Wednesday 23 January 2013

From The Back Of The Cabinet - It Conquered The World

This time on this irregular feature, i thought i'd dig out one of the few Billikin kits that i own - the monster from It Conquered The World, aka "The Space Cucumber." I'd loved the design of the beastie waaay before i ever got to see the film as this still in one of my SF Film books held a morbid fascination for the lil' me:
Of course, when i DO get to see the film, the moving creature is another thing entirely - moving by being pulled along on a trolly, arms waving about. Its kind of comical now, but there's no getting away from the fact that it was a fantastic design for its time, one of Paul Blaisdell's greatest creations in my opinion. Looking at this rare colour still here, with Paul on the left and Bob Burns on the right, i'm pretty pleased how close i got to the right colour scheme:
When i built this fella, it was back in the 90's and, of course, no Internet meant no access to any colour images. So, with just my trusty B&W still to go on, i went my own way. I'm pretty close on the shading in the grooves (think my only time with an airbrush) and, if'd i'd continued that orange tone on the arms all over, i'd be pretty close to the skin too.