Like two secret teams working on thier sinister plans, by cosmic coincidence WOTAN and I both created moonbase masterpieces at the same time! New box art no less for the fabled Project Sword Moon Base! WOTAN's was posted earlier today in all it's splendid glory and clearly created by someone who knows what they're doing! Mine on the other hand, shown here for your viewing pleasure, is what in the artworld I think is called impressionist (or a mess)!Still the intention was true!
I have opted for a larger box that would house the entire playset. The picture is a blend of the rear cover art from the Project Sword Annual and a fabulous image off the net of a lunar module. It sort of works. The Scramble Bug and Moon Prospector actually appear in the only known Century 21 artwork for the proposed toy, the picture in the Project Sword Manual (bottom picture above).
Clearly the biggest problem in creating box art for this set is not knowing the scale of the thing. Did Century 21 intend to include pre-existing toys like the Bug and Prospector? That would have made the LEM's huge and the box ginormous! WOTAN's idea of several boxes could get round this at such a scale. Perhaps they intended to use SPACEX - sized toys? We can see what this looks like with the SPACEX's own Moonbase ( courtesy of Mike Burrows) which is too small for Project Sword standards.
My own view is that Century 21 wanted a scale somewhere half-way between the two, but this would have required re-sizing the Bug and Prospector and creating the LEV, LEMs, housing unit, lunar surface and the unwieldly-looking dashbaord from scratch. It all sounds very expensive and as sales of the range inevitably dipped towards the end of the Sixties, as Moon fever waxed and waned, I imagine a complex design like the Moon Base was just too costly. But one intriguing question remains, did they make a prototype?
Well, there are some intriguing rumours! More on this.
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