Marky Bats Spinmaster Special

https://youtu.be/P7UXRUToRvA?si=R2AYLGeXJuXEc8_g  

hi Woodsy,  here as promised is my Hot Wheels batmobile custom,  the car is by Spinmaster and is meant to fit  a 12" figure,  ive added more controls and booster seats to fit the 6-7" scale figures,  the flames are from a company that supplies vinyl decals for R/C cars, the car was dry brushed with a midnight blue. Also a  little ai for movement...

I hope you enjoy this mate 🍻

Regards MJ 

Brick Bay

My Grandson recently built these three space vehicles. They were little bricks in a small lunchbox-style tin. 

A revolving rocket, a satellite and a rover.

All very cool indeed! 

This sort of mini-brick modelling has really taken off, would you agree?

Dynamic Situation

I quite like the look of this RC space patrol vehicle by Dynamic Toys. 

Like an Italian super car with MSV cum dropship chops it's got a real cool flat design.

See what you think.

PS.

The Star Wars Y-Wing as per Bill's comment. I think you've nailed it William!

Need a Tow Buzz?

I like this little half-egg moon tow.

It's almost Marx.

There's a crane, an antenna and a red light. What's not to love!

I've seen a few of these vehicles over the years. Some are completely egg-shaped. 

Have you anything like this?

Spaceballs Eagle 5

I had to look twice at this!

I thought it a Barbie dream winnebago but it looks like it's a 3D printed custom toy.

Wow! 

By GreeblerElf of Utah, USA, it's got lots of fab features for the space travelling camper!

Do you like it? 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1664253027/spaceballs-eagle-5-winnebago-vehicle 

Under Siege with the Horror Horn

 I have a few Go To films. Like old friends they're easy company and I enjoy knowing the lines.

Under Siege from 1992 is such a one, a naval actioner starring the cool cook Aikido 7th Dan Steven Seagal and one frantic terrorist Tommy Lee Jones. And oh yeah, the always exciting Gary Busey as a scorned XO. There's just something about the basic plot, the snappy dialogue and the sparse Terminator-style synth soundtrack that does it for me. Do you like it? 

Watching again I realised I knew the Captain, played by veteran actor Patrick O'Neal (✝️ age 66).

A face so familiar from appearances in just about every American TV of the 1970's, with that distinct rich voice of his, I knew he'd been in a movie significant to me as a kid.

Bingo!

Chamber of Horrors. Yes! A rarely shown horror about a wax museum and it's crazed owner, the prosthetic hand madman played by ... Patrick O'Neal.

I adored this film as a kid. It was released in cinemas in 1966, so it must have been a good few years later when it was on UK TV. Probably a Midnight Movie or an Appointment with Fear slot in the early 1970's. I was 10 Christmas 1970.

Chamber of Horrors was made even more memorable by a William Castle-style gimmick to keep the audience 'hooked'. It was called The Fear Flasher, along with it's Horror Horn and appeared just before anything gruesome happened! It must have been great at the flicks, popcorn flying everywhere! 

It had me good and proper watching it on TV; hook, line and cleaver! 

Do you remember the Fear Flasher and Horror Horn readers?

https://youtu.be/mwrHydY8uGQ?si=zlsAzUuMYqk08Ih_

Tarheel Photo Box Art

I've often wondered about the process that toy companies commissioned box art or VHS makers commissioned video cover art. I guess it's all online now but at one time it won't have been. For example, one of my favourite American boxes is the Tarheel of Tarboro Probe Force 2 photo art. How did they achieve that in 1967? Was it an artist or a photographer do you think?

Terranova47, having experience of box art and commissioning, gave me his thoughts:

Hello Woodsy

Well, I know that when I worked on VHS Tape packaging, the art was supplied as it was from the publicity material created for the cartoon, movie or TV show.

 It was a matter of cropping and fitting in all the information, copyright etc. Only on a few occasions, where the tape was a documentary, was a photo chosen from stock photo libraries.

The Project Sword box was probably a photo of the toy against a background painting. A photo retoucher added the motor stream to a print and it was re-photographed. In this case any other toys from the range may have had the same background. So it was both an artist and a photographer plus a designer for the text box and side and ends of the lid.

Now, photo retouchers used to take a print, sometimes they would bleach away areas then airbrush or paint in a replacement image. They were talented, skilled and expensive. 

These days the cost of the software, Photoshop for instance, would be the equal cost of one retouching job done the old way. Now it's possible, and I've done this, to hire someone online to substitute a person in a group shot for $25! 30 years ago that would have been hundreds of dollars!

Terranova47

USA

*

What are your thoughts about the American Project SWORD Probe Force 2 photo-box art?

Epoch waits for no Man!

After a recent natter with Woodsy, I realised I hadn't looked into the history of the Japanese toymaker, Epoch.

https://epoch.jp/global/en/company/toy-history.php

I knew they were mostly into games, and went heavily into electronic games in the 9

80's, but this timeline is a nice overview.

I had this Pokapon game, but mine might have been a bootleg!

This spaceship game is a corker!

https://vintagespacetoys.com/products/epoch-space-ship

A DragonBall Z sofubi figure...

and nowadays they seem most famous for Sylvanian Familes and Super Mario!

...and I suspect there's a lot more out there!

You got any Epoch? 

Looey

Oz Base