Come in Number Six

I had to laugh at this, a huge red ball shoved into a folly at Roberts Park in Saltaire. 

It brought back memories of the big mysterious white balloon in The Prisoner, which oddly enough, I never saw when I visited Port Meirion as a kid in the early Seventies.

Have you been to Port Meirion readers? 

Rob's Alien Toyscapes

Woodsy,

Here are six “Alien Toyscapes,” gouache on paper, all based on space toy photographs by Ed Berg. 

Thanks to Ed for letting me use his photos as templates, this was a lot of fun.

Rob C

USA

Buki SpaceX Style Drawings

 I saw these on the Bay, Buki space drawings from Israel 1983.

You'll see that a few are the vehicles that inspired the same in the SpaceX toy range. 

Two of them - the Nova capsule and the Nova rocket -  are stylised copies of Ed Valigursky's illustrations from the 1960's Man in Space book.

I think these are great! You?

So, on the cover is a Nova capsule.

The Nova capsule is the first line drawing too.

The far right vehicle is the same as the SpaceX Moon Buggy.

The far right drawing is the Nova rocket.

Kevin's Ace SpaceX Annual Art

 More fabulous concept annual art from Kevin.

Wotan's 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!

Wotan Bill

Rob'sTarheel Nova II Drawing

Woodsy,

I was going through some old papers, and found this odd drawing I made circa 1970.

It shows a side view of my Tarheel Nova II, along with some strange typewritten "specifications" which I do not recall at all! 

Anyways, there it is, and it gives you an idea of how obsessed I was with that toy at the time!

Rob C

Ct

USA

Wotan's Tender

Years ago Wotan put pencil to paper myself over lunch to try and imagine how the Crash Tender from the Spacex line might look.

 There's not much to go on from the only image available*, on the card backs, so its mostly extrapolation. 

Wotan reckons this one would have had the same larger wheels as the Molab, so it would be a bigger model - maybe about 14 cm long and hopefully a nice pleasant red and not that horrible spacex orange! 

Wotan thinks the 'hose reel' at the back would be chromed and the ladder/spray jet would be moveable. 

That's his two pennyworth! Lets see how close I was when one turns up on ebay next week! 

Kevin's Kool Nova Cover

And Kev's nifty NFII drawing.

MEV2 in Art

 There have been a number of MEV-2 -like vehicle design paintings and illustrations.

My favourite has to be Ed Valigursky's illustration, which I've blogged about many times. Anyways, here are 3 artworks of MEV-2-like vehicles: top - Ed Valigursky artist, middle - Corgi 007 Moon Buggy rear box art [artist unknown] and bottom - Lunik soviet toy box art [artist unknown]

Here are some black and white line drawings sketches of MEV-2 type vehicles: top - US Patent Tri-ang SpaceX Jack Rosenthal, middle - Triang SpaceX MEV-2 advert, bottom - Ken Adam sketch 007 Moon Buggy

Ken Adam designed his Moon Buggy for the James Bond blockbuster You Only Live Twice. There are a couple of websites with his original pencil sketches shown.

https://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/news/james-bond-moon-buggy-and-original-props-auction

Alamy photo of Moon Buggy sketch [from which the above sketch is shown]

Bill's Molab Art

A SpaceX Colouring Book?

I'd have loved a SpaceX colouring book as a kid.

Thinking about it, there are quite a few SpaceX-style line drawings in other colouring books to probably create one!

The Man on the Moon colouring books contain quite a few - which Wotan Bill found - and I think there are more finds on the blog of SpaceX-style line drawings.

There's also new-fangled online trickery which allows you to convert pictures to line drawings. Here's a sketchy backing card one I did this morning.

If such a Triang SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut colouring book existed then it would need a cover. 

Any ideas? 

Your Concept drawings, lay-outs, mock-ups and photos and sketches welcomed readers!

Newsflash! Art Lives!

 It's the

SpaceX and Golden Astronaut 

Art Day

Worm Wishes

Cleaning up my attic I found my paperback copy of The Worm Ouroborous, which, despite owning for 50 years, I've never read!

My copy is the 1967 edition by American publisher Ballantine. It's a chunky novel.

The fantastic cover art, which made me buy it all those years ago, is by Minnesota-born Barbara Remington, who sadly passed away in 2020.

Barbara Remington also illustrated the covers of the first official (although not the first overall) American paperback publication of The Lord of the Rings on 1965.

Painted in her fabulous style these three books would find a happy home at Moonbase if I found them at a boot sale, although I must say I've never seen them here in Blighty.

Do you like these covers? 

Have you got the books readers?

Dave Barnacle, Palitoy Box Artist

I know there are many Action Man fans among Moonbasers, so I thought this You Tube video would be of interest.

A look at the work of Palitoy box artist Dave Barnacle, who sadly passed away this month, April 2025.

He did many of the Action Man boxes in the 1970s, as well as other lines, such as Planet of the Apes, and Star Wars.

There is even a look at some concept art for figures that never made it in to production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdkC7yN-fJc

Paul Adams from New Zealand

The Frankenstein Artist who Inspired the Pre-Raphaelites

I thought this was interesting.

https://www.mutualart.com/Article/The-Frankenstein-Artist-Who-Inspired-Dan/1D1229A93023C59D?utm_source=MutualArt+Subscribers&utm_campaign=135fb72ade-MAGAZINE_NEWSLETTER_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c79256f9a5-454060965 

Rob's Tarheel Nova II Drawing

Woodsy,

I was going through some old papers, and found this odd drawing I made circa 1970.

It shows a side view of my Tarheel Nova II, along with some strange typewritten "specifications" which I do not recall at all! 

Anyways, there it is, and it gives you an idea of how obsessed I was with that toy at the time!

Rob C

Ct

USA

Rob's Transportation 1957: Art Series 2

Woodsy,

Here are some more gouache sketches inspired by 1950s Japanese Transfer art.

Rob C

USA

Next up, I'm going to try some alien toy-scapes, courtesy of Ed Berg!

Rob's “Transportation 1957” Art

Woodsy,

As February was too cold to work on models in the cellar, I did a few more quick gouache sketches based on a 1950s Japanese Picture Transfer book.

 Subjects should be self-explanatory; I'm calling the series "Transportation '57." 

I like how the original artist turned these iconic vehicles almost into abstract forms, and I tried to capture this simplicity in my 5" x 8" recreations.

Hope you like them.

Rob C

USA