BIRTHDAY CARDS! New SWORD Collectables: Dennison Teaching Aid Cape Kennedy Set Art

Dennison Teaching Aid USA 1960's

FLIGHTS IN SPACE

Punch out school display A2 cards

SAME ART AS PROJECT SWORD CAPE KENNEDY SET BOX ART [bottom picture, right]

[Original by Robert McCall, "Rollout"]

Moonbase Collection 2012.

 

 

PS. the most amazingly mint Cape Kennedy Set you have ever seen coming later today!

FOURTH BIRTHDAY GRAND FINALE 2012

Today is the final day of our Fourth Birthday Week festival folks. Boo hoo! But to make it easier to cope with we have some wonderful stuff still to come!

SUNDAY: GRAND FINALE!


1. Sometimes I Stop and Model by Barry Ford
2. New SWORD collectables: Cape Kennedy Set Box Art Teaching Aid
3. Ferryman's SWORD Collection: Probably the Best In The World!
4. Fourth Anniversary Exclusive SWORD Limited Edition Collectable Offer


MONDAY: ENCORE!


1. Thunderyummies! Japanese Candy Toys by Bill Earle
2. ZERO-XTRA: More Cosmic Comic Art

Sometimes I Stop and Model by Reader and Modeller Barry Ford

The last time I wrote on one of these blogs I thought that if I was supposed to be producing them on a regular basis I should start taking the writer’s equivalent of Ex-Lax. After realising how long it is since my last blog I really should be adding prune juice and gunpowder to that. Perhaps I should just console myself that between making models and trying to get on with life in general there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to. We have all heard the saying that time goes quicker the older you get and it is very true: I find myself two-thirds of the way through the year feeling that it has gone quicker than a rainy Sunday afternoon as a teenager.

 

Life is a truly wonderful thing and sometimes I stop and marvel at some amazing events that have happened to me. Case in point being that three years ago when I bought a kit from the United States (which, in itself, is a miracle I would never have dreamed possible when I was younger and thanks due to the introduction of the internet) who would have thought that I would be selling the build up of said kit and posting it back to sunny California (cue Al Jolson song at this stage of the proceedings). Sometimes, despite the merry go round of day to day life, you have to stop and carry out a review and I realised that I was quickly running out of space at home to store my build ups. I decided that the best way to rectify this was to try and sell off my collection and hence the sale of my Batman: Scars diorama that some of you may recall from a chapter in my How to Build Better Dioramas book. I have started this not-closing-down sale in a low key manner and some of you may have seen my posts on various modelling forums. My gallery of models and dioramas can be seen here. If you would like any further details or prices of models you can contact me.

 

Another thing that I never expected to happen to me was to see my work in a museum. Well, not exactly in a museum, but featured on its website anyway. I recently discovered the Mechanical Art and Design Museum in Stratford upon Avon http://themadmuseum.co.uk/ which is full of amazing mechanical devices and a section devoted to Steampunk. I am very pleased to say that the dioramas I made for the two Steampunk Modeller Specials can be found in their work for sale section.

 

On the morning of Saturday 21^st July Andy Pearson and I arrived at the Manchester Central Exhibition Hall to set up a stall with the aim of exhibiting and, hopefully, selling some of my model collection. The MCM Expo didn’t open until 9:30am so Andy and I were quite surprised to see that people were already queuing up at the door to get in at 8 o’clock. Once we had found our stall it didn’t take too long to set up and then it was time to wait for the announcement to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, so to speak.

 

The number of people that had come to the exhibition was phenomenal: with people queuing round the building and waiting over an hour to get in. And all shape, size and colour of humanity came through those doors – many in costume. Many were in superhero costumes, with the recent Avengers movie being an obvious big influence and there were a lot of Steampunkers there, but Manga and Anime subjects (of which I know nothing) seemed to be the primary focus of the dressing up. Sadly there was a lack of any vintage items on display and only myself with anything Anderson related.

 

My stand received a lot of positive interest, particularly when I told people that each model was a one of kind, hand built item, as most of the attendees were only familiar with factory produced pre-built collector’s models. Unfortunately, the predominance of interest in Manga and Anime meant that a lot of the audience were in the mid-teen to mid-twenties age bracket and had come for more of a fun day out rather doing any serious spending, so whilst I didn’t finish the day with pockets full of cash I didn’t take back home as many models as I had come to the show with.

