I need crappier fonts and cheesier color. Mockup demonstration of a combine painting I want to see, estimated size would be 32x40 or so. Misspelled "Ossining" (d'oh) but then again it's meant to suggest a design by some guy over in Hong Kong from 1972. Circle in the middle of the top is meant to suggest a hole punch for a display rack. "Future Management" is a fictional business I invented and refers to a song by Queen drummer Roger Taylor from his 1981 "Fun In Space" album. "Babs & Babs" is a song by Robert Fripp + Daryl Hall from their 1977 "Sacred Songs" collaboration, sounds like the name of a closeout store. "515" is a song by The Who from "Quadrophenia" and along with "Number Nine" is my favorite number to utilize when needing a cool number. "Hand Painted By Real Artist" is from a Marx windowboxed "Lunar Exploration" set. The "US Space Heroes" is one of the names Payton Products used for their bagged sets of two inch MPC spaceman copies.
Working on additional moonscapes for other backing cards, and formulating how to make painted wall boxes for individual figures to be housed within. I don't want to just show them loose on a table and do want viewers to choose an astronaut for their very own.
Forty three recast five inch MPC spacemen, likely manufactured in Mexico during the early 1990s. Brought them home for less than a dollar a head, with a sackful of recast equipment for my vintage figures as gravy. Time for our Immersion in the Culture of Collecting moment for those not yet hip to what these are:
The figures were first manufactured c.1963 by a company called Multiple Toymakers (or MPC) and I had two or three as a child. Destroyed by the age of eight and lost to the Sands of Time. MPC manufactured them between 1964 and 1972 or so after which the space toy craze had puttered out. The molds ended up in Mexico and during the early 1990s were utilized by unknown parties to apparently cast several railroad cars full. I re-discoverd the form last spring and began a collection of both vintage figures as well as the Mexican recasts. Which are looked upon with a certain amount of scorn by collectors as they were very cheaply made from the original MPC molds using a horrid plastic which has not aged well. Original examples are still soft & supple, these will crack if dropped onto a cement floor and cause grown men to weep in regret for having wasted their money on them when there's so many vintage figures going around. Just gotta know where to look.
In fact, the vintage five inch MPC spacemen aren't even that hard to find, but the equipment they came with darn near impossible & the figures lacking without it. Or at least that's how I felt about it, and upon realizing the score would provide ample accessories for the eighteen vintage figures I've obtained was sold. If I can paint and sell even a few of the figures at a modest rate it all pays for itself. And if I can sell them all, including as elements in space artworks, I can score a boxed 1962 Marx Toys "Operation Moon Base". Man Alive.
Decent, and there's plenty of helmets to go around. Only six of my vintage figures lacked helmets so, there's more. But the plastic is stiff and brittle, so the oxygen packs will stay with the recast figures as I paint them.
Worked out to forty one figures to paint with at least two examples of the 10 original MPC poses. Two of which I do not have vintage 60s/70s examples of in my collection so two get bagged up with those for the time being. Two smaller spacemen by Crescent Toys at lower left from my man "Finklehop" on e-b4y. He's good.
I picked sixteen figures to start with, all sporting broken guns or tools so I won't be so self-conscious about screwing them up. Utilizing the Golden's metallic Iridescent Acrylic Colors to create foil suits in Sgt. Pepper and Major Tom colors. I'd imagine Major Tom would have wanted a nice day glow lemony green space suit. Something "trippy", maybe shimmering under the lights.
Also: Acrylics are not the right material to be painting on plastic with but it's what we have in the house. And it's time to make art out of this stuff so, away we go.
Ogle shelf time. I'm looking at the vintage packaging for ideas on how to present the painted figures. And just looking at it. Some of it has survived even longer than I have, so far. It's re-assuring.
Sadly the red did not make the cut. The metallic shades have little microscopic bits of reflective stuff which seem to bond well with the surface of the figures, cast in the kind of plastic used to make filing cabinets or waste baskets for sale at less than reputable dollar stores. So using acrylic paints is trying to use petroleum on petroleum and it either slips right off or scratches if sneezed on.
The metallics also scratch super easy, so a can of spray acrylic clear coat is incoming, both to help preserve the metallic foil suits which worked and to hopefully give some flexibility on using primary colors like those above. Rubber suited goons from a James Bond movie, or DEVO.
Space Pyramid in progress, with the picture being all that remains of the rubber red goon suit color.
