THUNDERBIRD 6 PROTOTYPES

Mentioned earlier on the blog, I couldn't resist posting this fabulous set of pics from Philosophic Toad / WOTAN. They show all 3 prototype Thunderbird 6's made by Brains in the film of the same name. The sleek silver one makes me think of an Angel Interceptor. The middle one is very Matt Mason. As I've talked about before, the bottom red one is a deadringer for the Tarheel NOVA III toy rocket. They all got trashed in the film. Wonder of any more of them were made and survived? We know what Thunderbird 7 is - no such drama - the Project Sword Beetle or Snow Train. But did it ever actually appear in Thunderbirds?

SWORD DREAM SHOP - ATV 2

As my email crash continues unabated I can't post the next items waiting in the blog queue. So here's another boxart doodle. This is the ATV 2 in the Project Sword Annual with the cool toy, a customised Spacex Tractor T5, courtesy of WOTAN (posted earlier on the blog).

SWORD DREAM FACTORY - SEA SWORD

My email is currently down so any posts I have in the 'waiting room' from fellow bloggers are stuck there for now. Technology! To keep things moving here's another of my ameteurish DIY mock-ups, this time the SEA SWORD from the Project Sword Annual. My poorest effort yet, I simply couldn't find a toy like it anywhere. All I could come up with was this hungarian spacecraft. Someone please find a better looking Sea Sword. There's another pic - bottom one -from the Annual to help you.

SWORD DREAM FACTORY - MOON BASE BOX ART II

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.

SWORD DREAM SHOP III - WOTAN'S MOON BASE - THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE!

WOTAN's Dream Factory shows us the way:

Seeing a good bandwagon, i jumped on! Sword Moonbase Module - heres an
imaginary toy from the 'What if ?' Sword Factory. Supposing the Moon Base was
sold separately as individual modules, four in the set like the Probe Force,
Task Force or Scout series. As the Moonbase model was clearly based on existing
NASA designs, i've used the Nasa concept for the Lunar Tug as the basis of the
box art. Its not too close to the 'actual' toy as the box art so often promised
much and delivered something else with Hong Kong toys, but near enough to be
recognisable. For the toy, I've used the Spacex LEM as the basis and
photoshopped-in various odds and sods from other pictures! A little fun for
an otherwise dull Friday afternoon!

I'm standing on the shoulders of Giants! A fable comes to life before our very eyes! Woodster

SWORD DREAM SHOP II - TAXI 2

Struggling to concentrate on anything on the box, even the highly- acclaimed series set in my home county, Red Riding, burbling currently in the background, I find myself once again doodling around in the Sword Dream Shop! Tonight's Toy That Never Was is the cute TAXI 2 as seen in the 1968 PROJECT SWORD ANNUAL. I have used this original artwork on the box. The blue toy underneath is the nearest I can find to anything resembling the taxi, the Whomobile, a CORGI concept car featured earlier on the blog. A vague resemblence I know but it does the job!

Any one got any more?

KELLOGS MOLAB OLD AND NEW BY WOTAN

Continuing the blog's Kellogs thread WOTAN writes: Kelloggs Molabs - heres a pic of my collection, showing my original green Molab straight out of the cereal bowl circa 1970, covered in glue, endlessly repaired and painted. Next to it are three recent models from Australia and a picture of the Convair Space Station that the green model is based on. Astronit informs me that the 'Molab' was referred to as a shuttle at R & L (makers of the cerial premiums) and was a custom design, loosely based on NASA imagery.

Nice one Wotan. Did you really have glue on your cereals!

SWORD DREAM SHOP - TOYS THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE

Mucking about with SWORD box art, here's the first of an occasional series of Project Sword toys I wish Century 21 had actually made. Both part of the SWORD stable, we have here the wonderful MOON CRAWLER. The picture I've used is the classic double-spread seen in the SWORD Annual and due to my limited skills it looks a bit squashed. I've lost half of the SWORD logo's too! It captures the spirit of the thing though! The Moon Crawler is a bit of a pin-up really - it appears on loads of toy and model boxes - like the brilliant unlicensed UFO TANK and the Imai UFO Star/ Doom Base series, in which it appears as a small model (anyone got a picture?)and is the basis of the SPACEX SURVEYOR toy too. But it has never been made in a larger scale with its own big box. Until now! The beautiful toy pictured is a customised Spacex Surveyor by the multi-talented WOTAN, which was showcased in an earlier posting.

The lower picture is of what PROJECT SWORD called the BEETLE or the SNOW TRAIN and later re-named THUNDERBIRD 7. This one is in armoured mode where the heat-shields are up making it look like a yellow pupa (continuing the BEETLE theme). In an attempt to link the box art to an actual existing toy I have opted for the Imai Thunderbird 7 model kit as the source. You can see the Japanese artists's signature. I think it works really well largely because it's full of action. I particularly love the BOOSTER ROCKET flying out of it's back. The Imai TB7 biult-up model kit came with a remote control, which I feel sits well in the SWORD range. It even came with a small plastic BOOSTER ROCKET (section 14 on the model sheet)! The BEETLE/SNOW TRAIN/TB7, in its more commonplace unshielded mode had its 15 minutes of fame in the 1968 MAKE A MODEL book-kit by Century 21 but a proper plastic toy would have been sooooooo much better. I'll settle for the Imai model with a SWORD box!

Now, what else should they have made.....?