Master artist Charles Adams is at his usual excellence!

As soon as the Galactica I’m building is crated and shipped to the client, I will be starting construction on a replica of the TOS shuttle. My client has asked for a body shell and I will actually be building three of them at the same time — one for him, one for myself, and one for my good friend and faithful assistant Richard Lindstrom.

This model will not be cast. Instead, it will be made completely from scratch using styrene and acrylic. I have all the parts needed to detail it sitting right here. All I need is a finished body and the rest should come together fairly quickly.

Recently, while designing the patterns it came time that I had to lock down a cockpit interior layout. I simply could not proceed with construction until I knew exactly where the interior would be located relative to the rest of the structure. Even after pouring through screen captures and original set blueprints, it was very difficult to tell exactly how they configured the cabin set.

I finally decided to just build it full size and see how well I could match what we saw on screen. This turned out remarkably well. Plus, I learned quite a bit about the original set in the process. It seems they did not build it to plan as shown in the drawings. In fact, they made a number of important changes. I figured out what a lot of those were as I tried to make my 3D mockup match the existing reference.

In the process of creating this mockup, I was able to derive patterns for the instrument panel, console, pilot’s seats, and passenger seats. All that remains are the joystick controls and some ceiling detail.

Once I was satisfied with the mockup, the next step was to see how well it would fit inside the studio miniature. Not surprisingly, it did not fit at all. The set is much too narrow — and WAY too long — to be placed inside a “real” shuttle. As a result, I was forced to shorten it dramatically. Then, I had to find a way to “cheat” the width to get the seats far enough outboard so they were underneath the windows.

While I had to make quite a few modifications in the process, the results still look good. I am very happy with the final mockup. It may not be a perfect match to what we saw on screen, but I feel it is more than close enough to proceed.

Please see attached for some renders of the full-size set mockup and also the modified version test-fitted inside a replica of the studio model. I’m pretty sure I have never seen anyone try to create a truly accurate looking interior in a TOS shuttle replica. This might be a first?

🙂

Charles