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My Favorite Martian
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Brent Gair
Mission Specialist


Joined: 21 Nov 2014
Posts: 467

PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 12:45 am    Post subject: My Favorite Martian Reply with quote

My large, rough scratchbuilt ship can be seen somewhere on this site but this is the more compact model from Pegasus Models. This kit includes a nice vinyl figure of Uncle Martin.

While I painted and assembled all of this, there is a pre-painted and finished version also available.



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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17558
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 5:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The way you display your work, Brent, gives it a big boost in aesthetic appeal, even when it's just a stand you designed yourself.

And this one is a good example of the full Gair treatment. Very Happy
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ShadowLandz100
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Joined: 24 Sep 2014
Posts: 15
Location: Portland Oregon

PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nicely done and thanks for sharing. Karl
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trekriffic
Starship Navigator


Joined: 19 Feb 2015
Posts: 592

PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2015 1:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice job on this! I watched My Favorite Martian as a kid when it originally aired. I remember it premiered the same night and time as the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. It was shaping up as a battle royal between my sisters and I as to which show we would watch, fortunately, my mother was able to arrange the rabbit ears to get decent reception on the small black and white TV in the front room of the house. So, while I watched my show in there, my sisters sat squealing in front of the big (19") console TV in our living room. Anyway, those were the days, funny the things that stick in memory eh?
I have the same Pegasus kit in my stash. Seeing your build has helped me decide which model I want to build next.
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orzel-w
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Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1868

PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2015 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This was an unusual design for a TV prop. Normally we'd see "boxy" designs that could be cut and assembled easily from flat sheets of building material (think pre-CGI Star Trek shuttlecraft). Even the mismatching cockpit cover on this one suggests that it was an add-on to some streamlined found body.
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2015 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hope Brent or someone else can provide us with the design history of Uncle Martin's dandy little ship. I don't quite agree with your assessment of the "mismatched cockpit cover". Seems pretty consistent and deliberate to me, but I don't really know the history of the prop.

We'll just have to wait for somebody who has the inside info. Very Happy
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Krel
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PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2015 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The designer was told that the ship had to fit into a standard car garage. Steve Neil had several episodes on his web show, where he worked on refurbishing a replica for Doug Drexler. It had appeared in MIB II. It was a tight squeeze to fit into it.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2015 10:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found a site that named the designer, and it stated that the body of the ship was based on a classic Jaguar sports car. Here the the text, and the link is below.

__________________________________

Based on the design of an e-type Jaguar, this unnamed vessel had to be small enough to fit in a garage but still convince as alien technology. The solution is sleek, shimmery and rather sexier than the show it was in; if 007 had to go into space again (I'm really not recommending that he does), this is the kind of style that's requisite, and it wouldn't look bad underwater either.

Art Director James Hulsey retained the e-type's characteristic vent, and later remodelled the unsophisticated hatch-release mechanism into an elegant split of windowed gull-doors.

The prop was originally made as silver-painted wood, but later recast in fibre-glass with a steel framework. In the shooting of a later episode, part of the steel structure snapped away and almost killed the actor inside.

MFM expert J.H. Harrison notes that though the design incorporates three exits for landing legs, they are never actually depicted in the show (something we'll be coming across later with the Narcissus from Alien).

The full-size prop was sold at a car auction in LA in 1985 and several times thereafter. It was last known to be in the possession of a memorabilia collector in the early nineties.

Modeller Brent Gair made a 25" replica of the spaceship, and there was even a very basic commercial kit on the market in the 1960s (click here to see how basic).




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Brent Gair
Mission Specialist


Joined: 21 Nov 2014
Posts: 467

PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2015 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I notice that the site with the picture of very basic model kit has a picture of Tim's sports car from the first season. The site owner is unable to identify the make.



It's a Triumph TR4.

Coincidentally, I own the cousin of that car.

I have a Triumph TR250...which has the body and chassis of the TR4 with different running gear and trim.



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Rocky Jones
Astral Engineer


Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 224
Location: North Texas

PostPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A couple of years ago I watched a weekly series of YouTube videos by Hollywood model and SPFX guy Steve Neill in which he restored the original MFM spaceship prop. I'd link to it here, but searching for it, it seems he's taken those videos down, which is too bad. It was an interesting look at some TV history. He had to make a good many external repairs and the hatch needed a lot of work. The owner was less interested in preservation than having a flashy prop, though, so he ended up changing the cockpit controls a bit to install some modern microprocessor controlled light flashing features and such.

From now on I'm going to get a lot of screen grabs when I run across something on YouTube that might make for good future reference. I don't know why anybody would take anything down, though. They don't charge you or limit the space or anything. Oh, well.
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Although I've never used my Photobucket account to host videos, they do support them. Here's what Photobucket says on the subject.

Photobucket supports most commonly-used image and video files.

Supported file types

Videos — 3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, avi, divx, flv, gif, mov, mp4, mpeg4, mpg4, mpeg, mpg, m4v, wmv


So, you could save the videos you like, in case YouTube stops offering them.

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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rocky Jones
Astral Engineer


Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 224
Location: North Texas

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2015 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

After thinking about that yesterday I looked into ways to download YT videos (against Google policy, BTW) and found a Firefox add-on called Video DownloadHelper that does a good job. Unfortunately, though, it somehow screwed up Firefox so that Pinterest's web image grabber doesn't work for me anymore. What was it like before we constantly hassled with software and computer snags?
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17558
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2015 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I download YouTube videos frequently using savefrom.net and Ummy (the latter of which provides higher quality versions when the video is itself higher quality than most).

http://en.savefrom.net/1-how-to-download-youtube-video/?rmode=false

Dailymotion has nice videos, too, and they allow you to chose the quality of the download (the higher file size takes longer, naturally).

Good luck with your efforts to save the videos you want. Very Happy
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Rocky Jones
Astral Engineer


Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 224
Location: North Texas

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2015 11:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't have any interest in saving videos, really. I'm on a cable Internet system, though and in the evening when everybody's watching Netflix and stuff, streaming video gets unwatchably jumpy. I'll try your websites.
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trekriffic
Starship Navigator


Joined: 19 Feb 2015
Posts: 592

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2015 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rocky Jones wrote:
A couple of years ago I watched a weekly series of YouTube videos by Hollywood model and SPFX guy Steve Neill in which he restored the original MFM spaceship prop. I'd link to it here, but searching for it, it seems he's taken those videos down, which is too bad. It was an interesting look at some TV history. He had to make a good many external repairs and the hatch needed a lot of work. The owner was less interested in preservation than having a flashy prop, though, so he ended up changing the cockpit controls a bit to install some modern microprocessor controlled light flashing features and such.

From now on I'm going to get a lot of screen grabs when I run across something on YouTube that might make for good future reference. I don't know why anybody would take anything down, though. They don't charge you or limit the space or anything. Oh, well.


I watched those Steve Neill videos too. Found this YouTube video from when Steve, Doug Drexler (the new owner of the prop), and crew picked it up for transport to Doug's garage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqGCgxCMjP4

Still can't find the ones Steve did in his studio showing all the repairs he made darn it!
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