MASKart

As you will know if you collected the UK M.A.S.K. comic or if you have been reading my blog, a regular feature of the comic was MASKart - a section of the comic that would publish pictures sent in by readers.

As previously mentioned on my blog, this page is what encouraged me to start designing my own vehicles, masks and characters.  I chose not to send them into the comic (I regret that now as it would've been great to have had them published in my favourite comic)!  Instead, I chose to send them to Kenner and received a letter back (with my pictures included) suggesting what I needed to do to make it as a toy designer.

As well as my drawings, I had a couple of attempts at writing novels that didn't get much further that about 3 pages long - I'll try and look them out sometime but they are on a 3.5" Floppy Disc somewhere and would need to bring my Commodore Amiga out of the Attic!

I thought it would be a great idea to have my own MASKart section of my blog and I'm looking for anyone with their own M.A.S.K. visions to come forward to share them on my blog - please e-mail me with your pics and some information about yourself for future posts.

Not to shy away from this project, I'm going to put myself on the line here and be the first to post my MASKart.  The following are some of the drawings that I sent to Kenner, I hope you like them.  For any Art Critics out there - please remember I was only about 14 when I drew these pictures.

When coming up with some new ideas, I drew a lot of inspiration from existing vehicles - ok, I more or less copied most of the ideas from existing vehicles.  Part of my creative process came up with the idea of having combat vehicles whose "normal" vehicle was the same as pre existing vehicles - in doing this I felt would add to the "illusion" as opposing teams wouldn't be able to tell one from the other.

Not a very imaginative name, but the blurb above will give you information on the drivers, their Masks and details on the vehicle.

I have Miles Mayhem in this vehicle - as it's like Outlaw - but thought that he'd be best teamed up with Sly Rax as it transforms (in two stages) to a Submarine and a Two Man Sub/Submarine combo.

As you'd expect, in it's Oil Tanker role, Otter is the spitting image of Outlaw.  If M.A.S.K. were to attack, they'd be taken by surprise when it doesn't open up with it's Howling Howitzer but instead turns into a submarine.

The front of the vehicle slides out make her more streamlined in the water with the front wheels turning round and the rear wheels come round 90 degrees to turn into the underwater thrusters. There are plenty of torpedo tubes and water-to-air rockets and water-to-surface missles.

The vehicle then takes one more conversion as the cab splits off into a two man sub leaving the rest of the vehicle as large submarine.

They say that water and oil don't mix, I disagree!

I always felt that Volcano was to M.A.S.K. what Outlaw was to V.E.N.O.M. - with the vehicles coming out at the same time and the respective leaders being the pilots.  So, it is maybe fitting, that my next vehicle was a variant of Volcano.

Unlike Otter, both the Pilot and Co-Pilot of Volcano II are the same as it's predecessor.  The pre-conversion vehicle is also identical...

...well, almost! The observant amongst you will have noticed the lava "II".

Opening up further than Volcano, "II" has a heli-pad that rises out from the main body of the vehicle for Matt Trakker's Helicopter.

So, there you have it.  From the images above to attempted novels to a script.  You'll be pleased to know that neither of these vehicles appear in my script!

I'll share some more images with you soon - in the meantime keep up-to-date on my Facebook Page and e-mail your own MASKart!

Thank you!