This started out as a tribute to the Thunderbirds episode I saw at age two, which turned out to be the catalyst for wanting to draw, and later on, to work in the television or film industry (by studying Animation). I got stuck in the coloring phase, however. Maybe I'll get back to it someday, when my color theory is better.

"Pit of Peril' means more to me than any other film or TV episode. Nothing has ever made a greater impression on me than the gargantuan crablike machine, suspensefully unseen in the first few shots, ripping a path through the African jungle. While the episode has no story, just a plot, and is little more than a documentary about a rescue with no real characterisation surrounding it, it remains fascinating to me, primarily because of the raw visual power of it. This fantastic machine that rips out trees; this weapons dump that turns into a giant, smoldering pit; the introduction of the Mole; and last but absolutely not least, the unlikely majesty of the Recovery Vehicles dragging the monstrous machine from it's grave. A lot of the power of this episode is because of Barry Gray's music: the Sidewinder seems even more impressive, the surprising flush of triumph I experience at the end of the episode for the umpteenth time is largely down to this fantastic score that is basically Gray at his best: pounding action music with stings of despair and release piercing the dense wall of brass.

I'll probably make a more fitting tribute once my skill has vastly improved, but until then, I give you Virgil Tracy and the 'slain' Sidewinder Junglecat, in the Thunderbirds episode "Pit of Peril'.