The dark and murky origins of the Captain Cosmos robot.

If you've ever picked up Captain Cosmos Collectibles business card, then you've probably seen the the Captain Cosmos robot. He's never quite had a name, though I sometimes call him 3C.

 

The Captain Cosmos Collectibles business card,
front and back.





A slight family resemblance.

I have a fondness for robots. Especially the likes of R2-D2, and Robbie the Robot. Your basic domed robots. So you might notice some (fairly obvious) similarities between 3C and some of his contemporaries. To date 3C has made 3 distinct public appearances on various pieces of art that I've created to advertise Captain Cosmos Collectibles.


 

3C started life as a business promotion in the summer of 2009. The local downtown business association for Winchester, Ky. found some money to make advertising banners for the business district. It was decided that one side would have a pre-printed image promoting shopping in downtown, while the reverse side would be painted by (or sponsored by) the individual businesses. Each image could relate to the specific store, but could not directly advertise the store on the image itself. So a book store could have a stack of books, but it could not say "the Cozy Nook Book Store." The coffee shop could show a steaming pot of coffee, but could not be emblazoned with the Starbucks logo. The names of the businesses themselves would be printed on a smaller banner below the main banner. For Captain Cosmos Collectibles, it was pretty clear that the image needed to be a tiny toy robot destroying downtown Winchester. And the robot had to be the smallest, most recognizable, yet still ambiguous, of my favorite childhood toys: Tomy's wind-up Rascal Robot.

I started with LOT'S of photo reference. I took several photo's of downtown. I took several photo's of the Tomy robot at various angles. I even took photo's of chrome Christmas ornaments on the street to see how the downtown buildings would look in it's reflection.

3C's first baby picture.



Photo reference, and sketches
of the Tomy Rascal Robot

That all lead to a preliminary painting that I was just never quite happy with. Translating that tiny robot into a massive scale just wasn't working. The prelim image did teach me 1 very important thing about the final image; the banner was simply too narrow to effectively convey a background with the robot. So I decided to simply use the robot on it's own, and scrapped the idea of using the actual city. Next came some computer editing of the robot pictures, and several sketches. I was finaly ready to paint the real banner.

 



Early stages of the banner 'bot,
from sketch to under painting

The finall image.
 

Due to the scale of the banner, I elongated the robot, and made the character more animated. Of course I started with a sketch directly on the banner. Then I worked in the under-painting including refection's of the robot's own arms. The robot was finished off with a metallic look taking great care to make the reflections apparent, without being obvious. Finally, the background needed something, so I finished it off purple mist to add depth, and contrast.

 





The back of the banner.



The banner goes up.
 

But I wasn't done there. The obverse side of the banner featured a black and white image of the courthouse clock tower. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to have my giant robot climbing a building just like any good giant monster should.
 

 
 
 


There he is peaking out of the window of the
Captain Cosmos Cruiser.

 
 
 
3C's next appearance was a much smaller one. He's peeking out of the window of the Captain Cosmos Cruiser bicycle for another downtown promotion just months later. But that has its own blog entry, no need to cover that again here.
 
 
 
 


Forbidden Planet seemed like a
good place to start.

 
 
 
 
 
 

That brings us back to the business card. I decided I wanted a business card that had the look of a 1950's sci-fi movie poster. I wanted to keep the theme of the robot going, but I also wanted to move away from a specific existing toy. It was time that I make him more of my own character, while still keeping some of the classic element's.



The background.
 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time I started with the background. I wanted to really invoke the plantescapes seen on Mid-Century tin litho space toys. Next I blocked out the robot. Finally, 3C came to life.

 

 



Blocking him out.



 





3C comes to life.

 
 
 
 
 




 

 



 







The Adventures of Pat Pat Rocket & the Collectors Market

This is the Little Einsteins Pat Pat Rocket.
And it is a perfect example of how quickly a collectible market can change.

Pat Pat Rocket from Disney's Little Einsteins

As I write this it is the end of September 2013, I picked up the Pat Pat Rocket about a month ago. The day I bought it, I didn't know what it was? I thought it was a good toy I could sell in one of my Antique Mall booths, or put on eBay. I even thought it was neat enough that I might just add it to my personal collection. There was even some consideration put into repainting it as the Captain Cosmos Cruiser.

How would it look with Lighting Bolts and a Gun???

