Random thoughts

One of my favorite online retails is Squadron. They're based just a few hours away from me, so shipping is always quick. Prices and selection are usually pretty decent, and their site is a solid ecommerce experience.... something this industry doesn't often get right. So I like to support them when I can. They recently announced they were moving their monthly mailing to a paid model rather than a freebie. On the surface, I think this is a great idea that I wholeheartedly support. To be honest, for 20+ years, I've never gotten much value out of the magazine/flyer they send out. Simply put, it's a long, uninteresting text list of kits and prices sprinkled with a few pictures of a random kit on that page. This is a product of a far gone era where we needed price lists pre-Internet. These days, however, that format is utterly pointless. I want [...]

I've been delinquent in Sprue Cutter's Union posts, but this one was easy since I've already written about it! Here's the latest prompt: How do you stay in the hobby when you're away from the bench? This is a great question for me. I travel a lot for work, and the weekend time is in terribly low supply between my family time, chores, errands, and sleeping in. I have two categories of non-workbench focused modeling to occupy me. 1. Hands on modeling If I want to take actual modeling work on the road with me, I focus on figuring painting. I wrote about my mobile painting setup recently, but since I hate checking bags with a fiery passion, I avoid anything with sharp edges. That means no knives, and therefore no construction. That said, when we were out of our house for 2.5 weeks recently, I setup a mobile workbench in [...]

A few months back, my wife and I returned home from a great out of the country vacation to discover water sitting on our hardwood floors. Never a good things. And if you've been through this, you know that fixing such damage is never easy. In fact, our one story, all hardwood floored house had to get a complete floor replacement. You can't patch it! My family moved out last week, our stuff packed up in pods on the driveway so that the floors can be replaced. Oh, and we decided to get the house repainted and a few small renovation projects done at the same time. After all, we were moved out so what's the harm in a few extra days? Packing up my workbench was an opportunity to rethink my workbench layout. When we move back in, I'll be considering everything I put back on the workbench and shelving [...]

The build begins! This project was prompted by a trip to the Armed Forces Military Museum in Largo, Florida. My wife and I stopped by on the way out of town from visiting family this past Thanksgiving. For $50, you could take a ride in an M8 Greyhound. Man oh man, that was fun. Well worth the money! I had never really been that excited about the M8 as a modeling subject, but after talking to our driver about the vehicle, I was fascinated. We always hear  about how crews lived in their vehicles, but there's something experiencing that life first hand that makes the brain go wild. I can't imagine cramming four men into a vehicle this small. And WOW this thing was much faster and smoother than expected!     As for the build, I wanted to go full out. The Tamiya M8 Greyhound kit I'm using as the [...]

This past weekend was the yearly ModelFiesta show in San Antonio, Texas. I headed down and snapped a bunch of pictures. Check 'em out! [fancygallery id="2" album="13"]

One of the most interesting, opportunity filled areas of modeling has gone massively untapped. We modelers who love World War II as a subject have been radically underserved. The American Home Front is a subject we all should be shaking pitchforks in the air to get kit manufacturers to start thinking about the American Home Front. There, I said it. I apologize for any riots I may have inadvertently just caused. During WWII, America spun up an entire country into a massive manufacturing state. Factories were everywhere, entire chunks of industrial park camouflaged with netting, multiple types of home guard troops and volunteers. The entire country was overhauled. Trains, cars, buses, and wagons were all used in the efforts of both military and civilian daily tasks. It's an absolutely fascinating period. Yes, America didn't see carpet bombing destruction or massive tank battles. But the country transformed and created massive, unique opportunities [...]

I've been doing modeling for nearly 25 years... of course, with a 15 year gap in the middle there. But in all that time, I've never had the spine to attempt painting figures. Well, I'm happy to report that all changed this past weekend! That's right, I painted my first figure! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. I didn't realize how nervous I was about attempting this pretty difficult task until after I started, realized it wasn't so bad, and felt the nerves wash away. Clearly, my first attempt wasn't so great. There were more problems than successes, but I did it. And it's not horrible. Well, it may be horrible, but I'll always love it.