Space Bling Saturday at Honest Bob's Used Rockets & RVs, with "Barn Find" Vintage Arrivals

 

Just in at Honest Bob's: Unlooked for "Barn Find" type scores of rare vintage 1950s spacecraft which had waited decades to be re-discovered and shipped our way. All but one are damaged and I could not be more delighted with the results. Here's a quick look, with video embeds of the unboxing sessions each running about five minutes. Lots of laughs.

Nobly damaged Marx Toys "Double Gun" spaceship, early 1950s. Missing gun nacelle on the port side, which to me is just battle damaged to be exploited in photo based art visions. A "restoration" idea might be to do a resin mold casting of the intact weapon, something I learned in Plastics Workshop at the venerable Studio Research program at Syracuse. Will have the thing for the rest of my life so, plenty of time to read up & effort the project. Can do.

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen viewing options.

Was delighted to have a parody accident cleanup scene present itself. Just need a few figures in more or less the same scale. Some kind of painted backdrop and terrain sculpted from Golden's acrylics, and a helicopter if there's an excuse to roll one out. Bingo.

More on the Marx ship at the Space Garage here spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/06/barn-find-marx-toys-double-gun-1950s.html

My dad is addicted to these shows. I hear that guy's voice booming through the house at least once a day. I used to hate them and now pay attention for ideas to work with. One of which involves choppering in experts from the History Channel. 

STUNNED WORK CREWS TRY TO MAKE SENSE OF THE CHAOS was an actual spoken narration which invaded my peace of mind from the other room. At some point there should be enough of the little clips to assemble them into an entire episode.

The mighty Gilmark Toys X-41 rocket car, in admirable condition for a toy more or less designed to be broken and replaced.

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen playback options. Sheer excitement.

"Fill 'er right up."

More views at the Space Garage here spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/06/barn-find-gilmark-toys-x-41-hard.html Still learning about the line, will do followups etc

And the much sought-after Gilmark X-42 with rolling cockpit canopy, this one complete. You would step out of the way of that rocket blast, see.

More here, though its mostly just pix as my familiarity with Gilmark is still at "well-meaning n00b" stage spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/06/gilmark-toys-x-42-rocket-cars-from-barn.html

Refit evaluation and cleanup at the Ganymede Station's drydock facility, where there's always plenty of laughs as things go wrong.

Safety Demonstration Gone Awry

My astronauts are always in trouble, one mishap after the next. Will have fun sorting out what happened to him after getting sucked in .... ZZZZZZPPP!

Painting a Damaged 1950s Gilmark Toys Space Car with Golden's Acrylics: Choosing Paints & Color Scheme

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscren view options.

Accident cleanup crew from "Heavy Rescue 411: Ganymede Station Edition" with foul-tempered Irate Pilot at far right. Imprudent speed in a methane blizzard, could have been a lot lot worse. Everyone needs to learn to just slow down.

Concept for the project best summed up by this trailer clip, Meant to be a space parody of those Weather Channel shows where guys in foil suits pull wrecked trucks out of the snow. My dad is addicted to them, will watch two or more episodes every day ...

More on the concept in this prior blog post here at the Space Garage.

In drydock with pristine example of the form. First marketed in the US c.1952 (?) and elsewhere through the end of the decade. I like how these are American made even if extremely fragile, low density plastic that dislikes being dropped onto hard surfaces. Which while an indication of their era (soft "unbreakable" plastics first invented 1954) I've often suspected a clever marketing ploy in selling more units. 

Vended originally from counter bins at Woolsworths etc for $.15 cents, two for a quarter. Now highly prized collector's bling, the damaged red ship came that way to me with others as fodder for artworks.

An example of the color scheme I'd employ here on a Marx Toys space dozer tank missing its bulldozer blade, as Corporal Qtzklplzk tries to 'esplain how he locked the keys inside. Sgt. Hallstead barks "Hour walk back to base for the spare set. Enjoy it."

Utilizing Golden's fluid Micaceous Iron Oxide for a grungy oil-caked "Used Universe" look, like she just rolled off a Jawa scrap heap.

Another example using an LP Toys style Checkers Rocket. Minimal and like it's made out of metal.

The full composition, box is about 9x17 which is the largest one of these I've tried so far. Terrain yet to be fully sculpted, and I want debris scattered around the impact site,

 

Drydock crew preparing the surface. More soon.

Space Garage Update! With Wrecked Gilmark Space Ship & Accident Cleanup Crew from "Heavy Rescue 411"

HEAVY RESCUE 411: GANYMEDE STATION EDITION

When inspiration hits you must respond. The mayhem discussed in this post covered much more extensively over at my Space Trucks blog here spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/05/gilmark-toys-hard-plastic-space-ship.html

Long/short is that we have a new parody make believe TV show idea to have fun with. Debated on which blog to go over this on as there's as much art content as space bling worship. But it's about those plastic ships right now, the painting to follow. Usually it's worked the other way, starting with a more or less finished painted box that needed something inside to tell a story. This time it started as finding an idea large enough to snugly fill the void-like expanse of a much larger area than my standard 4x4 inch size.

