This piece is based on one of the closing still shots of the original Captain Scarlet TV show.
I guess I missed Captain Scarlet by a few years and I don’t think he was rerun all that much in the New Jersey area where I grew up in the 1970’s. I’d heard of Captain Scarlet as well as some of the other imported British shows from “supermarionation” pioneer, Gerry Anderson, like Thunderbirds, Stingray, Supercar and a couple of others, but the extent of my exposure to these shows was through its fans. I’d discover Captain Scarlet for myself around 2007. I remember that year very vividly because that was the year we’d moved into our house and part of our cable package was a block of HD channels, one of which ran a new Captain Scarlet series that was a completely original CGI reboot. That was my first direct exposure to Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue, Colonel White, and the rest. Normally CGI series aren’t really up my alley but this one really won me over. The concept was adventure rich with an uncomplicated straight-forwardness that would definitely have appealed to me as a kid. I could now get a little taste of the admiration all those Gerry Anderson fans I’d known had for Captain Scarlet. I even went back and sampled a couple of episodes from Captain Scarlet’s original series on Youtube. Wow! That show was relentlessly action-packed. I enjoyed it but didn’t stick with it beyond a couple of episodes. I really should go back and continue with those. I should also dig up the CGI reboot and revisit that one.
The original Captain Scarlet show closed with a number of seemingly painted stills of the Captain in the midst of some sort of life-threatening cliffhanger-esque danger. Here is the original shot:
The original is sized and formatted to TV screen proportions. My version is on 9″ x 12″ bristol so I had to make a few changes to accommodate a more square composition. I used pencil and the colors are all Copic markers.
Were you a fan of Gerry Anderson’s shows? Which were your favorite? Please let me know in the comments below!
Thanks, Everybody!
