scratch built model compilations of thunderbirds, zero-x and spacex

Hi

Done a few compilations.

Take care,

Kevin

beneath the weeping, my second folk horror short

This is my second go at a short home-made folk horror film readers!

Like Field Rite, my initial stab last week, its inspired by those creepy TV plays and BBC Christmas ghost stories that scared us witless in the early Seventies. Stuff like The Stalls of Barchester and Children of the Stones.

This short includes a sinister song I downloaded from the net. I think its called Creepy Child Singing online but its taken from the masterly film The Innocents. The lyrics were so apt I even named my film after a line in it.

Once again I realise just how hard it is to make a film in this sub-genre and my clumsy attempt at blood-letting using ketchup looks like just that, ketchup!

Still, it was a lot of fun trying to get to the 'sauce' of the story, which is essentially about a key to the devil's house.

I wish I'd have started doing stuff like this during childhood Super 8 style. If only I'd been given a cine camera along with my monster models and Project SWORD toys! Ah well, here I am nearly 60 trying it!

Let me know what you think!

how were your christmas presents wrapped when you were a kid?

I recall when I was a kid in the Sixties that Chrissy prezzies were wrapped in the distinct materials of the time.

Christmas gift wrap was largely a very thin paper, almost tissue and easy to rip off quickly, usually plastered with the same design across the whole sheet.

These patterns were often icons of the season like holly, snowmen, baubles, bells and poinsettias.

They were all illustrated in that quaint style prevalent back then, a style which also appeared on Christmas cards of the day.

Gifts wrap was stuck down using colourful Christmas tape. This came on a roll and was very plasticy and very sticky. Tearing it with your teeth risked removing a layer of skin from your bottom lip and attaching it to the present!

The tape was decorated with repeated patterns of gorgeous little illustrations like snow scenes, robins, fir trees and so on.

You also needed a strip of this sticky stuff to stick down your label. These were mostly folded square card tags hole-punched complete with a short length of thick cotton for fastening. the imagery was always very seasonal and often sprinkled with glitter so they looked like small sheets of Yuletide sandpaper!

Sometimes these tags were crimped along the edges too for extra fancy.

I don't remember many ribbons and bows being used in our house but I'm sure such finery was deployed in the Sixties and early Seventies.

Occasionally Christmas paper was made of foil, which was much harder to rip off in a flurry. More arty types like my older sister went all out and used baco-foil instead of gift wrap. I remember getting a stack of 45's in aluminium foil like this. It looked great!

How do you remember your Xmas presents being wrapped readers?

Spacex Recovery Vehicle by Kevin D.

A Spacex Tractor T5 recovers a downed Pleasure Cruiser 1 from deep desert and delivers it to a remote tracking station.

Kevin D.

ideas about the origin of fab1

I was interested in this old article by J. Lester Novros II about the possible provenance of Lady Penelope's FAB1.

http://lester.demon.nl/superm/tbirds/seattle-ite.html

What do you think?

did your mates comes round on christmas day when you were a kid?

When I was a kid in the Sixties I never went to see my friends on Christmas Day.

I suppose on the face of it this doesn't seem that strange. Christmas was a time for family and Christmas Day was its pinnacle when the house was full of my folks, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, dog and all the gang.

My friends were doing exactly the same anyway with their own families up and down the road.

We were all quarantined in each of our own glittery worlds of family and fantastic new presents.

Yet it does seem odd now I look back. My friends back then were the best I ever had. We all lived in the same street and went mostly to the same first school. We were inseparable, spending nearly every moment together that wasn't demanded elsewhere by grown-ups.

It was an era when we could play out together all year round  - in the street, in each others homes, in each others gardens and on the local park - and our parents simply weren't fearful in those days.

So to not see any of my friends on a day devoted to children seems out of kilter somehow.

My friends would have been welcome for sure and I'm pretty certain I would have been if I'd have gone round to theirs. But we just didn't.

This festive isolation lasted two days in total, Christmas Day and Boxing Day after which normal service resumed and I spent time with my mates again and playing together with all the stuff we'd got that year.

How do you remember this readers? mates at Christmas?

strombecker booster rocket

Hi Woodsy

[spotted on Ebay. Is this the] origin / early version of the Valigursky illustration? - that lead to the SWORD booster rocket? 

Cheers 

Jim

Ed Valigursky's painting below

Woodsy asks:

Has anyone got a built up of this Strombecker and the SWORD Booster Rocket at home so we can see them together?

WOTAN wades in: The Plastic Fantastic site is a fab resource for vintage new garage kits. Here is the page for the Strombecker model: 

http://fantastic-plastic.com/convair-manned-lunar-reconnaissance-vehicle-by-strombecker.html

brian's weird new jersey

Hi,all at Moonbase. From time to time I hear mention of the Weird NJ publication. I am very familiar with it and I often find things even I, a New Jersey native,wasn't aware of.

A few months back ,a very familiar face appeared on the Magazine's cover.(see photo).This giant gorilla is the greeter to Mighty Joe's Market,a rest stop and convenience store not far from where I live,and this past weekend,I took a drive to see it.

He towers over a gas pump island near the parking lot.There is a plaque on his chest(see photo) telling a touching story about a young man who was known to his loved ones as "Mighty"Joe and had passed away at a young age.

The huge ape,and the family business are dedicated to his memory.I snapped a photo of him myself.The simian squinting away in front is me!-Brian in(Weird) NJ.

Brian F.