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Does Anyone Know Tom Baker The Model Maker (not the actor)?

While this post does have some merit in regards to puppet making, this is more of a historical post regarding stop-motion puppets. Back in the early 1980's, a fellow by the name of Tom Baker advertised his stop-motion models for sale in the back of Cinemagic (and or Starlog) magazine. As a budding stop-motion animator, I quickly sent for his catalog and subsequently ordered one of his creations, a stop-motion martian puppet based on the original War of the Worlds film. Impressed with the quality, I made a 8mm short with it. Later, I tried to order one of his Kong models. Instead of receiving Kong, I received my money back along with a letter explaining how the business became too much for him, so he was shutting down. I have attached a few pages from his old catalog. I was curious if anyone on here had ever heard of Tom or bought any of his models. He was operating out of Charlotte, NC at the time. Hopefully Tom himself will respond and offer to sell me that long lost Kong.

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Permalink Reply by grecodan on September 5, 2012 at 9:12pm

I remember those ads!

I hope you can reconnect with him.

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Permalink Reply by rick gibson on September 7, 2012 at 4:17pm

Wow, That is so cool, I used to buy Cinemagic whenever I saw it. But by the early 1980's I had gotten more into playing guitar and being in a band than doing animation. Especially with the equipment I had back then,8mm camera, hot movie lights and not having a clue on how to build a decent puppet. If I had seen those ads I might have gotten into again at that point. Now with the advent of computers and frame grabbing software I find it really enjoyable again. But man, I would of loved to have one of those Kong models!

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Permalink Reply by David Geister on September 7, 2012 at 4:56pm

Wallace - what ever happened to the Martian puppet?

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Permalink Reply by Wallace Jones on September 8, 2012 at 7:29pm

The martian puppet was made mostly out of plaster, covered with latex. The arms were cast in foam with latex covered wire fingers. The arms and fingers were about the only things you could really animate. I mostly just slid it around if it needed to move. Eventually the plaster body cracked and it deteriorated in general from the lights and rough handling. Regretably, I ended up selling what was left of it on eBay during my hiatus from stop-motion.

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Permalink Reply by Wallace Jones on September 16, 2012 at 4:31pm

Here is a drawing I made many years ago of the Martian, using Baker's Martian as a reference. This is pretty much a drawing of his puppet. The eye was red, blue and green, and the body was a rusty red color:

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Permalink Reply by Ken Langley on January 15, 2019 at 11:44am

Howdy all!

I ran accross this thread a few years back but never got around to responding

I can across Tom's ad in Starlog in 1978. I sent a letter requesting a catalog and received a couple of fliers which made up his price list. I got my first summer jod that year and I had intented on getting the wire armatured Kong model but my mom asvised against it, sugessting that I order something cheaper so I wouldn't take too much of a loss if it turned out to not be legit. I wound up ordering the Gort model which had a wire armature but was mounteded to a plaster base. Later I removed from the base and figured out a way to put tie downds in the feet. I even repainted green (SMH) it at one point. It apeared briefly in an animation test I aound 1980. Unfortunately I lost track of iit during my last move in 2008.

I was pretty sure I packed it up along with some other items in the same closet *Shrugs*

Even though this is a really old thread the link be low may be of some interest. My apologies if this was posted in another thread.

http://museumofmomandpopculture.com/shop/movie-memorabilia/toys-199...