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!

More Thunderbirds Movie Concept Art

Here's a couple of concept renderings by Mike in marker for the Telehandler, a vehicle that doesn't seem to have made it into Thunderbird 2's hangar area in the film.

Click to enlarge

The Mark 1 version may have included the Caterpillar graphics as an attempt to lure the company into paying some money for product placement in the film, or to try and entice them into making the vehicle for the production company. Working Title created a partnership with Ford to create FAB 1 and featured other Ford products in the film, so this is a fairly likely assumption.

Click to enlarge

Mark 2 has been streamlined and the CAT graphics have been removed. The forward windscreen is reminiscent of Grand Prix racing vehicles of the 1960's, though I'm guessing the Telehandler would never make much speed. More likely, the windscreen was designed this way in order to feature the performer driving the vehicle.
I've looked through Thunderbirds: The Making of the Movie by Andrew Darling and can't find any shots of this vehicle from the film, so I'm guessing it was abandoned in the concept stage. Anyone have proof otherwise?

By the way, I came across the FIREFLY art below in the Darling book, so it was definitely from Mike's work on the film.

Firefly - Not Serenity

Click to enlarge

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

Meanwhile, Back At The Lab...

Here's another photo of Mike from Sector 25, standing in front of the display of Brains' Lab in the model room. I'll post more pictures as I find them.
Thanks to Tony Barnes for the photo.