#First men in the moon cavorite sphere movie#

I dry-brushed a little silver on the hard edges of the bumpers to give them a bit of wear. The only “clever” bit of painting, as opposed to using flat colours, was for the wood panels, where I used a base coat of ochre and a wash of burnt umber to achieve a slightly textured varnished wood colour.

It’s not so far-fetched after all – burgundy was a popular colour of the period and not a million miles from the “Purple Lake” colour used for some railway carriages, so it fit in reasonably well with the railway theme of the bumpers. But having seen it, real or not, I was caught up by the idea and decided that the majority of the panels were to be painted Burgundy. As I’ve mentioned, my colour vision is dodgy, so if you see something else you’re probably right. Now, this could be entirely my imagination, and if you watch the film you may see something else. I couldn’t decide whether it was a dark metallic colour or something else, but then I caught a hint that it was a dark red. However, the impression I wound up with was the ribs were a dark metallic colour, the panels surrounding the portholes were wooden, and the other panels of the sphere, where the blinds would be deployed were also dark in colour. With my dodgy colour vision, I was less sure about the colours used for the rest of the sphere. I thought about having one blind partially exposed, and maybe weathered so that the Cavorite covering is only partial, but ultimately I decided to keep it simple.

If the blinds were deployed, and we had the brassy look, the sphere would probably not be – wherever it’s meant to be.

But the thing about Cavorite is that it counteracts gravity when it’s a) cool and b) exposed. The yellow turned put to be metallic and reflective when the sphere was flying through space lit by the sun, so I could have gone for a very brassy look and it would probably have looked great. Having re-watched some key parts of the movie, the easiest thing to pick up visually was that the Cavorite itself was a yellowish substance painted on to white blinds.

#First men in the moon cavorite sphere movie#

(If you’re interested in this story, the 2010 Mark Gatiss TV Movie is also worth watching). Visually, it’s based on the 1964 movie, which I re-watched parts of in preparation for painting this kit. It’s a 38-piece resin kit, of which 32 are railway bumpers and one is the Moon’s surface (or a small part thereof). The sphere is about 9cm across, from bumper to bumper, or about 3½” in old money. I first heard of it under a fortnight ago, ordered it less than a week ago and completed it today – this may be a record! And at this point I wish I’d included a 28mm figure for reference in the picture, as I had to ask the seller for the size and I’ve made it no better for anyone finding this – but you’ll just have to take Richard’s word and mine that it’s the right size. The other I discovered via eBay, and it’s made in the UK by Richard Helliwell’s company Infinity-Engine. One is relatively easy to find mention of, but is sold in the US and doesn’t seem particularly easy to order even there. I discovered that there are two on the market suitable for 28mm. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon – is something that I did not have, and I searched for such a thing. It suddenly occurred to me that a Cavorite Sphere – as developed by Mr.