Hello, everyone.

A Presidential Review of the club
Happy 2005!  Please indulge me as I take a brief opportunity to editorialize.  Our club has now existed long enough to have its fourth Presidential term.  We've lost members, and we've gained members.  On the whole, we've become a stronger club with an increasingly large core group of members.  We're also a very talented group, who are very open with advise and eager to help everyone learn new tricks and techniques.

I'm very happy with our little band of misfits, particularly after having heard stories about other groups described as insular, bullying or bigoted (regarding subject).  I feel our charter, which describes our group as accepting of all modeling types is very much true.  I like seeing armor, aircraft, real and fictional space vehicles, cars, trucks and figures at our meetings right next to each other.

I'd like to increase our influence in the hobby, whether that's encouraging our members in an effort to publish not only in Starship Modeler and other online sources, but in the traditional publications like Fine Scale Modeler and the IPMS Journal.  We always hear people complain that these publications snub Science Fiction, so let’s give them something to publish.  I'll try to arrange a good photography session for those who would like to get their models in these publications.  Gallery submissions only require a good photograph or two, plus a minimum of information.

So think about it, what projects would you like to share with the world?  I'm sure we all have subjects on our shelves which could easily be gallery submissions.

Now, on to the January meeting notes.

We had planned to show a vacuforming demonstration.  Ken forgot to bring his rig, but we really didn't have time anyway. If we're going to do demonstrations, we will need to add at least a half-hour to our meeting, starting at 5:00 or even 4:30 if we want everyone to have the chance for some hands-on time. I have some older vacurormed kits which people can try to cut the parts from and sand down a bit.

Other technique demonstration suggestions include the "salt-weathering" method for chipped paint, and I've been meaning to try the rubber cement method.  John McDannell has promised to show his seemingly impossible means of applying decals over matte paint.

Modeling News

The year in Modeling is shaping up very well.  We're going to see some significant releases in Science Fiction, with the 1/350 Enterprise-A from Polar Lights for those who have room for such a beast; Revel of Germany is getting into the Star Wars genre which can only be a good thing, and various garage kit manufacturers filling the gaps.

Scif-fi Movies & TV News

It looks like a great year in the making for Science Fiction on the big and little screens.  Serenity, the Firefly movie, was pushed back to a late-summer release so as not to draw the crowds away from Mr. Lucas' new movie.  Stargate SG-1 will get a ninth season.  Michael Shanks is on board, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge are in negotiation as is Richard Dean Anderson (who wants to scale his role back) but the real news is the addition of Ben Browder to the SG-1 team.  Continuing the Farscape tie-in, Claudia Black has signed on for five episodes in the ninth season.  Battlestar Galactica starts next week, and NBC aired the movie on prime-time Saturday. It sounds like they may actually want this to be a success.  Enterprise has shown a surprising willingness to improve over the past couple seasons, I’d like to see it pull off the enormous task of showing the first Romulan war and the Foundation of the Federation timeline.  We'll see how they manage.

New News:

Events

The Zumbro Valley "Hope It Don't Snow" show is February 5.  This show in Rochester, Minnesota (5-6 hour drive from Chicago) is aptly named.   Only Peurto Rico has a show earlier than Rochester.

Columbus, Ohio hosts BlizzardCon two weeks later, February 19th.

Indianapolis, only a 3 hour drive from Chicago has a show March 5th.

NIMO may not happen this year, without a lot of work from people who have not yet shown the willingness to apply that work.  Larry Johnson is looking for a way to make it happen, and may be asking for some help.

Neil Butler brought the MAPS program to our attention again.  For those unfamiliar with this suggestion, consider yourselves blissfully ignorant.  This is an overblown (editor's opinion) program to rate each person's skills in various categories, and rate their progress over each year.   It reminds me of an insane HR director's idea of Xanadu.  It tries to formalize the ideas which make clubs great - and kill any enthusiasm behind those ideas.  We're not a formal bunch, and I don't honestly see us enacting anything like this.

IPMS Nationals has formally begun debate about judging.  They're considering moving from a first-second-third place judging to an open judging format. I'm of mixed minds about this, I think it's a great format for many shows like Wonderfest.  I'm not sure IPMS is ready to run a Nationals show in this format. Essentially Open Judging means if the judges feel an entry deserves a gold, it gets one.  The flipside is that if the judges feel no entry deserves a gold, none is awarded. This is common at Wonderfest - frequently a category has no gold awarded.  It's very tough judging.  Neil Butler also related the IPMS Elections are soon to be held.  The deadline for renewing the Constitution and submitting Amendments also approaches.  So if you have an idea for an amendment, it's time to submit that.  Perhaps a modeler could lose their certification if they have fewer than 12 unfinished projects on their bench at any given time.

Now, for Show-and-Tell:

We attracted a new member (the fool!), Bob.  Alex (once bitten) also returned.   It's good to see a familiar face, even if I can't recall names right away.

Tony Agustin brought a bunch of things.  Modeling ADD is an unfortunate trap we all fall into. . .  He brought the resin Outrider kit from SMT.  It's one big chunk of resin, and Tony's rebuilding a good amount of it.  He also brought the Captain Cardboard studio scale X-Wing kit – a re-worked Estes model itself.  He's giving this the Tony Treatment, too.  Reminding us that he occasionally builds subjects other than Star Wars (yes, we remember Tomb Raider and Batman) he brought the most hated Gundam kit ever made, along with artwork and an idea to turn it into a diorama.  Tony also found the Yamato 2550 kit somewhere, and plans to have fun with that.

