A Message from Looey

"That there's some corner of a foreign rooftop That is for ever England."

The joys of low budget film making! I needed film of a fluttering Union Jack on a flagpole for an element in a VFX composite I'm planning.

So, one $6 flag from eBay, a length of pvc drainpipe from the scrap heap, a length of rope from the greenhouse and four grabber screws!

Strapped to my chimney and a low angle to mask  the trees and Pandannas and this will pass for North Africa, 1942!

My camera case has a piece of sign work on it, which will end up in the film. The graphics will be printed out as a sign board, that a worker will be seen painting.

I still haven't got my Spitfire to filming standard, but I now have the flag it flies past!

Anyway, with the year over, it's time to say

      "Happy New Year, Moonbasers!"

Looey

Oz

Looey's Christmas Strip

All the best to you Moonbasers everywhere!

Looey,

Oz Base

Epoch waits for no Man!

After a recent natter with Woodsy, I realised I hadn't looked into the history of the Japanese toymaker, Epoch.

https://epoch.jp/global/en/company/toy-history.php

I knew they were mostly into games, and went heavily into electronic games in the 9

80's, but this timeline is a nice overview.

I had this Pokapon game, but mine might have been a bootleg!

This spaceship game is a corker!

https://vintagespacetoys.com/products/epoch-space-ship

A DragonBall Z sofubi figure...

and nowadays they seem most famous for Sylvanian Familes and Super Mario!

...and I suspect there's a lot more out there!

You got any Epoch? 

Looey

Oz Base

Improper Salute? Put that WAAF on a Charge!

Hello Moonbasers,

do you like Gashapon figures?

Those carefully detailed Japanese figures come inside plastic balls and can build up to quite impressive sizes. They need to fit inside a 50mm ball and I've been toying with the idea of turning some of my puppet film work into collectable figures.

On a Monday night, I go to a local group "Sketch Club" held by a retired Art School tutor. I often draw pictures of toys, but I also work on clay sculptures.

I decided to make a figurine of the central character in my film, as a combination of

"sweater girl" and Spitfire pilot! I've already made a 1/2 scale head with flying gear, so I shrunk it down to 1/5 scale and sculpted a clay body to go with it.

Then life got in the way and the clay figure stood on my 3D scanning stage for weeks. The other day, I decided to look at the scans and discovered I hadn't done any final scans at all!

So with a quick session, I managed to get my figure into the computer and printed out on my 3D printer. The 50mm gashapon size,

is a perfect fit for the Trumpeter 1/25 scale Spitfire kit I'll be using for my VFX.

Last night I was watching the movie Shamrock Spitfire for reference and inspiration. I noticed the RAF salute with the thumb facing downwards, whereas my sculpt is American style.

Luckily I can modify the clay arm, rescan it and print out a King's regulations version!

I'm just having too much fun! For the first time in my life, I'm enjoying the journey as much as the destination.

Happy toy hunting Moonbasers! 

Looey

Oz

Now, Voyager!

When I was a little kid, I was fascinated by model displays in Museums... I always thought it would be the best job in the world. Sadly every time I've had the opportunity to produce something for a Museum display, I've always cone up hard against the fact I'm not as good a modelmaker as I fancy I am.

During my recent trip to Japan, I was in touch with my lifelong pal, Kerrie Dougherty. As BIG Gerry Anderson fans, we managed to leverage that interest into paid employment. I became a film miniature modelmaker and she was head of the Powerhouse Museum Space section. She has since gone on to the Australian Space Agency in Adelaide, but is still keen on displays for public education. A few years ago I made some large models of Australian Space hardware for her Adelaide displays.

Always keen for representations of Australian Space hardware, she asked me to look out for any kits in Japan. I managed to score two Japanese built satellites, an Explorer 1 rocket and a 1/48 scale kit of Voyager. Having enjoyed it's guest appearance in Star Trek The Motion Picture, I was looking forward to putting this kit together...

I have to say it is the fiddliest kit I have EVER made in my life and an expected romp turned into five excruciating hours of wresting with tiny girders and widgets. Amazingly, I didn't drop a single piece on the floor! ( the plasma detector array breaking off doesn't really count!) My hands didn't shake or lose grip, but I did wonder if my eyes were finally failing me!

