Mike Trim will appear at ANDERCON 2014!

Mike Trim will appear at ANDERCON 2014!

FROM SFX Magazine online:
"AnderCon 2014 organisers have promised this first-time event to be a celebration of the life and legacy of the genius behind Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray, UFO and Space: 1999.
The event will take place on the weekend of 19-20 April 2014 at the Park Inn Hotel at Heathrow Airport. It’ll feature activities, exhibits and star guests from the various universes the late Gerry Anderson created, including recreations of sets used in Thunderbirds and Stingray, such as Brains’ laboratory, an exploding refinery and the “underwater” tank that made us believe Troy Tempest’s sub could swim. You’ll be able to see some surviving vehicles from Anderson productions, the moving “Rolling Road” background that created the illusion of Thunderbirds craft flying, displays of production drawings, and reproduction props and models – including the restored Straker car from UFO. There’ll also photo opportunities."

"Beyond the inanimate stars, there’ll be numerous humans appearing across the weekend, including Thunderbirds voice artists Matt Zimmerman, David Graham and Shane Rimmer; Space: 1999’s Zienia Merton, Pam Rose and Prentis Hancock; Terrahawks‘ Denise Bryer; Captain Scarlet’s Liz Morgan; and Space Precinct’s David Quilter and Richard James. As well as appearances from the actors, expect to see some of the behind-the-scenes production teams, including (new) Captain Scarlet writer Phil Ford, and special effects artists Steve Begg and Mike Trim. Anderson’s original business partner at AP FIlms, Arthur Provis, will also be attending the event.
AnderCon is hosted by Anderson Entertainment, the company developing projects from Anderson’s personal archive. For more details about the event and to register for tickets, visit http://www.andercon.co.uk."

Auction Lot Listings are Live!

The auction listings for Mike Trim's Century 21 art are up at Bonham's website now:
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THEM!

Mike Trim Century 21 Original Art Auction!

BIG NEWS!
Mike Trim will be auctioning off twenty-three pieces of original concept art from his days at the Century 21 Productions offices! These are original drawings and color paintings that were the earliest concept art for such iconic hardware as S.I.D. and Moonbase from UFO, the Spectrum Helicopter from Captain Scarlet, and other vehicles and hardware from Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90,The Secret Service, and UFO.
The auction will take place at Bonham's in London - here are their full contact details:

Bonham's
Montpelier Street
Knightsbridge
London SW7 1HH

Tel: +44 (0)20 7393 3900

www.bonhams.com

The auction will take place on the 23rd of June, 2010 at 2pm.
Catalogs are expected to be available in late May with full details on the pieces being offered. The website should have more information after May 23rd.

This is almost CERTAINLY the only opportunity you will EVER have to own one of these iconic originals. Plan to be there or be ready to bid by phone if you must!
Please help to spread the word by sharing this information on any social networking sites you belong to, or with friends who may be interested - just click the button below!

Fine Scale Modeler!

The current issue of Fine Scale Modeler magazine features a scratchbuilt F-116 jet from Joe 90 as designed by Mike Trim! Check out the Reader's Gallery for this excellent model.
And Happy New Year! I'll try and make a habit of posting here more often again.

"At all costs, save the World President!"

Yikes, sorry it's taken me so long to update the blog. Hope everyone had wonderful holidays and has fully recovered by now!


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This is an image that Mike's named "At all costs, save the World President!" Combining some of the vehicles Mike's most well known for designing, it's a commission piece for James Fielding, based on an earlier painting for another client. James saw the original on display at the Fanderson Sector 25 convention in October 2006 and fell in love with it. Who wouldn't?

More Fabulousness for Filmfax Funsters

Click To Enlarge

Part 2 of The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim will appear in the Fall '07 Issue of Filmfax Magazine, which should be in stores at the end of November! Up this time around are art and stories from Mike's tenure on Joe 90, The Secret Service, and UFO - all three series for which Mike designed almost every futuristic vehicle or building seen onscreen! Less so for UFO, as Derek Meddings had finally finished with Doppelganger, but Mike still got to design S.I.D., SHADO Moonbase, the SHADOmobiles, Seagull X-ray, and almost every other aircraft that appeared in the series.
Filmfax is packed with other great articles and images as well - grab one the second they hit store shelves! And of course, most of the amazing art of Mike's you see in the magazine is printed in full color in the book, available at the links on the right side of this page.

