It looks like everyone has assented to moving our meeting place to the Black Hawk center in Hoffman Estates (see below for a link and directions).  We will be meeting there next month, July 9th, from 5:30pm to 7:00 - 7:30pm (ish- we'll need to see how it goes for clean up and such).

Larry Johnson, or Treasurer, will finally be forced to earn his lavish salary by collecting dues so we can pay the $40/meeting rental.  I will send another eMail around with all the information o n that as soon as the details are all worked out.

And now, a word from Dear Leader:

Hi, everybody!

We had a good turnout at the June meeting - Joe, Kevin, Ken, Art, Baltasar, both Neils, Ed, Jon, John, Bob F., Chad, Larry S. and yours truly.

First things first, it seems most of us wish to change venues to the Blackhawk center in Hoffman Estates.  Only one dissenter made his sarcastic presence known at the meeting and because of our anonymous voting, Ken's identity will never be known.  We estimate dues will be $20 and decided we should collect at the beginning of each fiscal year.  The three months we will not meet at the center would be August for our picnic, November for the Butch O'Hare contest, and December for our Christmas potluck.

If anyone has not made their opinion known, please contact our Minister of Propaganda.  We may have missed some issue and should know everyone's opinion.

It's generally felt that most people will visit Venture and probably grab a snack before the 5:30-7:30 meetings.

Other club news:

    I've suggested, since we have so many new members, we should arrange a reprint of our Techmage club shirts.  John will investigate a Henley type shirt, some of you may have noticed the older style Starshipmodeler shirts with the 3-button collar and blue half-sleeves .  These are very comfortable, and I think everyone would like one of these with our Techmage logos.  A number of our adjunct members would also like to purchase shirts.

    Erin, Sal, Pat, and the other Florida Peacekeepers have offered a shirt trade - well, more of an art trade, as Erin made iron-on transfers for their shirts.  They're pretty slick shirts.  If anyone wants one let me know, and I'll put you in contact with Erin - or we'll just print the art here.  The FPKs are also going to try to become an IPMS chapter.

Yet more club news:

    Vince Hoffman in San Francisco has a cadre of guys who are tired of their local IPMS clubs and want to form a Techmage chapter out west.  His idea for the name was simply Techmages: West, but I think Techmages: The Next Chapter has a better ring to it.  I'll let you all know if they make any progress.

    Al's Hobby Shop has the program for club PR and rebates.  I'll try to get to Al’s in the next week to get our club registered.  To do so, we'll need ID cards.  Joe has designed a prototype, and will obtain the higher resolution Techmage artwork so they look good.

    Joe collected a lot of greeblies for the Great Greeblie Roundup.  If you were unable to attend, and would still like to send some good surface detail greeblies, email Joe to get his address and mail them.

Events News:

    Wonderfest was, as always, a blast.  Most of us didn't have many entries this year, for some reason we didn't finish as much as we'd have liked.  Personally, I figured out I wasn't going to finish my bigger projects, and didn't try.  Rushing big projects seldom yields good results.  But whether we brought home medals wasn't the point of going.  It's the people, and the reunion quality the show brings.  Plenty of new people showed up this year, I can't remember half the faces and names!  Look for plenty of good write-ups on the web soon.

Now, on to the show-and-tell:

     Ken showed off his long-sought-after Shira-Dow trainer/fighter from Wings of Honneamise.  This is a pusher-turboprop aircraft with striking lines.  Ken's got a lot of projects lined up, so it will be a while before he gets to this one.

     Kevin, newly back to the hobby, has been pursuing our common obsession.  He's acquiring kits at a prodigious rate.  As yet, his wife hasn't found out just how much this has cost.  Hopefully we'll see him at another meeting.  If you miss three meetings, Kevin, we'll bring shovels and search under your house!

     Art continues his scratchbuilt Cassini probe.  He's nearing the point of building the heat shrouds but will need some casting help to reproduce a number of probe components.  Those looked like pretty nice greeblies, Art.  I hope you'll share!

