As I write this, it's a week into the month when I'm usually on overdrive, and I'm juggling multiple projects including a new job. I've made the foolhardy decision to try to stick with my "normal" schedule for the full month. As it happens, I did have the makings of an easy entry thanks to the ongoing Marx Space Guys adventure, which I've already committed to enough to buy a 1960s space shuttle , a new Robby the Robot and space marine analogs. I had long since figured out that the hardest part will be the peripherals, the props and backgrounds for a retro-future environment. To that end, I've been making some new acquisitions. To start with, here's the biggest items from a Mars Base Camp reissue pack, with Moxon/ Evil Space Guy 2 for reference!
As you can see, this is clearly made in a range of wildly inconsistent scales. On the far left is the biggest, a gigantic sort of storage cabinet thingy that is about right in scale for the 4-inch Space Guys and nothing else. The next to the right is an observatory, complete with a sticker "Observatory" which is out of view here, which would come out as about 3.9 inches in 1/144 scale if those things on the sides are presumed to be doors. On the far right, the thing with the fins is a little under 3 inches tall and around 1/72 scale based on a door I realized wasn't in view. That one really looks like a fuel tank repurposed as Quonset hut, which I had specifically considered as an option for construction. Here's the next round of parts.
For this bunch, the middle piece is the biggest in the set, and to me the one that just doesn't work. It's officially 4.3 inches tall, and supposed to be a loudspeaker system. The obvious problem is that there's what looks like another little door at the bottom, which would make the speakers too huge for anything but sonic warfare and maybe a 1980s rock concert. On the left is a radar dish thingy that scales pretty well with the 70mm Space Guys. The dish looks more like a basket, with proportions that make for some awkward handling. On the right is a spotlight, which rotates but doesn't go up and down. I've been tempted to repurpose it, as it comes pretty close to concepts I've considered for an alternate-universe/ retro future TV monitor. (Hey, they built round ones first!) Here a coupe pieces from some different angles with the real centerpiece already shown above, a line of storage tanks.
Now about those tanks, they came as two pieces, the tanks and the base below and the connecting pipes on top. They came with warning stickers I put on the front, at what was a good line of sight for the 70mm figures. There were also gauges that would have marked them as hydrogen, fluorine and oxygen. I didn't use them because I liked things open-ended, and also because they looked good enough that I decided to wait and see if I could use them on something else. Here's a few more accessories. Not much to say. The one on the left is clearly a telescope or some electronic equivalent, the one on the right would work well enough a ray gun emplacement, and that round thingy just looks like a lamp.
Now for something a little complicated, I found two of these sets. One came with little toy aliens called Astro-Nits that weren't from Marx and did not match the style. This one came with a jumble of small-scale furniture. The one thing I thought might work for my purposes was a sort of control panel, which is a good size for the 70mm Space Guys except that it's a bit low. There's also a file thing that to me looks about right as a storage unit for tapes and the like. The rest is just too small and/ or weird. I swear I couldn't figure out those slanted things are supposed to be desks. To me, they looked like a 1970's-ish chair my family owned when I was a kid. I tried to make them work with some 1/25 railroad figures I got; they were the right size, but the figures kept falling off or ending up with their feet in the air. Here's a lineup with a 70mm and nominal 45mm figure. Obviously, I'm still working out lighting on The Couch Mark 2...
Meanwhile, I made a surprise discover that I nearly chose over the actual space accessories. I discovered there was a reissue set of accessories from a Marx dairy farm playset offered by a few different sellers, and damned if they didn't look at least as good for generic futuristic background tech as any of the actual space stuff. Here's a lineup.
Now, it will be pretty obvious that there are certain limits to this. The fridge and the two tubs unavoidably look exactly like what they are, which is good enough for a kitchen/ break room scene. The middle piece is labeled a bee hive and even has a wood texture. With the silver color, it still works as a general-purpose hunk of machinery. The real serendipity was the piece on the far right. It's labeled a cream separator, which I confirmed is a real piece of machinery that this comes pretty close to. However, the near-spherical top piece was eerily like an idea I already had for what a zero/ low-gravity coffee maker might look like. Now, here's the milk bottles, pretty good for whatever you want them to be, and some more stuff. The spray tank is a good size and shape for a fire extinguisher, while the extra cylinder again looks just generic. I still cannot figure out what those round things are supposed to be or what they would attach to. They are a very poor fit for the milk cans.
The most intriguing was a cart deal with enormous wheels. I find the scaling very strange, but in another bit of serendipity, it turned out the handle is at exactly the right height for the Tomy Rascal bots. Here's a pic of the little guys with the cart.
And here's a pic with one a kitchen setup with an Evermodel lady.
And for something extra, here's the tank/ hut with the 1/72 Dino Riders figures, about the only 1-inch scale guys I have. The sticker was shown as going on the door in the instruction sheet, but I decided it looked better this way, and I'm definitely using that logo in the story. They could almost get through that door fully upright...
All in all, this has been one of the most fun parts of this outrageously expensive and labor-intensive project. The whole point of this is that you never know what's going to work until you try. Even more importantly, this is surely exactly what kids were doing back when. While I'm at it, here's one more pic with The Space Guy Who Doesn't Care.
And that's enough for the day. That's all for now, more to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment