During his career, Thornton also worked with teams providing visual effects for many major science fiction productions, including Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Trek,[1] and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Thornton was born in London in 1957, studying at West Kent College, and subsequently worked at Gatwick Airport as a flight dispatcher.
[6] Among other things, Thornton created guns for the Doctor Who story "Warriors' Gate"[3] When Blake's 7 entered its fourth season, a new spaceship was needed.
This led to Thornton being employed at the BBC in the Visual Effects Workshop, working with Bill Pearson and Martin Bower to create the Blake's 7 ships for that season.
[3] In 1984, Thornton moved to the United States, where he worked on several different film and television projects, including Commando, Spaceballs and Robot Jox.
[2][7] Thornton and his friend Paul Beigle-Bryant, whom he had previously known in the UK, began a business as dealers in Psion handheld devices, under the name Foundation Systems.
Thornton used LightWave 3D software on an Amiga to create a 300-frame, ten-second computer animation of a ship approaching the Babylon 5 space station, and transferred it onto a VHS tape.
Beigle-Bryant recalls, "[Straczynski] and Douglas Netter basically then turned to Ronny, who said something along the lines of 'like this', and played the ten second animation sequence sitting on a VHS tape.
Absolute carnage..."[21][22] or "It is a scene from hell: explosion, heavy weapons fire, smoke, the ugly face of war on an alien world ... (Go crazy Foundation).” [23][24] Thornton also created the CGI-animated series Hypernauts, which aired in 1996, and directed one episode.
[25][2][3] Thornton and Foundation were involved as a major visual effects studio for the animated series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, released in 1999–2000.
In 2000, Thornton and Foundation took over effects work from Netter Digital for two animated series: Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, produced for UK Channel Five.,[26] and Max Steel.
"[30] Designer Luc Mayrand described his time working with Thornton on Babylon 5, "Ron and Foundation were fantastic..., and he, Paul, Mojo, and John Teska were way ahead of the curve in doing effects for tv.