Catacombs Model Gallery
Alien Ships

Gwent from The Infernal Machine. This is the large version of the model at the studio in 1975.

Martin Bower in Sci-Fi and Fantasy Models Number 12: If you were to ask the SFX crew (and Nick Allder in particular), which model holds the least happy memories I think it is fair to say everyone would chorus Gwent! At that time it was not the name of a Welsh county but the name inexplicably given to a vast machine, supposedly a quarter of a mile, across, which resembled a crab on two sets of rotating legs. It too was built in hardboard by the steaming technique already mentioned, around a motorised aluminium tube built by Nick. However it wasn't so much the building of it that was the problem. To me it was much like most of the other models. It was filming the damn thing! Imagine trying to get a realistic shot of this craft, doing a rolling take off across the lunar landscape. I won't go into the sordid details involved in lifting this very heavy 5' wide model smoothly into the air (hang on - there's no air on the moon!) but suffice it to say that at the end of filming, Nick picked the model up bodily and threw it across the studio in shear frustration! Still, looking on the bright side, I did a 14" wide model for long shots and that survived okay!

The "real" Bringers Of Wonder ship was seen only briefly. Martin Bower had only one day to build the 4 foot long model; only the side facing the camera was completed.