Hi Woodsy!
Remember how I said it was coming up on 50 years since 2001: a space odyssey premiered? It left a really big impression on a ten year old boy!
Another thing that left an indelible impression, and was responsible for me chasing a life as a miniature effects technician, were the Supermarionation shows of Gerry Anderson.
As I've recently retired, I need something to fill that yawing gulf of creativity, so I've decided to make my own puppet film.
Although most of my characters are not standard humans, I will need an average man and woman figure somewhere down the line, so I set about sculpting up a Captain Scarlet style figure.
As soon as I had the bloke, I thought about how cool would it be to have a 2001 spacesuit to that scale?
So in the blink of an eye, I whipped one up.
Actually, I haven't made a spacesuit costume since I made one for my Action Man when I was 10 and my mother taught me how to use a sewing machine!
I still remember buying a clear baby's rattle for the space helmet and using a cut-down airline pepper pot for the filter on the side! (see photo below!)
Here's a brief contact sheet of the process involved and the finished figure.
My wife looked at it and said "You've spelled his name wrong!" Too late for that!
Anyway, who's going to notice?
I just had time to deliver the finished figure to our local county fair (although I wanted to put it in the Doll section, it didn't fit any of the quite strict categories, so I had to enter it as "Novelty Item"!
As I delivered it and it was put on display, a couple of ten year old boys scoped it from across the room and came running up. I smiled to myself -
Mission Accomplished!
Mission Accomplished!
Happy 2001 day!
Lewis
Red World Stories
Red World Stories
Australia
