This site started out by simply listing a few of the computer generated ship designs that appeared in the Babylon 5 television series. More by accident than design, it now contains information on a number of subjects relating to the CGI and VFX in general, like this; • Who developed new techniques while moonlighting on B5 and introduced them to his day job at Industrial Light and Magic. It contains things like that because I contacted just a few of the artists (and one producer) responsible for making the show. The reason for doing that was, once I started looking for something as basic as who designed the Omega class destroyer I was surprised to learn not one fan or reference site on the internet held such information. The overwhelming bulk of what did exist was extremely jms-centric, while at the same time often being little more than fan created conjecture and myth being presented as facts to the viewer. (jms is Joseph Michael Straczynski, the guy who came up with the idea for the show, was one of two executive producers and the main writer)
If you’re a casual fan of B5 and its spinoffs you may not know who most of the above are. I certainly didn’t know who any of them were when starting this as just an exercise in putting a basic web page together. But their comments, the concept art they sent over - along with additional material provided by the likes of Wayne Barlowe, Jack Nichols, Mat Sprange and Syd Mead - now make up the bulk of the site content. Informative, occasionally funny, definitely insightful and in places maybe even a little controversial for some. Combined together the result of those chats is a more wide ranging and balanced perspective than any single person could possibly provide on how Babylon 5 was created - or at least they touch on a couple of small parts of it. There's no way I was ever going to approach all the 'Great Makers' behind the shows success. Last Updated |