My rule is that if just stacking them into their box overnight scratches the surface they get re-done. Soak in warm water for ten minutes and it lifts right off with a dish scrubber.
Step three is crafting bits of moon terrain on the topside of their bases using Golden's miraculous Crackle Paste compound. Does exactly that, and if applied correctly with just the right staining & a surface coat layer of Clear Tar Gel will look like they are standing on (and in) the surface of an alien world.
The green didn't survive either. And as a testimony to how well the metallics adhere to the filing cabinet plastic the figures are cast in, applying the crackle paste to their bases results in it just sliding off when dry. Here its adhering nicely to a primer layer of Iridescent Copper Light fluid acrylic. Also using an Iridescent Silver (Fine) which is full body.
Looks like a kick line rehearsing the big "Planetoid" scene from ALIEN: THE MUSICAL.
Working with mom, who is a badass artist in her own right. The painting is all taking place up in her dining room as it has the best natural daylight in the house. Certainly better than my Lunar Module down in my dad's basement which has all the charm of the Nostromo's C-deck. I pretend I'm on Skylab, and yesterday marked 31 days since I'd last been at my apartment in Utica. It'll be there, but we agreed that I cannot re-enter the house after interacting with anyone until the pandemic stage is over. Both parents in their 80s. We sit it out and why should I be the only one who gets to have all the fun.
Four which didn't make the grade. Note the flaking on the yellow suits especially.
Bingo. Note how the metallics used to "prime" some of their boots hung on, and all of the crackle paste as well.
"We're on this Planetoid ... following an Alien noise ...
We only gotta walk two clicks ... to get to the Derelict ..."
Kane's solo just before they find the Derelict. Am pleased with how that yellow came out.
Word on a Wing. A Stranger in a Strange Land.
"Please, don't be long."
Two more of the moonscapes in progress, for use both as a giant "backing card" for sets of spacemen and as diorama backdrops in window box structures. Sculpting terrain into which the figure can be removed, played with and replaced is also on my mind.
The Broken Gun Squad, having stared first with the figures which had broken or damaged toos/guns. Blue guy second from bottom left is an example of the "reverse-detailing" method I'm trying, where I prime the figure with a lighter color then leave his oxygen hose and web gear straps alone when painting the body a darker color. Hoping it allows a cleaner result, though in the end they are meant to be painted objects rather than customized toys.
Had that *exact* same postcard as a kid! mailed to me by Grandma Wilson for my 5th birthday in 1972 (?). She was a chemistry professor, they were local to Houston Flight Center, went regularly, plus Cape Kennedy when visiting Aunt Margaret in Florida, and approved of my interest in NASA manned spaceflight. Sent me all sorts of incredible stuff including a massive photo set of Apollo Program publicity shots, will dig the survivors out. And while I had the full set of six 6" Marx Apollo Astronauts none were in blue! Two more to go and my current set is complete, with this a second example of Sample Bag Guy. Stoked to have one in blue!! the handling patina, dust + hand-written tag add priceless provenance. Am very grateful to the person who offered them up for grabs -- Both will live on via my art, never to be parted with, while photographed, sketched or ogled endlessly.
One more post: Been sort of stuck at my dad's for an extra couple of days and had some time to work over my Blogger settings. Amongst other insights I realized that Blogger's "Labels" feature = TAGS, a function I'd been wondering how to add. Almost went through and hash tagged by text the other night and am hoping the change results in some Moon Traffic.
One of the purposes of the blog is to build a new audience for what's turning out to be a radical change in direction for my methods as a visual artist. The overall content is the same -- science fiction themes crossed with a dystopic worldview and yearning for perfection in form -- but the execution has changed. More precise, especially in how the human form is employed by utilizing the spaceman figures + their equipment in ways that my rendering skills could never replicate. Right now the results are primarily photography based (using my smartfone: need a technical upgrade for better focal options) but I have manipulated some prints of the images with traditional art materials to convincing effect. One even sold.
The ultimate goal is to make my own space toy forms, not aimed at children (at first) but freakazoids like myself who have a nostalgic love of things like Space Bucket astronaut sets & rocket launching Space Tank toys. One of the objectives behind amassing a collection is to be able to study them for ideas, both as toy forms and packaged goods. Figure out how to simulate such product using my own unique visions as an artist, and potentially harvest an audience to consume them, including by just looking. Maybe offering ideas, insights, or other creative discourse: Art is about people looking at things and hopefully those things being interesting enough to foster a discussion.