Not sure about the text but want a "splash screen" with the make believe show's name, will refine it. Depicts an accident scene involving a somewhat rare Gilmark Toys hard plastic space car in a severely damaged state I'd obtained for a few dollars more. Held onto it knowing I wanted to utilize its still respected hull in a creative manner ... We just happened to have one of those Heavy Machine Rescue type shows on during supper, where guys up in Canada wearing brightly colored foil suits pull wrecked tractor trailers out of the snow? and bingo.

The box work as originally plotted out, painting just there at this stage to suggest an off-world location. Box is a 10x20 inch cheese collection gift crate from the late Uncle Michael. Best idea I'd come up with was to make a crater (at right) with plasticine that a likewise broken but handsomely painted Marx Toys space tank could traverse down to meet up with a painted Marx astronaut. 

Groovy idea, but what of it? I like it when the arrangement suggests a little story, the more absurd the better. And the only rule is that the painting has to be as cool as whatever goes into the box or you're just flappin air. Craft table bling priced $50 or less, maybe clickbait eye-candy for people to "Like" on social media. Pass. Set it aside for a month & worked on other things.

Mayhem. Now we have a story to tell, and much more to fill in starting with finishing the painted scene. Needs a space heliocopter or wreckage hauling garbage ship in the sky over the tank, suspended by wire etc. The terrain will be more terraformed and scattered with debris from the mishap. And I want to paint the crashed ship with a stainless steel iridescent acrylic that looks like metal. Not like I could mess it up any further.

Are we having fun yet?

What I'm after. My dad is hooked on these shows, and will gleefully watch two or more episodes a day if allowed. He admires how it stars essential workers who modestly go about difficult tasks in bone-chilling, dangerous conditions for basic pay. No false heroes being celebrated, just guys who go home to their families at the end of the day. Sit in a chair, maybe have a warm meal.

I used to hate it, and still cannot discern between the two or three shows if its kind that feature into our routine programming here at Camp Nyland. I believe they are produced by the Weather Channel? and all have that same narrator whose voice has become more frequently heard in our house than music. Or at least upstairs on B Deck where my painting area is. I hear that guy booming on all the time, and when the inspiration hit I felt it was time to respond in kind: "Just go for it, snarky media parody and all." Cross-topic interest with the potential of a new audience who follow the show and want artworks involving work crews cleaning up after rocket accidents ... I have a lot of broken space ships in my boxes of stuff set aside to feature in artworks. Consider this warming up a new trope.

Our pilot at right in gold, a Gumdrop Alien cyborg by LP Toys of Hong Kong. That's his spouse in orange begging him to please get down from there, same toy line. Assorted astronauts by Giant Plastics, Multiple Toymakers, Airfix, and LP Toys, all painted with acrylics by Golden's. Dutch angle closeups like these can be printed + framed, or projected, enlarged, traced, painted into, and become their own flat 2d artworks. Kind of a nice angle to work from right there. 

Which wasn't easily arrived at. Total time invested could be rounded down to three months of stop/go work over two years. First the elements had to be found, some of which I've had since 2019. The figures and space tank had to be selected from that stash and painted. Then the box selected & its terrain begun, the prior idea with the space tank worked on for about a month. Then the inspiration of the wrecked ship had to present itself, along with an hour or so excitedly fumbling up the collection of elements shown. Another hour taking pix, several more sorting them, modifying them, and writing up the post. Other things were created during that time span as well so it's not like this was a sole focus.

More on the gorgeous Gilmark Toys space cars on the other blog.

Drydock at Ganymede Station, one of our commercial and industrial hubs on Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede, where forward bases to explore Saturn's life-rich water moons were established. Current population is about 22,000 mostly made up of industrial workers, miners, refinery crews and the support staff needed to provide lodgings and recreation for a small city's worth of humans. Which fifty years on is a mix of both Terrestrial colonists and Out Worlders who have never set foot on Earth. 

One thing is for sure: My astronauts are always in trouble. One misadventure after another.

spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/05/gilmark-toys-hard-plastic-space-ship.html

The Pyromatic Rocket Ship at Honest Al's Used Rockets & RV's, Ganymede Station

 

Pyro Plastics "Pyromatic Rocket Ship"

Saturdays are for what I call Culture of Collecting posts about my interest in vintage space toys in addition to cutting lawns here at Camp Nyland. And much of today was spent avoiding doing the latter while ogling a long-wanted item of 1950s plastic space bling - The "Pyromatic Rocket Ship" space car manufactured by Pyro Plastics in the USA starting in 1952 (?). I'd had a similar rig but this baby is logo marked, beautifully intact and the lawn will be there tomorrow no matter how much rain falls on it. Having priorities in order is a vital step to success.