Firefly - Not Serenity

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Here's a marker rendition of a design for an updated FIREFLY, I'm guessing it's from Mike's tenure on the Universal Thunderbirds movie, but it's marked 2002. Mike sent me a disc full of images without captions, so I'm not sure exactly where this is from. It certainly fits in with the design aesthetic of the feature film.
There are several other updated TB2 container vehicle images on the discs, I'll try and get some details on them and post the images soon.

Filmfax Fans Flourish Fab Future

The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim is being serialized in the next 3 or 4 issues of fan favorite FILMFAX magazine! That's right, the entire text of the book (and many of the illustrations) will be in upcoming issues of Filmfax, the magazine of unusual film, television, & retro pop culture, beginning in mid-August with the Summer '07 issue, above. The magazine has elected to include several images not included in the Hermes Press edition of the book, making the issues must-have items for completists and collectors. Filmfax publisher Michael Stein is offering a special subscription deal for Mike Trim loving fans. Mike says:

The Trim article will probably run in three parts (at least) over the next several issues. If fans wish to start with the first issue now and insure
the following installments, we are offering this special subscription deal:

For $30, they would get the first Mike Trim issue FREE, plus four more
issues (and a $10 Coupon for any products purchase of $50 or more). That's
the same price for five issues of Filmfax as for just the three issues with the three installments of the Trim article at retail price.

They can subscribe by sending name, address, and credit card information
(number & expir. date) via email to filmfax@speedsite.com , or by calling us at 847-866-7155. We will send the first issue (with part one of the Mike Trim article) out to them immediately, plus the $10 Off Coupon.

That's a pretty excellent deal, folks. Filmfax sells for $9.95 per issue at bookstores, so you can see the substantial savings.
Now the disclaimer by me - Filmfax is a great magazine, one of my favorites, but they don't publish any interior color pages. All the art in the magazine except for the covers are black and white, while the Hermes Press edition is full color throughout.
My suggestion? Buy the book and subscribe to the magazine as well. You get your full dose of futuristic design/illustration everyday that way.
But then, I might be biased.

I will continue to add unused images from the book as time allows - sorry I wasn't able to maintain a more rigid schedule on this. I'll put new stuff up soon, I promise.

The Art of UFO

Angelo Finamore's ART OF UFO website has a fine selection of photos and drawings of SHADO equipment, including many of Mike Trim's designs. In addition, Angelo has diagrammed every set, costume, prop, and model he could find in the show - excellent work, exhaustively researched and compiled. The ART OF UFO website is a must see for any UFO fan.

Keeping Up With The Dickens

Sorry, I'm late again getting a new image up and you must be starting to doubt my commitment to this little project. Fear not, I've returned and with a wonderful photo (shot by Mike) of fellow model shop "new hire" Roger Dicken and Stingray! Roger and Mike answered the same newspaper advertisement and were hired to work in the shop on the same day. Click the picture to enlarge it.
The company was just winding down post production on Stingray, but the boys were hired to start pre-production on Thunderbirds. This photo must have been shot fairly soon after Mike and Roger (and James Channing as well) were hired, as one of the Stingray models was obviously still laying about the shop. Another photo from this sequence (with both Mike and Roger holding the model) did make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim and appears on page 20.
Roger went on to be nominated for an Academy award for Best Special Effects in 1970 (along with Jim Danforth) for When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. They lost to Bedknobs and Broomsticks!
Roger also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien, for which he created the facehugger and other creepy creature effects.

San Diego Comic Con is fast approaching, and I'll be at the Hermes Press booth signing copies of the book again this year. The convention runs from July 25th through July 30th at the San Diego Convention Center. Here's the convention's website:
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/
Check back here for a booth number; I'll post it as soon as I find out what it is. Hope to see some old friends there and make some new ones. Please do say hello if you're going to be there!

The Whole Captain Scarlet Gang

This week's image that didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim is the full crew photo from Captain Scarlet. The entire crew of Thunderbirds had gathered for a black and white group photograph during production of the series, and it proved a very popular image with all involved. A year or two later, everyone (sans Gerry and Sylvia this time, for some reason) posed for a color shot to commemorate the production of Captain Scarlet.
Mike Trim can be seen in the rear, beneath the puppet bridge. I've added a red arrow pointing him out. Click on the image to see it larger, of course.
Posed in front wearing Spectrum finery is The Spectrum themselves, the pop group that recorded the music for the closing credits of the show.
Many thanks to Chris Bentley of Fanderson for an enormous gaggle of images he sent me for use in the book. This came from the Fanderson archives.

Intercepted Design Made Real

Just back from Wonderfest in Louisville, had a good show and lots of fun meeting fans of Mike's art. We sold a healthy number of books, thanks very much to everyone who bought a copy last weekend.
A real highlight of the weekend was seeing the above model, which was based on Mike's original concept art for the Moonbase Interceptor from UFO!


