January Meeting Notes:

Upcoming events:
   There are a few shows coming up soon.  February and March both have shows in Madison, WI.  March 18 is the Mad City Modelers show, which a few of us attended last year and got to see Zog there as well.  Neil and I will go again this year, unless life intervenes, and I presume several others will, too.  Omacon is that same weekend in Iowa, but way on the other side of Iowa so it’s quite a drive.
 Wonderfest is five months away.  Count'em with me - five months - are you panicking yet?

GGRU update
   Joe is starting two more sheets of Greeblies for the Great Greeblie Roundup.  If you have bits you want replicated and want to share with the rest of us, send them to Joe.

   On a sad note, Waldron is closing its doors.  These are one of the oldest lines of cockpit detailing bits in the hobby.  The Waldron system is a set of printed placards and dials you cut and punch out, then fold and place in bezels for the dial faces and it looks really great.  If you can find their sets of punches, buy them.  Those are the best available, as are the photoetched bezel frames.  I don't think he wants to sell his stuff to anyone, so we may never see Waldron products again.

Techmage BuildDays/BuildFests
   Larry S. suggested we buy Karen Suttie something nice for being so tolerant of us and our domination of the Suttie's basement.  Most likely, we'd get a gift certificate or something like that.  I think it's a good idea and I think we should pass the hat at the next meeting - so bring some cash.

Now on to the meeting:

Attendees:
   Art, Mike, Tony, both Larrys, both Neils, Chad, Joe, James, Kevin and I attended.  Zog was there in spirit as our regular room was unavailable so they assigned us the boardroom.  Such trappings went straight to Art's head, and he went all power-broker-Republican on us.  Oh, how the heady air of the Hoffman Estates Park District tables and comfy rolling chairs brings out the worst in people. . .

Now, for Show-and-Tell:

James:
Showed us some work he's been doing on the AMT Space 1999 Eagle.  He's opening it up and detailing it a bit, which makes a big difference.  The tubular superstructure and tank/engine assembly will take a bit of work.  He also picked up replacement decals on Ebay, which look really nice.  We were all pretty impressed with the quality.

Kevin:
Is building a Gundam Sentinel, we're trying to convince him to add a couple simple LEDs for no good reason.  He's also begun kitbashing a 1/48 X-Wing into a long-range strike and interdictor vessel.  It's a good concept.  He also picked up a rivet/punch set from Ebay.  Neil B. identified it as a set of engraving tools, most likely.  They're circular dies with a wooden pommel holder.  Quite nice, actually.

Mike:
Brought some of his minis including some FASA Star Trek ships and some Silent Death fighters.  He also picked up the 3X resin ships Silent Death released several years ago.  They produced these larger versions of some of their most popular fighters.  He showed us a fleck-stone spray-painted Easter Island head from Armorcast.  It looks good with this paint, very weathered like the statues look now.  I'll mention Dream Pod Nine has a set of heads which look more like the Indonesian heads.  These might work well with the Armorcast heads in a mini diorama.

Art:
Showed us progress on his SM Kitfactory Tritium ship.  Art's been inspired by the dichotomy presented by Star Trek: Enterprise and its shiny metallic Aztec painted ships.  The Tritium was supposed to exist at about that same time as the Enterprise TV show so Art decided to paint it in that scheme rather than the Gull Grey of the TOS show.  He painted a base of Alclad Steel, and used Aztek Dummy's masks with Alclad Titanium paint.  I like it.

Chad:

Neil P:
Is working on rebuilding an SMT Y-Wing.  He's doing some corrections and a lot of detailing.  He also brought some books with German Armor, some of the 50s-60s stuff was quite amusing.

Larry S:
Showed us some of his work thus far on a mech repair bay.  He's building it for his 1/72 pod-walker type mech you might remember from a few years back when it was painted as the Thunder Chicken.  He's re-doing that mech and will put it in a repair bay he’s building from lots of rigging, wall sections, catwalks etc.  The vehicles and equipment might be the hardest part.  He did go to Piedmont Plastic to get big sheets of styrene for far cheaper than any store or even the ubiquitous For Sale signs.

