Following on from Wednesday’s post on the miniature Shado
vehicles, here is the first of three posts which spotlight on the final trio of vehicles from
the reissued Aoshima UFO Moonbase kit.
Obviously these are
all based on Project Sword designs and have no connection with the UFO TV
series, but for some reason they were included in the small vehicles set.
However, in my opinion these little models are arguably the
best of the bunch, and excellent miniature reproductions of two of the Project
Sword toys, plus one, the Moon Crawler that only appeared in the annual, which I'll begin with.
The Moon Crawler (Thanks
to Woodsy we now know it’s inspired from artwork by John Schoenherr and used for a 1961 Analog magazine cover)
is a great design, but unfortunately never made it as an actual Sword toy and
only appeared in a Project Sword annual strip story.
It must have made an
impression on Imai though, as they decided to include it as one of the
additional vehicles in their UFO Secret Doom Centre, and their UFO Space
Science series.
The tiny model isn't exactly the same as the box art, as it
has those large additional silver panels, but apart from that it is more or less like the illustration in the Project Sword annual.
As there’s no Sword toy to compare it with, I've placed it
next to a Spacex Surveyor which obviously takes its inspiration from the Moon
Crawler.
Coming in part 2; The Moon Prospector
Ever since seeing my first Imai UFO Moon Base set of SWORD models online 8 years ago I have waited for close up photographs of real quality to appear. And you've delivered Scoop! Just wonderful. The final picture comparing the Crawler to the Surveyor is brilliant. It makes it crystal clear how tiny the Imai models are yet still they retain the essential SWORD detailing thanks to your classic paint job. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Woodsy. It is good that Imai latched on to Sword and produced these three little beauties.
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