 

Having said that the day was full of potential with a lot of people taking my details and looking to give me future commission work, and two young ladies asked me if I’d be willing to give them one to one tuition: I obviously directed them towards my book as a starting point! What was also interesting was that a dealer selling art prints from down south said that if I took a stall at a London convention my models would fly out the door and he was interested in buying a number of models himself for re-selling. So you may well see me making an exhibition of myself in the big smoke one of these days.

 

Five o’clock rolled round and it was time to pack up. Andy and I headed home tired but having had a thoroughly enjoyable day out. A day that I would classify as highly successful as it confirmed to me that I have a good product and there is a market for it, all I have to do is find the right audience and away I go!

 

I look forward to seeing you all at the third UK Garage Kit show on 29^th September, where my first kit will be unveiled: my interpretation of Mike Trim’s War of the Worlds Tripod, but done in a Steampunk style.

 

Happy Birthday Moonbase Central!
Barry

Glimpses of Moonbase 3: SWORD Rack Toys

 

My SWORD rack toys display.

There's a shopkeeper in every one of us!

An early mock-up of the recent Bloggiversary give-away is middle left.

Wotan will reveal it's true splendour over the weekend!

Radar Love or How I Lost It In The Compost!

Most of my SWORD collection was acquired from a single vintage toy dealer, the diligent Chris Avis, in the mid 1990's. Chris found me my boxed Scout 1 pictured above. Back then there was no internet or any medium for talking about SWORD, so it was easy to bumble along in blissful ignorance. For years I thought I had an unusual but correct radar on my Scout 1, the white disk you can see above. It was years later when I first saw the specification sheet pictured below, which confirmed what the box art had tried to tell me all those years ago, that the Scout 1 radar/ antenna is a black net rectangle a bit like a small fly swatter!

 

Armed with this knowledge I began to search for what turned out to be a very rare radar. The nearest I could come up with was the black antenna found on the Firefly XYZ Mark III made by Jimson [below: top - mint example, Ebay, bottom - my own toy].

So it was with utter astonishment that one day in 2011 I received a small packet from my very good friend and fellow blogger Mister Wotanicus Wotan, which contained...yes, a Scout 1 radar! I was staggered!

I immediately compared it to the Jimson Firefly antenna sitting on my rather damaged example, which made it clear that they weren't that similar after all. Not needing the Jimson and to return the spirit of the favour I gave my Jimson radar to my good friend Ferryman, whom I knew was desperately looking for one and I gave Wotan a kiss when I saw him next!

Returning to the kitchen after taking the above picture I went to savour my new and authentic C21 radar. But it had gone! I searched everywhere but to no avail! the radar was below the radar! I was frantic! I rang my Wife, I checked the washing machine, I searched the sink and swept the floor. Nothing! Oh my God, I hadn't even had the radar 24 hours and I'd lost it. Feeling revitalised after some strong Yorkshire tea I set about retracing my steps in a full-scale CSI reconstruction. Step by step my movements revealed themselves and I found myself staring at the small compost bin we have in the kitchen, which we empty each day onto the big heap in the garden. And no, that's not my Missus but the timber composting 'box' you can see at the rear of this photograph! Yikes! A second later I was rummaging through old carrot peelings, tea bags and wilted salad searching for the lost radar like a Yorkshire terrier! Tentatively the little radar revealed itself in the pile and I danced around the garden like mad man! There is a God after all!

Without further ado I brushed off the last millipede and placed the radar in its natural home, on top of the Scout 1 where it will stay. Enjoy their hard-earned reunion, which I caught on camera. Now just missing the missile! Think I'll go and look in the compost!

Glimpses Of Moonbase Central 2

New items in the Moonbase collection:

Top: far right - blue miniature Scout 1 from Japan [latest addition to a growing and hugely exciting fleet]

Second: far left - silver Mexican Saturn V and MLP R&L copy, middle - red and green Saturn V and MLP/LUT from Japan, top - Wotan!

Third and Last: box for Japanese Saturn V above.

