I have often wondered as to where this modeling style of mine began. Of course my father was a big modeler (and encouraged my interest in the craft), as well as watching films and TV, usually with many miniature effects. Of course the Gerry Anderson productions take the lead, but not all the vehicles were readily available as kits, plus there was a considerable lack of reference materials available. It was the Dark Ages; there was no internet! Fortunately I received the 1966 Thunderbirds annual (City Magazines Ltd. & A.P. Films Merchandising Ltd., if these companies still exist!), which was full of technical illustrations and photos. But in all these 94 pages of Supermarionation goodness, two stand out. It is the feature "How to Make a Lunar Landscape". Here is page 52...
I of course immediately started to scrounge for all the materials required. Following the directions carefully, I built the diorama display base and used it for what space toys and models I had at the time (as the Moon was quite popular back then what with the space race and all...). But the real inspiration came from page 53...
An allowance can go only so far, but now I had been given the means to "expand the fleet" basically for free! I built them all as shown, and expanded on the concept further. Using whatever bits and pieces I could find that were not kept in a secure place, I constructed many ships and space machines. (And to make matters even more challenging, the Kinder Eggs are still twenty years away!) Some met many "unfortunate situations"; after all this was an Anderson-inspired diorama and something has to blow up every episode! So, try it yourself! Go back 51 years and do some modeling like we had to do back in the 20th century before all the fancy materials we now take for granted didn't even exist!
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