As with all the toys and collectibles I deal with, I put in the research. A toy is a lot harder to sell when you don't know what it is. With the manufacturing information printed on it's underbelly it didn't take long to find out what it was, and what it was going for. It did however prove to be an interesting example of what results the correct search terms could yield. In this case, in late August of 2013 The search "Little Einsteins Spaceship" yielded about 30 completed auctions that ended between $10 and $40. While the search "Little Einsteins Pat Pat Rocket" found about 150 listings, and brought the price up to the $30 to $150 range. And THAT was just for the loose ship with nothing else. If you wanted it complete with the 4 figures, you could pay up to $250.

That was a month ago . . . Times have changed.

Today, the same search finds over 1000 completed listings. Now they are not all for the same toy of course. The ship was made as a few different toys, and even appeared as a hat and a backpack. Never-the-less, a good portion of those 1000 plus listings were indeed this version of the Pat Pat Rocket in various degrees of completeness and condition. Considerably more than the 150 or so I was finding just one month ago.

So what happened? Why the change? Why did the market peak and flood in so short a time. For that matter why did it happen 4 years after the cartoon's original run ended?

One factor may have been a DVD release in June of 2013, the first in 3 years for the series. But what effect did it have on the market? Did seeing the DVD prompt parents to dig it out of their garage as something they simply wanted gone? Or was it the other way around? Did the DVD spark new interest and kids started screaming for toys again? Was it simply a coincidental rise in interest? Is it just the natural ebb and flow of the collectors market based on the age of the properties fans?

 

Could this have done it?
 

My gut tells me it was the DVD release. The DVD hit the market. That sparked interest from the kids. Parents set out to fill that demand. What little product was on the market suddenly shot up in value. Other Parents with older kids saw the prices skyrocket, and put their old toys up for sale. The market saturated. Demand fell back to normal levels. That seem's like the most likely explanation.

But is it the only explanation? Could age be a factor in toddler toys the same way it is in the action figure market? Though on a far more condensed scale? Could a 9 year old feel nostalgia for toys he played with at 4 the way a 27 year old yearns for the toys of his early teens? That doesn't seem likely, but that doesn't eliminate age as a factor does it? The other end of the age factor is that point when we discard the toys of our youth. Most toy collectors focus on the toys they had from about 12 to 16 years old. Somewhere in the 18 to 22 range we often purge those trappings of childhood, only to find we miss them by our late twenties. Perhaps that same cycle applies to a 4 year old? By age 8 they have moved on to more advanced toys, and those toddler toys are relegated to the next garage sale. Does that mean the 8 year old would want those toys back at 10? I don't think so, but the parents might? And that wave to purging would provide the opportunity for younger parents to buy those slightly out of date toys for their children. 

Hmmmm . . .
The cool Rocket Ship, or another Teddy Bear?
 

I suppose the idea I'm trying to get across is that there is always a point somewhere between the initial popularity of a toy, and it's nostalgic popularity years later where people are selling it, but no one is there to buy it. With most toy lines the nostalgia usually kicks in around 15 to 20 years after the original release, then begins to dwindled around 25 to 30 years. Which means that those first 10 years after a toy line ends, there's probably not going to be a lot of interest in it. But, as I mentioned above, the scale for toddler toys may be quite a bit shorter, simply because the parent's are more directly involved in the decision. Obviously the child influences a toy purchase at 4 years old, but how often do parent's simply buy the toy they like themselves, or the toy they thought they would like at that age. If that were not the case then the number of little girls that own a baseball glove would be far smaller. 

So what's the lesson we should take from this? The way I see it, there are 2 major lessons here. First, the collectible market is a volatile place. Factors that go into the value of an item can be wildly unpredictable, or remarkably steady. Recognizing those factors can be the key to success. Second, and more importantly, in today market one can no longer assume the research you've done in the past, is still valid. Doing 1 day of research is like looking into 1 window of a house and seeing a kitchen, and then assuming that every room of the house is a kitchen. Who know's? Maybe it IS a house full of kitchens, but that's unlikely. The point is that we only look once, we can't know if the market we see today is a steady one, or if it's currently trending up or down.

Sometimes information is only good for a few days. Other times you can rely on it for years to come.

The Creation of the Captain Cosmos Cruiser

 

 

The blue bike in the rough



 

 

In recent years, the Captain Cosmos Cruiser has been one of my favorite projects. Something with a lot of meat to it that I could really dig into, and showcase all my skill's.