     Baltasar has been playing with pastels, not just the arts variety, but the specific hobby dusts which contain dry adhesives.  Perhaps he'll share some of his findings as a demonstration during an upcoming meeting.  He's new to this kind of weathering, so it will be interesting to see the techniques he comes up with.  At the meeting, John Lester mentioned Marshall's Photo Retouch oils, which have the finest available pigments, and as such can yield the finest results – few to no visible granules makes scale weathering more effective.

     Ed brought his beautifully painted and lit SW Droid fighters.  He based his project on Matthew Usher's article, but took his work to another level with meticulous masking and painting.  The red glowing panels are really striking.  Ed completed his project for Starship Modeler’s Star Wars project, and I'm sure he'll write an article on the techniques used.  For example, he heatsmashed the red clear parts to fit exactly in place, and Baremetal Foil lined the interior to prevent light leaking.  Also, an option for transformer power was installed.

     Neil Butler brought pictures from Wonderfest and the Patton museum, and updated us on the U-505 exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.  It's now enclosed in its underground Submarine pen, finally protected from the elements.  The exterior can now receive the attention given the interior several years ago.  Neil also related the use of Glad Press-n-Seal film for masking.  I'll give one word of advice not to press too hard - and protect those decals!  It's an inexpensive way to cover a broad area, and can be used like Frisket film.

     Jon showed off some Wonderfest swag.  He bought a number of the Battlestar Galactica and Aliens Konami trading kits.  These are nice little kits, though not in constant scale.  Some of these might make good diorama material.  Jon also purchased a replica pistol from Alien, which generated a good deal of talk about whether it was actually less expensive to buy the actual gun used and modify it.  Of course, you don't need a FOID card for a prop replica.

     Bob F. showed his load of Wonderfest swag; namely, the SW Ep 3 kits.  These are pre-painted, but with some glue and loving care, can be turned into very nice models.  They're not in a constant scale, but in "box scale" to be all about the same size.  They all feature lots of panels and moving parts, perfect for older kids.  The scout walker has quite complex legs.

John L. showed one of the SW kits Bob didn't bring - the Republic Star Destroyer.  It looks like a Qualta blade, as John mentioned later (Dargo's gun/machete from Farscape).  It's pretty well engineered, with detail panels hiding seams.  A little filling seems required, but not too bad.  Actually, it's one of these rare models which can be painted in sub parts, then assembled later - thanks to those lateral detail bits.  He also showed us the TOS thru-deck carrier conversion now available at the SM store.

     Larry S. gave us a good look at the clear-cast cockpit bits for his big mech project.  Put a few LEDs behind this, and these panels will glow.

I brought some Wonderfest swag as well, a number of 1/2500 Trek kits, and Gizmotron's 1/2500 White Star.  Also, I brought some Jimmy Flintstone resin goodies - not the "adult" subjects for which he's famous, but a Tikki God head which I intend to light, and an Anubis Warrior figure.  I also brought the third series of minis from Xtreme Hobby’s Cold Navy series.  These are now cast by a new firm, and have been remastered.  If you liked the designs of the first two series, now is the time to buy them.

     So there you have it, another jam-packed meeting full of quality bonding and modeling goodness.  See you next month!

Image: Its Ter_or!

Image: Ooh prop gun

Image: Art on building the Cassini

Image: We're digging it

Image: GGRU Contributions

Image: Expanding Mold Experiment

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Image: Original Box Photo

Image: Parts

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Image: Under-dish details

Image: Huygens Piggyback Probe

Image: The High-gain feed-horn

Image: Scratch build thingy's one broke in setup

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Image: Light windows

Image: All the droids' windows are lit

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Image: Drop Ship

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Image: Marine APC

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Image: Original Viper

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Image: Cylon Viper

Image: Cylon Raider

Image: Raider engines

Image: Jedi Fighter

Image: Belly

Image: Engines

Image: winglets

Image: New Thru-Deck Carrier

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Image: Absolute Models Decals

Image: Forward Bay doors