Collision in Deep Space! As the Century 21 Project Sword Nuclear Ferry disappears past the event horizon on Ebay once more, it leaves us with more answers than questions for a change! Besides some excellent photographs of the ship herself, there are one or two (not as good) pics of the box. Besides being radically different from the general Sword packaging and showing a much more modern style, the main focus is the box illustration.
A superb piece of artwork in itself, as are most of the graphics on the Sword boxes, but its plainly apparent as to where the inspiration and actual illustration came from. Earlier in the blog I posted an article showing Robert McCalls beautiful painting of his design for the ferry, with cut away sections and smaller pic of the ferrys cargo section separating from the booster in the background.
The NF box art has blatantly copied this artwork, re-badging the hull to Sword insignia and making the cutaway shuttle into a glass canopied (and wholly impractical!) viewport. Everything else, even the distribution of the craters on the surface has been slavishly copied, the jetstreams from the engine, detailing and shading are all direct lifts from Mr McCall's painting. The only way it differs slightly is the top half of the lunar landscape has been foreshortened to accomodate a new 'planet' which appears to be the origin of the second ferry.
I wonder if any further details will emerge when the lucky winner scrutinises the model after auction ends ......
The McCall art was also used as reference for a derelict 'space freighter' in the first TV Century 21 "Fireball XL5" strip.
ReplyDeleteHey thanks Charlie. I'd forgotten that. Somewhere it's on the blog. There's a nice piccy and summary on the old GACCH website now on Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185338/http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload04/FireballXL5Part03.htm
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