 

It started with an idea to promoted, and support an event in downtown Winchester, Kentucky. The event was a days long bicycle race through out central Kentucky called "the Tour of the Red River Gorge." It was promoted as being similar to the "Tour De France." As I recall this would have been July of 2009.



 

 

 

 

The Captain Cosmos Cruiser in the window
of Captain Cosmos Collectibles
 



The group putting on the event went to great lengths

to involve each community along the race route: Closing down street's, getting Police escorts, finding volunteers. A fair number of Cyclists were involved, seem's to me the number was something 800 participants. As part of the Downtown Business Association, I attended the meeting between the promoters and representatives of the City of Winchester, and the downtown businesses. To simply say that this was planned to be a major event would be a disservice. Each of the 800 contestants was expected to have at least 4 people with them as family, or support crew's. So we were already talking about 2500 to 4000 people coming into the city before we even mentioned spectators. Everyone seemed to agree that doubling that number seemed reasonable enough. The projected influx of downtown business was well worth accommodating. To say the least, expectations were high.

 

One of the Lexington Horses



More Lexington Horses on display



Beyond that,

the downtown businesses wanted to show their support of the event in the hopes of grabbing that all important Tourist Dollar. Near by Lexington, Kentucky had recently done their life sized, fiberglass painted horses to draw attention to their downtown with great success. As a public art project the idea has worked quite well in cities across the country. That seemed like a good place to start. But this was tiny little Winchester, they couldn't possibly afford a quantity of fiberglass anything. Luckily the subject was bicycles, and those were easy enough to obtain for anyone. Decision made, each downtown business would find a bicycle and decorated it to welcome "the Tour of the Red River Gorge."

 

The blue bike in the begining

I was pretty excited about the project. I had all kinds of ideas cycling through my head. I really wanted to start with a child's tri-cycle, but it was surprisingly hard to find one in the time we had. If I couldn't go tri-cycle, then I wanted to go as vintage as possible to fit the theme of Captain Cosmos Collectibles. After all there was no reason to pass up a perfectly good advertising opportunity. I happened to have some rather beat up bikes on hand, but none had the sexy vintage curves I was hoping to find. The standard 10 speed design was just too stiff to fit the theme I wanted to go with. As luck would have it, I found the almost perfect blue bike at a garage sale just before I really had to start on the project.

I'm actually rather glad it was "almost" perfect, because the limitations really made me think outside the box, and come up with a much stronger design. The beat up blue bike was a well made 1950's, girls bike. Solid frame, whitewalled balloon tires, smooth curves, just the kind of elements I wanted to play with.

First things first, I completely disassembled the bike. Took it down to the carwash, and got it as clean as I possibly could. The sanded every square inch of it, and took it back to the carwash for another round of cleaning. Next came a nice smooth layer of primer. It was now blank pallet for what ever I could come up with.



Some of the Ray Gun's that inspired me



 

I poured though books and web sites looking for any vintage Science Fiction images I could. I was looking for colors, designs and styles that would lend themselves well to the project. The main issue I had to solve was where exactly could I paint. I wanted some kind of surface beyond the piping of the bike. Some thing to covey an image, and not simply a graphic. Something that would really reflect that 1950's era I was looking for. Sketches followed. Some perhaps a bit too ambitious.

 

 

 

 

 



Close up of the center panel



 Once the basic idea was drawn out, it was time to customize the bike. I had to start with measurements, LOT'S of measurements. I needed to ad the main panel which would change this from a girl's bike to a boy's, and in the process give me that critical surface area to paint on. I considered metal, and plastic, but wood was the best option here. Getting that curve perfect was a must, any gap and the illusion would have been lost. But disguising how the panel was attached, that was the hard part. I think I'll keep that secret for now.

 

The front fender was next. Plastic proved to be the material of choice here. Thin, sturdy, and easily cut. The wings of the ship were made of high density pressboard. The plastic was bolted to the fender.



Since I couldn't disguise the bolts, I made them part of the design which added a nice riveted retro look in the process.



Detail of the front fender rocket ship





The panel mimic's the view from
the ships windows



At this point I still wasn't sure what to put on that center panel. But I had cut windows out of the space ship fender, and bolted panting's of the cockpit inside them. The similar shapes of the window's and the panel gave me an idea. I added fake bolts to the corners of the panels to mimic the real bolt's on the windows then painted the view of each window.