Painting the long Magnatometer boom was extremely difficult with copper rungs and yellow edges. This wasn't helped by the fact the entire length also twists!

Anyway here are some piccies for your enjoyment. The pics really don't do the fiddly intricate nature of this model justice!

Now I know why, when the Klingons destroyed one in Star Trek 5, the SFX crew just blew up a photograph rather than an actual model!

The finished kit (minus copper paint on the whisker antennas) with Earth display stand Alien Grey figure for scale (no, seriously. Those Japanese have a sense of humour when it comes to whether anyone will play Voyagers Golden record) Hasegawa also included a nice embroidered mission patch as a bonus.

The all important gold disc in all its vacuum metallised glory.

"Hey Moonbasers! It's a Golden Astronaut alien!"

"Triang Space-X missed their chance there..."

Well, back to the kitchen table, I have two more kits to put together before I can deliver the lot!

Have you made a Voyager?

Looey

Oz

Little Mister Marker...Looey's TV Commercial Japanese Street

Hello Woodsy,

You wanted a story about the model Japanese village I was building for a TVC (television commercial)...

First, the build reminded me of a l situation I was in in the 1980's. There, the builder had had a heart attack in his forties. He rethought his life, bought himself a Harley bike and a leather jacket with the tassels and vowed he was a new man. Then he took on the TVC from Hell, got back into the same old same old, and was dead soon after!

This time, my pal from Superman Returns called me up to say he was building a bunch of miniature set ups and could I help? I was budgeted for 10 days and my work was mostly assembling laser cut carcasses, detailing the surfaces and doing the painting and detailing.

The big rub was, it was being shot in 4K resolution -or maybe 8K...

The lines of communication on this gig were woeful and never improved.

We had to make our own decisions, to stay on schedule then days later, changes would be demanded...

For 4K, my skills amassed over 30 years in the trade would need a massive upgrade. In the old days, I'd squint to get an idea of what would hold up for film resolution.

 As I moved into video production, I had to be much subtler. Now, I have to weather objects to the human eye, as if they were museum grade models.

 I was working on a series of Japanese houses that had to look used, but not grubby. As such I ended up using the barest smudges, as can be seen below the diamond shaped attic window.

There were also twisty problems, like painting graphics and writing on a corrugated roller door.

I couldn't transfer a tracing onto the bumpy surface, so I had to copy everything by eye onto the tops of the ridges and then paint down onto the valleys! The next time I'll make decals!

Just after I'd finished this, we got a shipment of new acrylic paint brush pens from China.

They were a revelation! I started off drawing graffiti all over the New York set, but quickly found they were better for painting figures than traditional brushes that need to be washed out for each colour change. 

I dusted off Superman pre-painted figures for the street dressing. A mark of the changing times, was having to re colour the red trucker caps on some of the figures as they have a different meaning now!

The marker pens were great for hand painting Japanese characters onto 30mm high paper lanterns. I copied the designs from a photo in an eBay listing!

I did everything from turning shiny white Barbie furniture into rococo antiques, to carving two square metres of Japanese paving into foam sheets. Using only a pencil and a lump of rock to bash in the texture, I dry brushed the results for a winning finish!

I don't have any pics of the final set up, as that was beyond my budgeted time. But having been retired for ten years, it was difficult snapping back into 10 hour workdays. 

I managed it, but I was exhausted by each day's end. - at least I didn't have two hours travel time each way to Fox Studios, to worry about after all that work!

Having pandered to unrealistic and unworkable demands, from people who wouldn't listen to three veteran's combined 90 years of on-set experience, I'm glad to be out of the game again.

From now on, the only unrealistic and unworkable demands I'll be pandering to, will be my own!

Back to my puppets!

Looey

Oz

Japan SF Exhibition 2022

Hi Woodsy, in search of different results on the world wide Web, I tried different search queries.

I put "1960s Japanese SF illustration" into Google Translate and translated it into Japanese. Copying and pasting the resulting bunch of characters into Google and selecting Images, so I could see what the hits were, I found some very interesting results.

The following link (handily translated into English) is for an exhibition of artwork, including pictures by Shigeru Komatsuzaki that I'm unfamiliar with.