Larry J:
Is also working on a big mech, a bushwhacker.  He's got a paper model which he's using as inspiration and reference, but will build it from traditional styrene, wood etc.

Tony:
Showed off his completed Galactica Viper Mk II vignette.  This shows the seminal moment from the miniseries when Starbuck rescues Apollo by ramming his viper and piloting both vehicles back to the ship.  He used pinstriping tape for the canopies and bashed the figures.  It looks great.
He's started on Monsters in Motion's 1/12 scale Spinner car.  Not content with the kit as-is, he's opening it up to build a proper interior.  At least the sculptures for the characters heads look good – very good, in fact.  He's looking for tires which might replace the partial tires included in the kit.

I:
Brought along my Alliance Galactica kits in-progress.  It's a highly detailed little kit, and priced pretty well for the wear-and-tear this must cause to molds.  Also I brought the Mongoose publishing Excalibur mini I began painting again while I had grey paints out to paint the Galactica.

So there you have it, another meeting.  We all seem to have pretty ambitious projects on our benches, and since it's wintertime we'll have some group build days to exchange ideas and techniques.

See you next month.

Terry "ter_or", President

Image: Larry S, Larry J & Art, and Kevin

Image: James inspects Neil's Rebel Bomber

Image: James inspects Neil's Rebel Bomber

Image: Chad looks over the a show flyer

Image: Larry J. demanding the new year's dues

Image: Completed vignette

Image: Apollo's Viper, carries his markings not Adamas

Image: Starbuck's Viper, carries her markings not the generic ones

Image: Nose hooked

Image: Viper's belly

Image: Battle damaged Engine thruster

Image: Battle damaged Engine housing

Image: Apollo in his cockpit

Image: Head on of Apollo

Image: Starbuck in her cockpit

Image: Starbuck's engine housing details

Image: Look at the weathering

Image: Police Spinner kit hacked

Image: Harrison Ford and Edward J. Olmos

Image: Molded in bodies dremeled out

Image: Front of the Spinner

Image: Tail/Cab of the Spinner

Image: The Tritium

Image: Art Used PL Vinyl masks

Image: The Nose Antenna

Image: Some masks pulled-up paint

Image: Exhaust Bells

Image: Exhaust Bells

Image: A close inspection might reveal the bent nose

Image: Engine/fuselage joint reveals some mold distortion

Image: New mech bang seat from GGRU bits and a seat

Image: Birds Eye view

Image: Cockpit and mech warrior for ref.

Image: Bowl of GGRU for dessert

Image: Larry S.' mech bay walls

Image: Larry S.' mech bay walls

Image: Crane and scaffolding

Image: Tony's sketching

Image: ideas for Kevin's Long range x-wing

Image: Mike's mini fleet

Image: The bigger versions released

Image: FASA Trek mins, and Easter Island Head

Image: FASA Klingon ship

Image: Ter's BSG Galactica

Image: The belly of the Galatica

Image: Starboard ship bay arm

Image: The fighter entrance, its a decal

Image: [New] Cyclon baseStar

Image: Mongoose Excalibur

Image: Neck details brought out by future-n-ink

Image: Replicator blocks, not what you want to find in the basement

Image: There "are a great many" pieces

Image: Neil's got a bubbly casting

Image: The droid bay is completely scratched

Image: Top of the rear mechanics

Image: Cockpit ion cannon turret details

Image: Cockpit defect repairs

Image: Rear section of the nose section rebuilt

Image: Droid bay completely rebuilt

Image: Rear bottom mechanics will get more detials

Image: Rear bottom engine strut

Image: Other engine strut

Image: Lots of details

Image: Even the inner sides

Image: Kit butt was left untouched, it was good to go

Image: One of the kit thruster directors was great

Image: Kit engines are good to go to

Image: New ion cannon turret

Image: Oooh Gribblies Galore

Image: Now, Where's a neat Part

Image: Hay there's one

Image: Temporary build-day workstation

Image: Organize this

Image: Organize that