THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GERRY ANDERSON 1929 - 2012, CREATOR OF THUNDERBIRDS & CENTURY 21 TOYS.

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

PROJECT BLUE BOOK







Way back in the day, before blogs, the internet and before computers insinuated themselves into every household, I would pass the time drawing. I liked nothing better than a good packet of felt pens (or fibre tips as they are called now!) and a pad of paper. Perhaps this was the first steps I was inadvertantly taking down the path to design, but at some point, my random scribblings found a purpose. I combined my obsession with all things space with drawing after discovering an especially chunky note pad and began my 'Space Project'. In order to catalogue all my favourite spaceships, I wrote a few lines of text and drew a picture of the relevant vehicle on each page.

Very much a work of quantity over quality, I furiously churned out page after page. Eventually I filled up at least 15 volumes with my scrawls and now all but one or two are lost. One of the more durable was a cool vinyl covered spiral notebook. This was as far as I can recall volume 3 and judging by the inclusion of the piece of newspaper clipping about the Apollo/Soyuz Linkup Mission, would be mid 1975.

Its also a salient volume because it marks the discovery of Spacex 2 vehicles, which I began to cover based on the card back from the Booster Rocket, so my drawing of the Lunar Transporter features a side slung rocket as opposed to the integral cylindrical hull that we now know to be true. Besides actual toys and real craft, I drew on anything for inspiration and my feverish 13 year old imagination made all kinds of spacecraft up from hair dryers, power tools or anything else that took my eye!

5 comments:

The Philosophic Toad said...

I never had either the imagination or the drawing skills to do anything like this :(

Glad you did, WOTAN. Any chance of seeing some more pages?

WOTAN said...

You can see a lot more, but they are pretty scribbly! Ill see if ican pdf them.

WOODSY said...

Wonderful WOTE! You've done so well keeping hold of the two you have. Beautiful drawings and real pedigree. I rememder drawing all my favourite hot wheels red line cars in a similar way and later all things Kung Fu! We want more of the blue book, yes we do!

The Philosophic Toad said...

What, you too, Woodsy? Was I the only one who didn't draw stuff? ^_^

About the only thing I did do were little plans of Lego creations so I could rebuild them another time.

I was such a dull child to be honest.

Rocket Punch said...

That is very cool! I wish I had kept better track of the sketchbooks from my own youth.

the definitive guide to vintage thunderbirds toys - steve's thunderbirds vintage toys

BLOG EXCLUSIVES ARCHIVE: CUrrently out of order

Spacex Mobile Launch Pad Instruction sheet courtesy of reader Mike Burrows

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BLOG EXCLUSIVE: TARHEEL PROBE FORCE 3 BOX ART AND INSTRUCTION SHEET DOWNLOAD
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