Scratchbuilt by B.P. Taylor, the model won the FAB Gear award for Best Gerry Anderson Inspired Model, and also a Silver medal from the judges of the Wonderfest Model Contest. More photos will be posted soon.
Enjoy,
Anthony

Things to Come - Making the Transition to Long Pants

Here's a portrait of the artist as a young man - very young. A photo of Mike Trim at the ripe old age of 5 years old, outside the family home in Fulham, London. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that this image didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, but we had to include the one of him in his pedal car - that was non-negotiable!
Mike's obsession with Dan Dare and the art of Frank Hampson was only a year or two away when this photo was taken.

Agent Crush - New Images

The Agent Crush website has been updated with TONS of new images. New behind-the-scenes galleries have been added, and the existing ones have been updated and expanded.


There are new photos of Mike Trim and the crew building models of all stripes, as well as many examples of pre-production artwork that haven't been seen before.


Mike even managed to find work for some "old friends", as evidenced in the image above! The movie is really shaping up and it looks to be "Puppet Soup for the Soul" for all Supermarionation fans.


No word yet on a release date, but I'll post something as soon as I hear. In the meantime, have fun exploring the website - and tell a friend about it!


All images ©2007 Agent Crush Productions

Mike Trim Space Art - Vintage 1973

Another week, another piece of art that didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim.
This is one of the sample pieces Mike did when he decided to go freelance in 1973. Given his earlier science fiction experience, he imagined he'd end up doing a lot of that sort of work. As it was, Mike did very little Sci-Fi work during his years as an illustrator. This led to an increasing sense of frustration and the eventual emergence of The Unknown project in the late '80's. This was an original stab at a sci-fi themed puppet production Mike developed with his friend and former student, Mark Munroe. The project remains unfinished.
Click on any of these images to make them bigger. You knew that, didn't you?

Ranch Of The Future: Cattle Not Included

Here's this week's "Unseen" image from Mike's time on Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

Designed in 1966 for an episode of the series, this was yet another opportunity for Mike to play at being an architect. Felt tipped pens were a new innovation at the time. Unlike conventional ink pens, they offered a clean and easy media, with the added advantage that the ink was not completely waterproof and could therefore be blended with a wet brush, as shown here. Although the original paper has faded over the years, even when new it had a slight tint and that's why the white gouache highlights and tones were added.

Another new image goes up next week - be there! Aloha.

Welcome, Starfighter!

Welcome to the Unseen Mike Trim, week 2!
This is another image that we didn't have room for in the book, a gouache illustration of a Starfighter jet that Mike created in the early 1980's. This image is a combination of airbrush and good old-fashioned detailed brushwork, and was created at a rather small A4 size. Working in such a diminutive aspect means that the illustration demanded great accuracy in every respect. Mike's love of aircraft really shows through in this piece.
Another image will be posted next week, so stop back then!

Obscured By Crowds - The Unseen Mike Trim

As promised in my last entry, here's an image that we didn't have room for in The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim. This shot was taken in the Winter of 1964-65, outside the AP Films Studios in Slough (you can see a bit of the giant smokestacks and crane gantries of the industrial estate in the background). Mike and fellow modelmaker Roger Dicken are having a bit of a larff with a "pal" that's been frozen in the ice.
I'm happy to report that the fellow was lucky and only suffered slight frostbite.
Just kidding of course - obviously these are some fake legs from a mannequin that the duo set out the night before expressly for this photo.
More unseen images to come in the weeks ahead.

More CRUSH!

The spiffy new website for AGENT CRUSH is now online, featuring an interview with Mike Trim, plus loads more of his designs for the film!


There's even an edited, scored preview sequence available, which looks fantastic.

It looks as though Ioan (Mr. Fantastic) Gruffudd has signed on the voice Crush, replacing Ewan MacGregor.
I'm really looking forward to the finished film - hope it gets a real theatrical release here in the States.


All images COPYRIGHT © 2007 AGENT CRUSH PRODUCTIONS

Those Wonderful Toys...

The article I wrote about Mike and the toys and model kits that have been created from his Anderson designs has finally made it into Toy Shop Magazine.

The article, curiously named "The Future was FAB", appears in the February 2007 issue of Toy Shop. It includes text and photos that are not in the book, so you'll want to pick it up to get the scoop on the Dinky, Imai, Product Enterprise, Rosenthal and other toys and model kits based on Mike's designs.
The magazine should be available now in comic shops, bookstores, and newsstands everywhere.