That's right what your looking at is another baby boomer re-living his childhood. Now with more time on his hands than he rightfully deserves. I now lay out these things I enjoyed as a boy. And in my childhood Sci-Fi rained supreme.
I owe this to my father who was also a science fiction fan. My dad supported it all. At about 5 he taught me to build models out of balsa wood. No lathe or anything, but a file, Gillette blades and sand paper. But there wasn’t anything I saw that I couldn’t build. I saw it, I drew it and then built it. I had the best models on the block!
It was a great time to be a kid. I was certain I would someday fly in space. We would have permanent Space Stations orbiting the Earth. Colonies on the Moon and Mars. I was just a kid when Sputnik was launched. How many more steps could it take?
I was always interested in the technology that went into the ships. First rocket ships, Space Ships and then interstellar space craft. I drew it all. My poor parents thought I would never leave the drawing table.
So today in present time I found 3D rendering. Computers, and the whole world they bring. I fell in love and once again started drawing. What we have here is my child fun amplified via computers. My childhood heros, Buzz Cory Commander in Chief of the Space Patrol, Rocky Jones Space Ranger and Commando Cody Sky Marshal of the Universe, now all live again in short films I create.
So I now share these childhood memories with anyone interested. What I have created is a series of short films (6 seconds or less) and I have moved some of those single frames for all to view.
I'm afraid I'm new at the internet and WEB building has been trial and error. Its my good fortune my son has been building the sites.
Some effort has gone into making the drawings true. I found a wonderful book “SpaceShip HandBook” by Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers. Assuming they had accurate measurements I tried to keep my drawings true to them. Where no drawings existed, I have many old movies. There I did the safe relationship measurement method. A man (lets say Commando Cody) standing next to his rocketship. In helmet I would make him six feet tall. The rest was in relationship to him. Where I could I would capture a frame from a movie and place it (Forbidden Planet C57D) in the Modeling portion of LightWave. I could then draw around the image in the viewer. Please remember these are art work not technical drawings.
All of the pictures here were created by me using LightWave 3D, with assistance from Adobe. The actual images I created are TV quality (1024x768). I burn DVDs all the time and run them on my 65' set. They look fine. I have set up some one hundered and fifty pictures which I use as my screen savers.
Besides the spaceships, rocketships and saucers this is also a tribute to the men who's foresight made them possible. Men like George Pal and Ray Harryhausen who created such great movies as War of the Worlds, the Conquest of Space and Earth vs the Flying Saucers. I won't try to layout their lives, there are many sites that do a better job of that than I could ever do. But rather to remember them and how they affected my childhood.
Right now I have two Macs, One for drawing and the other for rendering. The rendering is very very lengthy. The 6 second clip of "This Island Earth's" ship over Metalona takes 3 days.
I got my two new machines last fall. A G5 2.5 with 8gb and 1.8 mhz with 4gb of memory. The speed is up there. Now if I could just invent a time machine I could support my family and draw all day!
Last site added was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Featuring the ironclad, Atomic Powered, super rivet laden Nautilus. Besides scenes of the ship I have some wonderful interior drawings. Most from the movie but a couple I made up to complete the series.
The Flash Gordon site is new. Its mostly the interior of the space ship. But Mongo is coming up as I have started building the take off site on earth and landing site on Mongo.
I have Gort, and an interior of the saucer in Potpori. The site is only beginning. I have nothing for Flight to Mars and It the Terror from beyond Space. These memories need to be kept and I really enjoy researching them and putting it down in art form.
I have received some requests for copies of the pictures. I can create professional color prints. I would be interested to know what is wanted, prints, T shirts(no digital images will be released). Let me know.
If you have any drawings you would like to see added to the site, Please contact me and we will see what we can do.
All drawings and art works are copyrighted and sold on the basis of Non-Commercial, Private use only.
Please contact us for permission for other uses, including any posting on websites.
Steve
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