Some video on the specimen and other items of interest. Runs four minutes  ... Not sure what was up with my voice that day, sounds like someone who pahked theyh cahh in Bahhstan Yaad. 

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen playback option.

The Culture of Collecting (thinking seminar titles here) refers to how I felt an obligation to be conversant on the toy forms used in creating my artworks. Especially the vintage 50s and 60s stuff that others collect very passionately. Pyro Plastics has its own following separate from the space toy era as fabricators of model kits and scale replica vehicles, each of which has their own culture of collectors. You have to learn your onions and figure out the neighborhood, though my fascination is squarely with their space toy creations.

Octopus Hunt, 2019, 11x8 inches, pastel and acrylics on laser print of digital photo. Toy forms by MPC, Britain's Ltd. and Dollar Tree. Terrain and backdrop acrylic paintings on wood.

A lot of research went into learning vintage toy lingo and being able to accurately describe each piece that would figure into my art schemes. Their pedigree and history are part of the formula. I get more inspiration from vintage forms than contemporary, my geek button being switched on by Cold War era design sensibilities, functionality, and the right shapes. We're going to have fun utilizing this beauty as a photo subject for flatworks, printed or traced as above.

No Vintage Space Toys Are Harmed In The Creation Of My Artwork

At Honest Al's Used Rockets and RVs near Ganymede Station, right up off the expressway by the Aerodrome. New models every Saturday! Full blog post with detailed pix here: spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/05/pyro-plastics-pyromatic-rocket-ship.html

Now for that lawn.

UPDATE: Nope, started raining just as this was published. And that's showbiz.

The Space Trucks "Space Garage" Blog on Vintage Pop Culture Ephemera, Space Toys, Space Art, Science Fiction and Rock & Roll

Some of my favorite Space Truckers.

 https://spacetrucks.blogspot.com/ is the other blog feed on this Toys As Art project. I'm regarding it as the Culture Of Collecting part of the project where I share the space bling I've collected + what I've been able to learn about it with both other collectors and casual space rockers. 

The Dude, or my "Major Tom", 54mm with fitted helmet, 1952. I have other Major Toms too.

I came up with the name Space.Trucks as a descriptive term for the kind of stuff I'm drawn to, usually work related space age ground vehicles. Old archaic looking helicopters too, and Cold War era space adventurers who eventually ditched the ray guns & atom bombs for cameras and sample collection sticks. The crew of my favorite film ALIEN from 1979 are also often referred to as Space Truckers working a huge hauling rig resembling the inside of a B-52 bomber. And that's cool.

Lido Toys Captain Video & Futureman figures with a section of tin litho space port wall from a playset for the line concocted by T. Cohn Superior in 1952. On my Bucket List.

The Space Trucks posts are usually about the older toy forms I've found inspiration from, with lots of pictures and usually a video upload where I open up the arriving box as an ongoing performance art project. I checked, it's valid: Opening your mail on camera counts as performance art, or it can. I try to mix the procedure up with pop culture clips or other non-sequitor distractions to result in an enjoyable viewing experience even for those who do not share the enthusiasm. I strongly feel that art should be fun, when appropriate, or at least enjoyable.

Click here to open video in a new window for full screen viewing option.

Short subject upload from my YouTube introducing Kellogg's absurd alien robot names for the Lido characters from a 1955 Corn Flakes promotion.

I also wanted to note that my goal is to usually work these posts as shorter subject fare rather than long rambling hyperbole about esoteric personal interests. But right now we're sort of unloading 3+ years of content that accumulated during the time spent helping to care for Mom and did not have much room for sharing my creative energies beyond basic social media, let alone in gallery type settings. 

So some of what's turning up right now is admittedly breathless from having waited so long to be told. I am enjoying having that pressure vent off at last!! and looking forward to working both blogs like a remote job of some kind, with brevity and humor always being my objective.

Painting from 2020 using a larger Lido "Futureman" figure as an outline for the old Larry Rivers routine. Worked on it with Mom at our dining room table studio during the height of the pandemic. Unfinished, 32x24 pastel and acrylics on canvas board.

It took four years to complete a set of one each of their possible twelve poses, during which I learned all I could about the company which made them, the show they promoted, and other forms of that era.

Here's today's Culture of Collection item from the Space Trucks blog featuring my favorite of the pioneering early 1950s space bling, Lido Toy's insane Captain Video and his Video Rangers mayhem 1952 - 1955.

spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/05/lido-toys-35mm-captain-video-post.html

We share it here hoping it can provide some quasi-academic grounding for how this project came about, trying to help others understand the form and spread the collecting culture among like minded geeks the world over.

How about that for a big painting, 5x12 feet or so, either on canvas or as a mural. Like a big busy Hieronymous Bosch crowd scene with these jabbering creatures waving their arms excitedly. Using my painterly edge in acrylics, working the surface textures, weird details and pop cartoon colors. All I need is a projector to trace the outlines and enough room to swing a hammer while building the stretcher.

Check back soon for more.