In 1953, Marvin made his third animated appearance in a cartoon parody of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Appropriately enough, this was titled Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, starring Duck Dodgers (Daffy Duck) and his eager space cadet, Porky Pig, travel to Planet X, the only remaining source of Illudium Phosdex (the shaving cream atom) to claim it for Earth. But Duck Dodgers winds up in a escalating battle with Marvin, who's dead-set on claiming Planet X in the name of Mars.

Marvin’s usual cartoon appearance were in spacecraft looking like the traditional UFO flying saucer types. I can only imagine that the Martian Maggot spaceship is required when going interstellar distances. More cabin interior space, possibly?

Model Construction

I have wanted one of these ships for a long time, and this contest got me motivated enough to actually do it! But how to build it reasonably accurately? Research, research!

Mike Hungerford has a great paper models website from where I downloaded the Martian Maggot spaceship.

I used his paper model design as inspiration to carve mine from pink insulation styrofoam. By using a hot wire cutter to roughly cut the foam, I quickly had a pointy rocket spindle shape.

This was then trimmed further down using a large razor box cutter, and then I used various grades of wet sandpaper to finish forming the hull of the ship. I used thin card (sheet styrene) to make the side and top fins. A toy plastic traffic safety cone had it’s top snipped off, and a screw inserted, and my exhaust nozzle was done.

For painting, the entire ship and fins were coated with Tamiya Yellow Green. After that dried, the nose was masked off, and the fins removed. Then, Tamiya Flat Green was airbrushed on the hull. The cabin windows and door were painted with flat black gesso, as was the rocket nozzle.

The words ‘Martian Maggot ’ did indeed appear on the starboard side on the ship in the cartoon, so, I hand painted those on in Apple Barrel Regency Blue. The rocket nozzle and the fins were attached, and the Martian Maggot was complete, and ready to antagonize Duck Dodgers once again….when I actually get my model of his ship completed, that is.

Image: Top/right view