Mike Walston
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
In Ray Bradbury's classic, The Martian Chronicles, the alien sand ships are described as immense, blue-sailed ships with emerald bodies, bronze hull points, razor sharp prows, and moon-white tillers. The sails were compared to "metal petals of some ancient flower;" and "cobalt butterflies." Martian culture was said to have combined art, science and religion; and the Martians onboard all wore silvery masks. Mike took a Monogram Star Trek: Voyager Kazon ship and turned it upside down and backwards for the main hull and painted it metallic green. The sails were cut from soda bottles, painted transparent blue, and detailed with Testors Dullcote stripe patterns, and he added figures and deck details from his spares box. “In other parts of the book, the Martians used insect shaped vehicles, so I used part of a Metal Earth Praying Mantis as a figurehead and tied the two forward sails into it to appear as wings,” Mike says. “I made longitudinal dunes out of DAP Plastic Wood-X to give the impression of rippling waves on the 10- x 14-inch base.