The blog and related YouTube + Instagram feeds have already caught some interest and here is a better forum to verbally explore the culture of collecting. Studying that has been as important as learning what my tastes are, with an expected learning curve which may have put some off. And if so, Sorry Man. I mean it.
I'm calling this setup "The Altarpiece from the Cathedral at The J. Robert Oppenheimer Atomic Research Colony, Vega Nine" or just "The Altarpiece" for short. Atom bomb painting from our 2018 "It's The End of The World" show at the gallery I currently manage in Syracuse. Figures variously by Marx and Hing Fat, rockets by LP Toys. Silver dais is the lid from a candle jar and white dome shape a spray-painted gumball machine globe. Roosevelt Dime for scale, and calling it such is of course a Tom Waits reference. I hear it in my head every time.
A less arty angle. Toy forms were things I'd been evaluating earlier & kept out, and this is how my diorama setups usually come to be. Just random stuff I'd been looking at, arranged in some manner which strikes the eye as potentially meaningful, especially when combined with some sort of narrative contextual title or word interplay. Here the results limited by working on the small Hobby Lobby shelf I tacked up on the Ogle Wall in my Syracuse work space. Not much one can do with it.
I like the idea of Marx guys trying to set off LP rockets. Different eras & design objectives, with the Chinese designed spacemen adding a twist. It's an international effort, using quasi-military ideas crossed with pulp era science fiction forms, and twisted enough to engage the mind on several levels. Though in the end it's not a serious attempt at being creative with the forms, just snapping pix of stuff that had been of interest on a warm summer afternoon of relaxingly idle studio time. That's when we get cooking for real.
That faceless & armless Chinese made spaceman has become a favorite! All manner of surreal applications for his form, half in & half out of reality. I need to get busy with that rocket launching tank thing behind him too.
And I think my collecting has entered it's latter stage, where I know what I want, and have enough for now to get me started on the creative applications. Cooling down on acquisitions & spending more time studying the forms, learning their history.
Comparing the shapes of the upper thruster forms. Am fairly certain this one was produced by LP in the very late 1960s as part of their Apollo Moon Craze toy fad. Blue Hing Fat spaceman came from France, of all places. Would love to find some more!
The masterful Space Bucket Lunar Module, its design unchanged now for nearly fifty years. Probably costs a quarter to produce, same as in 1972. They are still making them somewhere.
Looks like he's leaning in to light a fuse. And the seated pilot figure looks like a statue. This might be an interesting angle to print out and manipulate. Or project onto a canvas to sketch from, another method I've been meaning to explore. Am currently searching for a new live/work situation in the Syracuse metro area and things like that will have to wait.
"Charlie ... Charlie I don't think you'se should be doin' that over here, Charlie ..."
The "Charlie" series referencing comical approximation of Brooklynites from old Loony Tunes, accident-prone Atom Age spacemen who speak in thick NYC/Jersey accents, with one of them (usually named Conrad after astronaut Charles Pete Conrad, NASA's sharpest wit) usually pointing out the potential hazard of the situation to the not-so bright Charlie, who got into the space core via working food service. One day he donned a flight suit left on a cafeteria chair & followed the astronauts onto their rocket. Ground control has been looking for him ever since.
Hand-painted Hing Fat spaceman to the right done during a Syracuse Public Arts Task Force meeting where we discussed the Creek Float project. All three of my float entries had Space Toy applications to them -- Will do a post on it.
The specific source of inspiration: The gorgeous terrain forms on the Marx "Lunar Exploration" diorama playset.
My chosen material: Fallen concrete scraps from the ceiling of the late 40s bomb shelter attached to our house in Syracuse
My chosen slabs, first sealed on their flat sides with Clear Tar Gel.
First gently washed then doused with Golden Artist Colors' Clear Tar Gel, my favorite of their acrylic mediums. The larger slab instantly appealed to me for the rust staining from a support girder.
Clear Tar Gel is very viscous, almost fluid, and hardens without leaving brush strokes as a super glossy smooth surface. Like melted glass, and I like using it to simulate a ceramic glaze effect.
Drying on a garbage can lid with an unfinished 3d wood painting from 2018.
Studying coral and rock forms used to make a retaining wall in the back yard.
Coral.
Granite.
Now observing the Marx nacu-sculpted forms. Each is plastic, more or less hollow and I am pretty sure then hand tinted or stained after being formed.
My results, dime added for scale.
And in application. Figures & rocket made in Hong Kong, likely mid to late 70s.
