This is a bonus post for Dan’s Spaceman Skiff contest. I can’t get it to post here, for reasons unknown, so I am trying it here to see if I can get it to work. Original post starts:
As I was coming up with my entry post in my head, it occurred to me that its style is most likely a result of reading several years of Frost’s Febrovery entries, Honest John in particular, although it could also just be from nearly half a century living of the good ol’ yoo ess of ay.
Anyway, here’s plenty of bonus info that nobody asked for:
Longtime viewers of the show will recognize the SPSK35 as being based off the car in my ‘Those Space Plants Aren’t Gonna Water Themselves’ build, which first appeared in the 2019 Q3 build challenge, and later traveled in more polished form to Bricks Cascade in February 2020. Since that car was deliberately designed to be as small, plain, and simple as possible, I figured it would be a good starting point for the contest. I was dismayed to discover then that the car was already at 39 parts. I cut ten parts by removing the wheels, and cut four more by tweaking the original build, changes that most likely will be permanent, so we can thank Dan for that. But it still didn’t leave much for me to add on, and I tried to keep as much of the original car as I could, to keep it as recognizable as possible.
Obviously this is a friendly undertaking, but for contest purposes, pic 2 is actually the official entry photo. The whole thing was conceived around the idea of the spaceman holding the hose to water the plants. After I took the pics though, I realized I should really have a photo of him sitting in it flying it like everybody else does. The spaceship really doesn’t look good flying with the hose curled up and clipped into the holder though, hence the ‘self-retracting’ hose (it’s supposed to shoop right up into the spaceship, like the power cord on some vacuum cleaners).
By removing the hose though, it freed up two parts from the count, which let me add the flames for when it’s in flight. The flames were the inspiration for the insulated tank, since it seemed like a bad idea to put the two so close together. It made me think of an internet article I saw some years ago, it was a list of what they considered the dumbest GI Joe toys ever made. One of them was a truck that was also a mobile missile launcher, and the guy controlling the launch sat on a seat right next to where the flame exhaust of the missile would come out (as shown on the box cover), and so the article pointed out that even though he wouldn’t come in direct contact with the flames, he nonetheless would literally be toast after a single missile firing. (I don’t consider the trans-clear parts holding up the ship in flight to be part of the count, such techniques are commonplace in Flickr photos and convention displays, and I thought it preferable to having my hand appear in the photos.)
Additionally, the original car was not built for play value, it was specifically for a display piece where the astronaut stood in front of it with the hose. Therefore, to keep the build studless, a 2×2 tile was put down in the location where he would sit. This, of course, is the ‘comfy padded seat’ in the ad, with the joke (I use that word very loosely here) being that in order for him to sit there, I had to remove the part. The ‘lumbar support’ part comes from the fact that again, he was never intended to sit there, and I clearly had never tried it, because the bar piece behind him (which I was tempted to remove to save a part in the count but resisted, again to keep as much of the car intact as possible) donks slightly into his oxygen tank, causing him to lean forward slightly. Not enough to ruin the build, but enough that if it was for a LUG or convention display where I didn’t have a part limit, I would have changed it. Finally, removing the 2×2 meant that I freed up another part in the count, and whatever that thing is he’s holding (moisture detector, I think I said) was the only vaguely spaceshipy minifig accessory I could find in light bley (see below). The ‘convenient and seamless storage’ for it that was mentioned is another joke (there’s that word again) on the fact that there’s actually no place for it on the build and nothing that even remotely appears like it could hold it. (So in case that’s not clear, it’s a long-winded way of saying that in the first two photos, the part count is 35 in both cases even though the two builds are slightly different.)
The free spray bottle with the SPSK70 is, of course, because of the fact that it doesn’t count against the part limit, but it’s also a reference to my 2019 Q4 Build Challenge entry ‘Those Space Plants Still Aren’t Gonna Water Themselves’ (which I can’t find a pic of). I couldn’t resist including it, even though he looks ridiculous holding it while he’s flying, and in fact it’s awkwardly turned slightly to one side because it’s the only way he can hold it in the space available to him. The ‘safety cap’ on the retracted hose is just a single 1×1 round tile and is visible in the third photo. I originally thought I was gonna have to discard that idea, and then was able to add it in when I discovered on the final count that I’d made an error and was still only at 69 parts and had one to spare.
Anybody here reading this who knows me is aware that building small is not my usual style (I told Rachel that when Dan typed ’35’ he must’ve accidentally left off a couple zeros, but she didn’t find me amusing either), so it’s not surprising that I had a much easier time with the Easy Mode build. As of right now, I have a 56qt Sterilite container that’s nothing but unsorted light bley – it’s been unsorted for quite some time now, cause I built the original car out of that container as well – and my first rule for this contest was that I had to build either out of that container, or from parts whose locations were definitely known to me and easily accessible. Since my collection is currently in various states of organization, this was to keep me from rampaging through the attic and basement pulling out containers and bags and whatnot searching for parts, and thereby generating hours of cleanup for a 70-part build. The trans-red is neatly organized in a container under my bed. The second rule was that I couldn’t build any additional entries. It was tempting – in going through the gray I started assembling several other spaceships before realizing I could get sucked into something that would take hours and hours and probably produce only mediocre results. So I’ll save those ideas for another day, and I am pleased with the entry I did come up with.
In fact, I’m happy enough with it that I plan to keep all the parts intact for the time being. If Covid ever ends, I am hoping that Walter @whitesidewjw will once again invite us all over for a build day like he did twice before. If he does, I would be interested in using all his fancy stuff again – the backdrop, the tan mat, the powerful lights, just like I did for the Perfume-Tron build a year ago – so that I can get some quality photos of this build that I can post to Flickr. Obviously the ones I came up with today aren’t cutting it. I would be willing to come up with some better space plant background landscaping (hopefully without going overboard) for such a photo session.
Unlike Dan and Frost, I didn’t take the time to take photos of the skiffs completely disassembled so you can see all the parts (although I suppose I could have done it if I had, say, not taken the time to type this post). I did have a lot of trouble tracking all the constantly changing numbers in my head as I built, and eventually I had to come up with three 3×5 cards listing part counts for all the sections. I’ll post that as a boring bonus pic (and hopefully nobody will point out any embarrassing math errors), as well as some others.
Aaah, I haven’t done a post this long in quite a while. Thanks to Dan for running the contest. I don’t know if we’re gonna get any more entries – I’m still hoping that Efran and Walter will post something – or even if anybody else is reading this besides the four of us, but I enjoyed it regardless.
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