 

Left side of the Captain Cosmos Cruiser

The remainder of the bike was spray painted bright yellow in several light coats. The lightening lots where masked off with tape, and the rest was finished off in red. Everything was assembled and given a final coat of high gloss clear coat. The results speak for themselves.

 

However, the expected fanfare was somewhat of a disappointment. The event this bike was so carefully crafted for was a total bust. The dozens of bikes intended to be on display ended up as a total of 4. One was an un-altered bike that simply hung in a window. Another had a quick spray of silver, and a bouquet of flowers and ribbons in the basket. The final one, put out by the local art guild no less, was just an unpainted kids bike with a selection of art supplies in the basket.

 

. . . and the right side

If support was disappointing, participation was even worse. The bicyclists were due downtown around noon. I waited in my shop expectant of the doves of race fans. The streets were empty of even regular traffic since they where blocked off. Almost no one had shown up to the even. I watched from my counter for the first contestant to pass by my shop. When that happened I went to the door to watch the race. By the time I got to the door the entire race had passed by. I couldn't have seen more than 20 bikes total. In under a minute the racers had traveled the entire length of downtown Winchester, and disappeared into the countryside. Minutes later the streets were open again, and the even planned for months, with high expectations was over in under 20 minutes with out so much as a flag waving fan.

 

 

The bike in the window
 

But at least I got one sweet bike out of it.

 

 

Detail of the logo

A Portfolio of my 2004 BFA show

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on Sculpture from

Eastern Kentucky University.

Red Ant
Found Object Assemblage

 





From the beginning this blog was intended to bring all of my interests, and influences together: Pop Culture, History, Science Fiction, Toy's, Collectibles, and perhaps most importantly Art. Specifically my own art. Not only to bring them together, but to show the common threads that bind them together. Essentially to let other people see

what I see.





Extinction Event
Steel, Stone, Plaster



With that being said, today I'd like to walk you through my 2004 BFA Show. The show was exhibited at the Fred P. Giles Gallery on the Eastern Kentucky University campus in May of 2004. The show included 14 of my pieces including 6 sculptures, and 3 paintings. 5 drawings represented the balance of the number. In retrospect, the drawings were perhaps unnecessary. Not that they were of lesser quality, they simply didn't represent a cohesive whole as is the intention of a BFA show. For now I'll be setting the drawings aside, perhaps I'll address them in a later blog entry.

 

 

Bronze Destro

 

 

Much of my work reflects elements of Science Fiction or Pop Culture. I often draw inspiration from the toys, movies, and comic book's I grew up with. Sometimes quite literally, other times obliquely. In my mind there is always a narrative that goes with the piece. I'd like to think that narrative comes across, but the truth of the matter is that art is subjective. Everyone, by necessity, brings their own experiences, and therefore their own interpretations to each piece. If there is a story to be told, it is to be told as much by the audience as it is by the creator. 

 

 

 



Pallet Knife Fight
Painting



 

 

I'll start of with a painting titled "Pallet Knife Fight." It's approximately 30 inches by 36 inches. The specific assignment was to paint an image with shallow depth. Initially the 2 figures stood alone, but illusion of a lack of depth just wasn't there. So I layered in concept drawings and the pencil to create a very specific sense of shallow space.



Rather than framing my paintings, I prefer to paint the edges as part of the image. To me this brings them into the environment, and one step closer to sculpture, rather than separating them as a simple 2 dimensional image.

 



Random Thought
End View

Random Thought
Painting



 

 

 

Next I took the idea of painting as sculpture a step farther with
"Random Thought." This is a stretched canvas painting on a wooden frame, but I completely abandoned the traditional rectangular format. The painting is a hexagonal tube about 3 feet long with a 16 inch diameter. In this case I was less concerned with the subject matter than I was with the experiment in form and placement. The painting is mounted so that the viewer can stand beneath it. It projects straight out of the wall at a height of about 7 feet. The intention was that when one person stood under it, the painting itself would suggest the thought bubble's used in comic books to other members of the audience.

