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Original FT7 ship built by Bill Pearson.
Photo copyright © Bill Pearson 1982.
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Troopers Rifles. The rifles were basically just pistols with shoulder butts added. These were made from the extendable legs of cheap camera tripods! The shoulder butt itself was machined from solid 1/2" Perspex.
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Prop built by Bill Pearson. Photo copyright © Martin Bower 1981.He subsequently developed the additions to the gun and when he joined the BBC in 1982 he took the design with him where it got used in Blakes 7.
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Liberator on the workbench during 'ball' replacement number 2 in 1978.
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The famous first set of teleport bracelets designed by Martin.The Teleport Bracelets were made from EMA plastic tube. The button was an EMA "hemispherical head" (see the catalogue if you want to know what that is!) And the light was 1/4" thick orange perspex (no longer available) SFX Director Ian Scoones originally came up with a drawing of an eliptical shaped Bracelet but it just cost far too much to make. In the end the design literally evolved from the bits I had in my workshop at the time. Hardly the way to design an SF classic! This photo shows just a few of the 58 I made for the show!
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Refurbishment of 'dumped' FT7 Ship in 1986. My old business partner Bill Pearson built the FT7 ship mainly in perspex for the episode "Sand". After shooting an attempt was made to turn the model into a robot for another show. (Yes really!) It was sprayed grey primer but then junked. Bill and I rescued it from the skip at BBC Visual Effects and I refurbished it properly in 1986.
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Travis's pistol. Travis's pistol was a one off. It was a smaller version of the Federation gun and built the same way. This photo shows 2 copies I made for fans of the show. I don't have photos of the original.
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Liberator at Bray Studios in 1977.These two photos show me adding detailing to the large Liberator model. When the model arrived at the studios from Space Models (who built it) It was plain white in colour, with a plain green ball on the back (as you can see in the B/W shot here)
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Troopers Pistols. The Federation pistols were also made from EMA plastic tube & square section, with Perspex hand grips. Again the design was kept very simple to keep costs down. The guns had little firing mechanisms added once I'd delivered them to Visual Effects. So a button appeared on the side of the handgrip after these photos were taken. This actually fired the gun as the triggers were just dummies.
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The gun that killed Blakes 7! The gun was designed & built by Bill Pearson. In fact he originally came up with the design concept some years earlier, and had actually made a 1/3rd scale miniature of the main gun, without all its attachments, for my first 1/3rd scale girl model Gemini!
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I spent 4 days adding various coloured and chrome tape, tiny panel detail, shading and panel lines to try and give the model some sense of scale.
Photo's © copyright BBC TV.
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Small 20" Liberator under construction 1977. This small Liberator is one of 2 model Liberators I made for the show. Both were made of EMA plastic tubes & sections, Perspex and fine brass, with piano wire aerials. These models were made because the larger model was so extremely heavy and difficult to "fly" and were also used for long shots.
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The large Liberator model came back to my worshops several times to have a new green ball added.
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The finished large Liberator model at Martin Bower's studios. The light inside kept getting left on and melted the Perspex ball!
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"Ortega" under construction 1979.The Ortega was built for one episode only. I felt it should have had more exposure as Ian Scoones' design, which I adapted slightly, was really good. I managed to incorporate the brass framework from a 22" Eagle from "Space 1999" upside down within the model's superstructure! The model was 26" long when completed. Here it is shown without its nosecone and final tail jet.
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Federation Pursuit Ships under construction and fully completed 1978.
The photo on the right is of the Pursuit Ship in its natural environment. The Federation Pursuit Ships were designed by Ian Scoones and adapted slightly, once again, by myself. They were made from EMA tube (again!) but also featured extensive use of the "Airfix" Saturn 5 and 1b rocket kits! The models were finished in red oxide primer.
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Martin with finished Servalan ship. These photos of Servalan's Ship show various stages of construction, from plain grey primer up to the finished model. The craft was made from 1/4" Perspex with the end "wings" carved from Jelutong wood. Surface detail was done using kit bits. (Circular parts from the Darth Vader "Tie Fighter" kit can be clearly seen on the underside!) and also some brass etch detail I had left over from "ALIEN"! The undercarriage was made in brass and Perspex for strength and was screwed on when needed!
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