years in the future, there is no faster than light travel and humans are just starting to colonize the solar system. The closest thing to it is the movie "Outland", which was kind of a western in space with Sean Connery as the sheriff.

SP: I liked "Starship Troopers". I didn't expect much from that film, so I was surprised at how good it was. The TV series, which is all Computer animation also has some good original designs in it.

SP: I'd rather watch a story with good ideas, characters and intellectual integrity with cheesy robot costumes and saucers hanging from strings. But I still will watch a multi-million dollar sfx bash with mindless violence and little plot. I'd admire all that good effects work being wasted in the name of appealing to the largest possible audience to make a quick buck.

SP: Do it because you love it! Don't plan on getting rich or even making it in Hollywood. Keep working on those designs, do all that realistic detailing and painting, enter model contests, take pictures, make amateur films and videos. Go to conventions and model shows. You have to love what you're doing and that love will show in the results. Who knows where it might lead you!

Steve with Richard Hatch and Steve with his Scarlet Viper.

Some space shots featuring Steve's models (Click to Enlarge).