I hope you Moonbasers will enjoy it too....

https://www.showakan.go.jp/kikakuten/sf%E5%86%92%E9%99%BA%E3%83%AC%E3%83%88%E3%83%AD%E3%83%95%E3%83%A5%E3%83%BC%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%82%AF-%E6%8C%BF%E7%B5%B5%E7%94%BB%E5%AE%B6-%E6%A4%9B%E5%B3%B6/

Looey

Oz

Mystery Model Spitfire

Hi Woodsy

The recent post from Lewis about his visit to the Hurstville Collectables Fair included a photograph of a mystery Spitfire toy. 

It is a pretty terrible model of a Spitfire – probably the Mark Vb, which had two long barrelled 20mm cannon in the wings, along with four .303 inch machine-guns which did not project from the wing.

The deep chin is probably meant to represent the Vokes tropical filter, intended to keep dust out of the engine. The Middle Stone and Dark Earth colour scheme was used mainly in North Africa.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2025/08/looey-at-hurstville-fair.html#comment-form

Lewis has mentioned Google Lens a few times, but I thought this was something you had to sign up for. It turns out I already had it on my computer, but have only just discovered it.

Using Google Lens I was able to find several matches for the model. It is marked under the starboard wing UNIVERSAL PRODUCT © 1977, and under the port wing SPITFIRE, with MADE IN HONG KONG under the starboard tailplane.

Although a basic toy, the undercarriage does retract. The colour scheme is original, and has not been re-painted.

Thanks to Lewis for explaining what Google Lens is, in previous posts. I think it is going to be very useful, now that I know I have it.

Four photographs from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Looey at the Hurstville Fair

Hello Moonbasers! The Missus and I visited the Hurstville Collectables Fair and caught up with our old mate Glen Ware, who organised the Jonathan Harris "Never fear, Smith is here" Australian tour last century!

As a mixed toy and record Fair, the records seem to be rising in number, the toys were pretty thin by comparison.

The venue was the Marana Auditorium.

A full squad of hand painted Marx knights.

I actually found a Dinky Spitfire in pretty good condition (although possibly repainted) but as put off by the ugly Typhoon style lower cowling (I've just thought it might have been to accommodate the internal electric motor to spin the propellor)

There was a Corgi and Dinky arms race going on!

A brace of Dinky Star Trek ( later issue?) Ships and Geoff Love who was a big feature in my late teens! I had that Tee Vee Tunes 2 disc vinyl set on CD, back in the day...

The auditorium almost inundated with LP's rather than toys! (Who IS that woman on the scooter?

Is she really 69?)

Three strikes and he's out...

A vintage Matt Mason accessory, but nothing is priced -Strike 1!

It's been opened -Strike 2!

So HOW much is it? He can't tell me until he's Googled how much they're going for on Ebay!!!

$190, but he'll knock of a few bucks for the damaged pack...

STRIIIKE 3 -AND HE'S OUT!

I did get a bunch of vintage DVDs for $3, 2 &1 each and the Missus got a 1999 Cinefantastique Stop Motion double issue, with Ray Harryhausen on the cover!!

Oh, and NZ Paul, you know that Barbie Movie Corvette 4 pack?

...they didn't have it!

Happier Hunting in the Old Dart, Woodsy!

Looey

Oz

Looey's 3D Printed Georgian Mansion

Looey's Second Hand Sheds

On our road trip home from Melbourne, we passed through Daylesford and Castlemaine. BOTH had extensive second hand market sheds one claimed to be the largest in the Southern hemisphere!

Regardless of the veracity of that claim, there was plenty for Moonbasers to look at.

Stand by for Action, Men!

A nice MG pedal car

Breakfast Cereal Premiums still in their baggies!

Ah, a Beetle Game! I remember playing with one of those at school during a rainy day!

A familiar looking headless woman sideshow banner (did I see that at the Royal Easter Show back in the early 70's?)

You wouldn't believe the size of the Mosquitos around here!

Ooer! That's taun taun it now! Where the heck did that come from?

How Chad was my Valley...

No boots? Soldier you are out of uniform!

...Sweet Sixteen souls, at the drums of Johhny Ringo

Nice tin F111's Mint In Box

No peek at the Harrier inside the box, but!

Nice Tug and Bomber

See anything you like?