Marco Slangen Shares after +1: A day with Martin Bower

Saturday, November 5, 2011

A day with Martin Bower

When I was a kid there were very few things that would drag me into the house when there was so much exploring and playing to do outside. My dad was an Arizona Highway Patrolman and we lived in little HP homes and trailers all across the state. A little place called Black Canyon City was my favorite of all the towns we lived in. This was my home from age 5 to 8 and an awful lot of incredible things happened there, and mostly my love for space and sci-fi. The first moon landing by Apollo 11 took place while there and I didn’t leave the TV for two weeks!!!! when we weren’t landing on the moon we would race home after school to watch a local show called Wallace and Ladmo, then Star Trek, and one of my big favorites “Stingray” I was so enthralled with the models in that show that i tried to make a stingray sub out of a block of wood and some old soda bottles,,,,, well with how it turned out I would have never gotten a job anywhere as a modeler.!!! A few years went by and a new show called Space 1999 was on. It aired every Saturday at 6:00 in the afternoon,,, the worst time to stop what you were doing outside to come in for an hour but I would without fail for the life of the show!!! Again the model and VFX stuff was my focus of the show,, A few years later,,, Alien hit the screen and finally there were names in the credits to who built these incredible models,,, Martin Bower was the one I saw and as time went on more of the subject matter got printed into books and Mags. Before “Star Wars” came out the only Sci Fi source available to me was Starlog magazine, and after “SW” the sci-fi info floodgates were open!!! I found out more about through these mags and especially the books on Alien. I found out that Martin was responsible for all the models I was a fan of from those early years of kid-dom!!!! It was incredible to discovery the awesome career this man has had and it is clear by what you see on the screen that every model is a masterpiece of incredible skill and talent. His work covers so many genres and styles, from TV and puppet shows to the hard core heavy movie miniatures!! Simply incredible, how fun to get paid to do what you so love to do. As we all know by the mid 90’s CG was killing off the practical model shops and this incredible art form was passing on into obscurity. Models are still used to this day in films but not as regularly as it once was. Many of the miniature giants have gone on to open shops to create models for collectors. Martin Bower has carried his passion and incredible talents to doing just this. Some of my favorite creations that Mr. Bower has created are the stingray, the modified Brian Johnson Eagles, the Hawk, and all the alien craft from Space 1999, the good ship Ajax from Flash Gordon,,,( What Flash Gordon Alivvveeee-ah, Dispatch the good ship Alex to bring back his Boowdeee!!! ), the Nostromo from Alien, the shuttle from Outland, and his awesome models from his take on War of the Worlds. I owe a lot to Martin and to Greg Jein. If it wasn’t for these guys I probably would still be a produce clerk in a grocery store in Arizona, HAAA!!! Thanks guys and to everyone visiting the blog today there are a lot of photo’s and a link to Martins page, If you get the bug to see more head on over to his page and get ready to spend a good part of the day!!! Like the on going Cobb and Goldsmith posts I’ll keep putting up Martins work as I find it. Tomorrow is the day of Kitbasher girl, get ready to meet a very cool young modeler!!