Baltazar brought the Zarkus 1/48 astromech droids.  Now, you can put an R-5 unit in your F-15E!  He's also found we can purchase the little dropper bottles Vallejo paints are packaged in.  These are nice little bottles, which eliminate the evaporation problems in standard bottles.  They're also nice for pre-mixed extender if you're a figure painter.  He's also found a source for the True Details Me-110 C/D cockpit sets which fit the newly re-released Fujimi kit.  If you're interested in a copy let him know.  I've got one down in my basement calling to me right now. . .

James showed us his progress on the Apollo command module he's rebuilding.  This will have the launch shield, and he's working it to the point where it could be vacuformed as a separate part.

Bob brought along a KBOP he built some time ago and has trashed since.  With a missing disruptor, all sorts of suggestions began to come Bob's way.  Everything from just making it a damaged wing, with bits and wires hanging out to Chad offering to build a new set of disruptors out of tube.  Chad's going to do this anyway for his KBOP.

Ken brought the Yukikaze FA-2 kit, another wild design from this anime series I've not yet seen.   These are some outstanding castings, of complex and imaginative designs.  He also tormented us with the 1/48 Macross VF1-A Strike Valkyrie - the kit with all the open panels and hundreds of parts.  The VF-0D kit was good to see, the delta version of that plane is going to look great on my shelf once it’s built too.

Alex related that he’s building a spraybooth - something I think a few of us are interested in.

John McDannell brought his early production 1/35 Tiger Tank.  It's way too clean right now, but that will change, I'm sure.  He brought this as vindication of his unorthodox decal application technique - sure to be a subject of demonstration some meeting.  John's also in WW2 heaven with the release of Trumpeter’s 1/48 P-40B and 1/32 Avenger kits.

Art showed off the progress he's made with the Cassini probe kit he’s building - and re-building.  Home-built heatformed parts make the high-gain antenna, which is really a thing of beauty.  Real-space is an under-represented genre, and satellites are even rarer.  Art's done a few, and they're truly beautiful.  It always amazed me that these purely functional constructs thrown into the harshest environments are so paradoxically pretty.

Vir reported that he has several of the Imperial Scout speederbike pilots from the ERTL kit, if anyone needs one.

Neil Prentice reported that his Rapier is ready for paint.  How about the Valkyrie, Neil?

I brought along my Christmas present, the 1/48 Ozmods Vacuformed Caribou kit.  I'm leaning toward making it a Red Cross bird.  Don't look for me to start it anytime soon, though.  I also showed the Battle Axe Beech 18 which I'm building for the .   I'm building one for myself at the same time - I figure if I'm going to torment myself, I may as well really do it right.  I also showed off the Mongoose Games Excalibur miniature, from the Babylon: Crusade series.

So there you have it.  Another meeting packed with so much wholesome modeling goodness we could barely finish in an hour.  We all have a lot of projects in the works, and we'll see finished projects soon I'm sure.  Sparky took lots of pictures, perhaps we'll see those on the website soon.

Ter

Art announced quitely; that we need to consider rolling back our meeting start times by an hour or moving the meeting location.  This is not just on meetings days with a demo.  We seem to need about another hour, as our attendance has grown, and subsequently the show and tell, we are keeping the folks at Venture later and later.  A short discussion ensued where we brought up that the space is getting tighter and tighter as well.  This will become a bigger factor as demos start up.  We might consider having only the demo meetings on other days, at other locations.  Baltazar mentioned attending a McHenery club's meeting at a Library.  This is an issue we should look into.

Secretary, Sparky

Image: Terry, Neil, Larry J, Tony, Baltazar, Bob, Jon, & James

Image: Bob, Jon, Alex, James, & Chad

Image:Alex, James, Chad, & McDanell

Image: Tony got SMT's Last Outride

Image: Tonyized Kit, 'A Round of Styrene!'

Image: This mandible should have machinery in it

Image: Even the access hatches get styrene!

Image: Close-up of 1of2 hatches

Image: Close-up of the side of the hatch

Image: Wow the cockpit housing is souped up to

Image: 'Alittle bit of styrene helps the medicine got down'

Image: Ken Like

Image: Tony has worked the cockpit detail

Image: Even the canopy got some work

Image: Luke cant believe he hit the tube

Image: He's found a third party base

Image: He hilghy recommends getting some Sydmead

Image: More books

Image: He's started on his favorite Space battelship

Image: More parts

Image: Everyone hates this Gundam, he loves it

Image: Zarkus' 1/48th Astromech Driods

Image: There's a thrid leg for R2 too

Image: The satellite's main parts

Image: Close-up of Cassini's main hull

Image: An awesome scale High-Gain Antenna

Image: Titan's Huygens piggy back probe

Image: Lots of detail work

Image: Mmmm . . .

Image: The Instruction Sheet

Image: VF-0D Sprus

Image: Lots of clear parts

Image: The VF1's box looks small

Image: Lots of resin parts

Image: Optional open maintenance hatches

Image: Ozmods 1:48 scale Caribou

Image: The Battle Axe fight has begun

Image: An old Boeing X-Plane

Image: Head-on view

Image: Bird's-eye view

Image: He's surprised!