Marsbase Supply Update

As the blog festivities draw to a close, Mars Base must report a slight hitch in the otherwise smoothly co-ordinated programme of Moon/Marsbase Supply Drops. A remote supply rocket out of Cydonia Base ran into difficulties on re-entry last night and broke up in spectacular fashion across the skies of the UK. This is naturally being reported as a meteor shower and only blog operatives who may be affected by the disruption are being made aware.

The rocket was carrying the final batch of Moonbase Supply materials as part of a limited distribution to celebrate the blogs fourth year. It is imperative that the general public are not made aware of the actual nature of the accident in case any of the rocket does reach Earth intact and its precious cargo falls into the wrong hands.

The majority of the supplies have been distributed and received Mars Base and Commander Wotan can only apologise for this oversight and assure operatives that replacements are already on their way. Amen and out.

BIRTHDAY SPECIAL: MIKE NOBLE'S PROJECT SWORD ZERO X

Well Swordies, we are nearing the end of the Blog's fourth birthday bash and I hope that you have enjoyed it. I certainly have and there are still a few choice goodies for your delectation this final party weekend.



 

 

To kick off the Saturday here's a little something on Zero-X. Like many of you I love this particular spacecraft's design and remember how awesome a toy it was back in 1967. Seeing it cruise along the lounge floor between the lava lamps was a thing of beauty. Like many of you as well I love illustrations and paintings of the Zero-X and it was a random browse through the fabulous GACCH website [Gerry Anderson Complete Comics History], where I discovered that legendary illustrator Mike Noble had drawn it as the brilliant black and white masthead for the TV21 story THE SCAPEGOAT [17th August 1968] pictured below.

In March 2011 I wrote to Mr. Noble about this illustration and below is an extract from his insightful and interesting reply:

 

 

"Regarding the Zero X mast in your letter [below], I did not do it specifically for Project SWORD. It was I'm sure recycled from a strip story I recall doing for the magazine [TV21] at an earlier date....

....You are quite right in thinking that I got quite a lot of inspiration in my work from NASA space projects that were going on the time. An aunt living in America used to send me LIFE magazines on a regular basis and there was a lot of information there about space vehicles and pictures of outer space which was very useful to me. I did however, like to design my own hardware and make them practicable and believable. because we freelance artists worked at home generally there was not much personal contact between us, consequently any inspiration and ideas we may have gleaned from one another would have been through seeing their artwork in TV21. As to my knowing the artists you mention in your letter, I know only about Eric Eden and those regulars drawing for the magazine. There were any number of people doing artwork for packaging and annual work whom I was not aware of at the time.

 

 

Kind Regards

Mike Noble"

[Brackets] indicate inserts from me, Woodsy. 

 

 

The earlier TV21 strip Mike refers to in his letter, from which his Zero-X was recycled for the SWORD story was found in a TV21 over a year earlier, 25th March 1967, in a colour strip entitled Story Two aka The Stowaway/ Sentence of Death/ The Alien Menace. You can see the colour original of the 'SWORD' Zero-X, below top right, courtesy of TV21 enthusiast Mike B.

For more Mike Noble you can do no better than read GACCH's lengthy interview with him in two parts. There is also a great 12 minute video interview on You Tube by TB1fan, which you will find in the right-hand side-bar of the blog. Lew Stringer also covers Mike's work on his great blog BLIMEY!

 

 

Although Mike Noble is the most famous, many of you will know that there were a handful of comics' illustrators who tried there hand at Zero-X, not to mention Shigeru Komatsuzaki's box art for Imai. One of my favourite TV21 artists is Ron Turner, whose dark shadows and epic mechanics are instantly recognisable, also had a crack at the OX. His unique rendering of the spaceship can be clearly seen on the strip CONFLICT ON MARS, which appeared in the 1967 TV Century 21 Annual. An extract of the strip and close-up appear below.

None of these great illustrators would have been able to get stuck into the Mars ship had it not been for the late great Derek Meddings and his genius for designing grand hardware and space machines including the Zero-X. I have never seen his original concept art for the spacecraft but you can get an idea of what it looked like from this black and white photograph of Sylvia Anderson admiring what appears to be Zero X concept art in the Meddings style [picture Frasers]. I shall consult my copy of his book 20th Century Visions but in the meantime, if anyone has insights into Derek Medding's original art or any other Zero-X illustrators you admire then let us know and we can keep this thread going. OX is GO!

[photo: Frasers/ Sylvia Anderson]