 

 

Floating Shapes
Painting - 4' x 9'

 

Floating Shapes
as it appeared in the Giles Gallery

Floating Shapes
Detail of mounting

My third experiment in this idea of painting as sculpture resulted in my largest painting;
 "Floating Shapes." This is actually 4 paintings mounted together measuring approximately 4 feet by 9 feet. The painting is mounted high, and away from the wall at an angle so that the audience has to look up at it. For the audience the act of having to look up at the piece should be slightly disorienting. The image itself is layer upon layer of random shapes, some solid, some translucent to show shapes behind them. Further more, the separate paintings with space between them, and the wall at a distance behind them creates a different relationship to the environment. It is my hope that the sum total of these elements should suggest a sense of floating for the viewer.

 

Jet Stream
Found Object Assemblage and Stone
 

"Jet Stream" in my mind is a very simple sculpture, but an effective one. In the same way that I was experimenting with making paintings into sculpture, this was an attempt to make sculpture into painting. In this case it's simply the idea that the wavy piece of scrap metal suggests a paint stroke.

This sculpture only uses 3 elements. The "Jet" is a found farm implement, the "Stream" was a long, badly distorted piece of scrap metal, and the "cloud" simply a rock used as a counter balance. The piece has a lot of physical movement. If one simply taps the Jet, the Stream acts as a spring and bobs up and down.

 

 

Rebirth in Stone
Stone and Resin

"Rebirth in Stone" is aptly named because this sculpture started out as a completely different sculpture. I started out with a very large rock that I carved into a fist. Never happy with the fist, I carved it back into a stone. I then sculpted the figure of a man laying in the cavity and cast that in clear resin.

Rebirth in Stone
Detail
 

"Rebirth in Stone" also appeared in a Juried show in April 2003, at the Giles Gallery.

 
 

 



Bronze Destro
33 pounds of hand cast bronze

"Bronze Destro" perhaps represents my most ambitious project.

Bronze Destro
2/3rd's life sized bust

 

 Being an existing character automatically held the details to a higher standard. I didn't just have to get them to look esthetically pleasing, but to look accurate to the character. I took this sculpture through the entire process of bronze casting: clay sculpting, wax casting, pouring the actual bronze, and final clean up and polishing. The final sculpture is approximately 2/3rd's life sized, and
weighs 33 pounds.



Hippo
Found Object Assemblage

"Hippo" is a small but effective piece, about 15 inches long, and 10 inches tall. Hippo is entirely a found object assemblage. The head and body are an old grinder, with hammers as legs, shower head feet, and some gears to complete the neck.

Hippo
Detail

Extinction Event
Right Side Detail

"Extinction Event" was one of my largest sculptures, standing nearly 7 feet tall. The rock base I believe weighed 80 pounds. This was really the only piece I've ever done with a specific political message, and it was born from a mistake. The original intent was to sculpt the bust of an evolved dinosaur. The sculpt was beautiful, and heavily textured. But I made the mistake of experimenting with the mold. I ended up with a 4 piece mold that was twisted and distorted beyond any reasonable use. I decided to take plaster casings off the molds just to see what I'd get.




Extinction Event
7 feet tall, 120 pounds
 



Extinction Event
Detail

              
The result was a dinosaur
 head that appeared to be exploding. That gave me the final idea. I welded a massive 5 foot nail, and mounted the 4 quarters of the bust to that as though it was destroying the unity of the bust. I think the result was visually impressive, and open to many interpretations.







 



Red Ant
3' x 3' x 1 1/2'

Red Ant
Left Side

My professors considered
"Red Ant" to be my most successful piece. It was in the Giles Gallery April 2002 Juried show were it was awarded best in show in the category of sculpture. It measures roughly 3 feet by 3 feet by 11/2 feet, and tips the scales at just over 60 pounds. Nothing here is fabricated, it's all welded, found object assemblage.

Red Ant
Face Detail

Red Ant
Right Side
 

The image itself is that of a giant robotic ant head. I can't say that it's the image I set out to make. Part of the process of assemblage is to gather all the parts you can find and simply see what images are in them. This sculpture probably took me the better part of 2 weeks just laying out all the parts in various combinations to what looked right. Ultimately it came down to the angle of those eyes, and getting the mandibles right. Once I found those elements, the rest was just a matter of filling in the right parts.
 

 

 

Nothing exists in a vacuum.

All that comes before informs all that comes after.

The connections are not always obvious, and rarely direct, but they are there from a certain point of view. By exploring those connections I hope to not only help others discover their own connections, but in turn to better understand my own.