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The beginnings of Stingray! Here is Stingray, partially carved in jelutong wood, with its "Perspex" cabin being fitted to the main hull.
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Stingray, now moulded in fibreglass from a rubber mould, is seen here held in the vice on a steel pole, sprayed in its base coat silver. It will then be masked up to spray the blue and yellow colours on. On the workbench you can also see the cabin, now with the cabin fins attached, painted in light blue. These fins are then masked up and the cabin sprayed dark blue, with silver edges added to the fins, also done by masking up and spraying these on.
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A similar shot of Stingray done for the comic, but this time I used smoke to get an effect of Stingray stirring up dust off the seabed as it came to rest.
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Here I am seen setting up one of the very first shots I ever did for the Stingray Comic. When I took the final photo, I had a piece of glass with bubbles painted on it in front of the camera to give the impression the craft is underwater,
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Such was the demand for different photos of Stingray I ended up making the whole launch pen! I made it using many plastic kit parts, and was very lucky in being able to obtain virtually ALL those used in the original set. The set had a fibreglass resin coated lower section so it could be filled with water.
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It was also necessary, as more ideas for the comic and magazines came up, to create Titan's hidden base. This involved 65 pounds (30 kilos!) of Plaster of Paris being daubed over a chicken wire frame. This dripped down as it set, creating natural looking stalactites! I also laid a piece of plastic in the bottom of the set so it could be filled with water. Smoke was then pumped into the set and the final effect, when lit with coloured lights, was a set of photos I was rather pleased with! These photos appeared in Stingray Poster Magazine No 1.
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Here I am setting up the above shot. It was necessary to get Stingray to hang perfectly still as I was taking photos in very low lighting conditions. For those photographers among you, the photos were taken on 64 ASA Agfacolor transparency film at F22, with an exposure time of 2 minutes!
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Just a couple of the "quickie" models I made to menace Stingray as it patrolled the depths. These were both made from converted aircraft kits! X2 Zero's craft (the lower one) was made from a "Bell X 5" test aircraft, as it was in the original show!
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Here I am seen setting up Stingray and the Mysterious Island" The island was all made from real rocks and tree bark with real moss and lichen draped over it. Once the photo was taken, 3 hours setting up for the shot took 10 minutes to destroy!
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Setting up a shot of Stingray in the Arctic. This photo ended up not only in the comic, but also as a jig-saw puzzle and as a poster. The Ice was (of course) polystyrene, covered with a sprinkling of salt to simulate snow, and waves once again created with a hair drier!
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One of the most well known shots of Stingray: Leaping out of the water chased by a "Titan Terror Fish"! Both models are in fact suspended on wires
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The final shot made complete by the 2 "WASP" interceptors flying overhead (these were made from converted "Boomerang " B58 bomber kits, as were the originals used in the series
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I also decided I liked the Arctic setting so much I decided to take shots of Stingray under the ice. For this I had to build a kind of upside-down set, and had Stingray hanging on hidden wires beneath an icecap set suspended above the model. When smoke was pumped into the set, it made a very eyrie scene.
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These are how just some of my photos appeared in the final comics.
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The Titan Terror Fish was carved from polyurethane foam painted over with fibreglass resin.
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When painted and photographed it appeared as above chasing Stingray (see earlier photo)
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