AMT USS ENTERPRISE

 I'm currently working on a 1986 AMT 'Voyage Home' Enterprise Refit kit, and am up to the stage of the first coat of sealer and applying the decals. 

Although it's an Enterprise 'A', I'll probably go for the Motion Picture version.

MARE CRISIUM

As the night sky was almost cloudless and reasonable clear,  I took a photo of the waxing crescent Moon last night.

The crescent clearly shows Mare Crisium AKA The Sea of Crisis at the upper edge. Anyone who follows space news will know that the Sea of Crisis is the landing site for the commercial lunar lander, Blue Ghost.

Another point of interest is that Mare Crisium was used as the location for Arthur C. Clarke's 1948 short story, The Sentinel, one of Clarke's stories used as inspiration for the film , 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the story, a mysterious alien structure is discovered in the mountains surrounding the 'sea'.

Will's Comic Giveaways

Hi Woodsy,

 Going through a few drawers and found these giveaways. The disguise is Whizzer and Chips, don't know the other two , but the flying saucer firing space gun is nice .

Anyone recognise them?

Will O

UK

The Crowded Moon

The Apollo Lunar Module is one of the most easily recognisable spacecraft in history, having been used for the first successful landing on the moon. Because of this, it has appeared in countless toys and models over the years, in greater and lesser degrees of accuracy. Recently, my good friend Terry Harle sent me a lovely little Japanese kit of an Eagle 5 LEM, made by Nikken. It was clearly a vintage kit and came in a small bag with a paper header.

The instructions show an Apollo Command Module on the header as an additional kit, so it’s possible there were two models in one box.

The kit itself is 1/80 and a shade smaller than the familiar Airfix version, but without a base or figures. It does however come with a neat feature in that the legs can fold inwards as they did at launch, before being released from the booster by the Command and Service module in orbit. As it was an otherwise unremarkable version of the LEM and almost all the delicate leg struts had napped inside the bag, due to the fragility of the plastic, I decided to try something different and decorate it in the style of Triang Spacex series 1 vehicles, such as the MEV or Prospector.

I already had some fiery orange and lime green paint from an ongoing MEV model project, so I was able to spare enough for the little kit. The leg struts and antennae were finished with a chrome pen.

The model doesn’t have any cockpit windows like the Airfix or larger versions, so I added some simple red film as tinted glass.Unfortunately, as it’s an older kit, the decals supplied perished before I could apply them.

 

Create and Draw Monsters 2

I just saw the item on the Monster drawing set, which looks like great fun, and did a little quick digging. This is what I came up with.

The Create and Draw Monsters Complete Electric Designers Set was made by Lakeside Lifetime Toys. It comprised a mains-powered lightbox, with a 15 Watt lamp.

Translucent sheets of Monster elements were placed on the illuminated drawing surface, and traced on to a fresh sheet of paper. The Monster or scene was made up of various bits and pieces, in any combination you choose.

The set came with several Guide Sheets, coloured pencils, etc. The box having a lift-off lid.

The end of the box says Copyright Lakeside Toys, MCMLXIV [1964], Division of Lakeside Ind., Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota. Made in U.S.A., and various Patent numbers.

Lakeside would later come up with the Barrel of Monkeys game. They also made other games, as well as puppets, and bendable figures.

Four photographs from Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Ed's Moon Crawlers

Woodsy,

Here's Moon crawlers - or whatever name people want to attach to them. The red TAT crawler's wheel has been fixed but I haven't updated the photos.

From Vegas Base

Ed

Drawing Blood: Create and Draw Monsters Electric Set

I would have loved this set as a kid, Create and Draw Monsters. Its a 'complete electric designers set'. I cant read the makers name but the box art is terrific!

I saw this set on auction so saved this snap last year. No doubt part of the Sixties Monster craze, I'm unsure how electric drawing worked. 

You?

Merit Special Agent Kit Update: the Original Box Art by Sam Peffer!

Years ago I found an incomplete Merit Special Agent boxed set and it started a sort of blog legend, blogged several times starting over a decade ago.

For years I kept an eye out for missing parts , which was fun but as with many a noble quest it wasn't to be. Still, it was a lot of fun and I've always stayed interested in this set.

So I was so pleasantly surprised to stumble across - and I mean stumble - an amazing website showing the original box art for this set and not only that, the original photographs of the artist's models and props for creating the box art!

https://www.tikit.net/2019/Sam%20Peffer/SpecialAgent.htm 

It really is fabulous.

The box artist's name was Sam Peffer, signing his work as Peff.

Click on 'Artists' on the Tikit site to find him.

The Tikit site, worth checking in its entirety, is essentially a tribute to PAN paperbacks and Sam did cover art for them including the old paperback James Bond covers. 

It makes sense then that it would appear from this site that Sam also did the box art for the fantastic Merit Avengers Shooting Game, which we've also covered on the blog before including Arto's terrific example.

It seems likely then to me that Sam Peffer also did the box art for the uber-cool Merit Saint Shooting Game.

How I would love to see the artist's photographs for these shoots!

What do you think readers?