Card Star Destroyer.

Not all the time do I model in resin and styrene. For a while I had a real love affair with all the card models out there. For those that don't know card modeling is just simply a pattern on paper thats cut out, folded and glued together. This is a good way to aquire out of the norm kits, as it's much simplier to fabricate a few pages of paper than master and produce a kit in either resin or styrene.

This time I found and printed out The Imnperial star Destroyer. If you'd like to try it you can get the pages for the model here: http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/Gallery/Destroyer/Destroyer.html . Normally I would also remind you to print out the directions as some of these models can be tricky. But in this case there is practically no instructions. And you just have to wing it. The best part is that if you mess up, it's just a matter of printing out a new page and picking up where you left off. There are also plenty of websites that will give you tricks and tips to card modeling. The best one was at a sort of forum at cardmmodel.net but they moved to a new forum with a nice long url - http://www.zealot.com/index.php?page=cardmodels.net .

Originally I had planned to make this a WIP and show the build as I go, but as usual I never got around to posting and have now finished the model. So here's a few pics of the build - -

This is how it comes. You then have to cut it out. I found using an an E-xacto knife is the most accurate way.

The designer actually added a recessed part where Leia's craft was drawn into after capture.

Here the superstructure starts to go in. This part got a little complicated without the instructions.

This is the aft section just before the engines go on...

I'll have the final image up later...

Need A Cruise?

Next time you're ready for a cruise, think of my buddy Tom Papanier. He and his wife are Cruise Planners. Take a look at their website here - http://www.newyorkcruiseplanner.com/ .
Let them know I sent ya... ;-)

Peter's 6th

Though Peter's party was weeks ago, his scheduled Bowling Party was today. So over to Rabs Country Lanes. The party starts off in a nice little party room where the kids get their bowling shoes and then off to the lanes we go. Our party took over four of the lanes and with bumper guards firmly in place the slow motion bowling began. ;-)

One of the moves known only to 6 year olds is the "wishing the ball would move over" head lean.

After an hour we all go back to the room have have pizza, soda, and then some birthday cake. All in all it was a very nice day!

Fantastic Plastic 1:72 Snowspeeder in box review

There was a large envelope waiting for me when I got home from work this evening. It was Fantastic Plastics snowspeeder.
The first thing I noticed was yes, this ship is small. But anyone reading about it already knew that. The next thing I noticed was that there was a little more flash and pour stubs than I've seen in other FP kits. But no problem, flash and pour spouts don't scare me. But there are a good number on tiny parts and I would go thru and make a parts inventory so something needed doesn't get thrown away as flash or as part of a stub. The kit is actually very nice. The parts are crisp where they need to be - rounded parts are as such and straight edges are crisp and straight. And a lot of detail was packed into this little 2.75 inch ship. For example all the little "tubes" around the two main thruster nozzles are well done and crisp despite being only 3mm long. The same clean lines are found in the rear heat dispersion fins and the similar fins in the front. The two pilots are terrific. The clear resin cockpit is what it is, altho it's not as cloudy as some I've seen. After polishing and a few dips in Future it should be pretty respectable. There are options for making the air brakes open or closed. This gives a chance to make an interesting dio if you bought more than one. I only have one right now but am thinking of getting another. The decals were done by JBOT and are well done. The decals also come wioth a two sided color page showing placement of them. Nice touch for these little decals!

Two sections do stand out a little. The laser cannons are well represented and the barrel is straight. But in mine, while it IS straight it is a little flexible. So I guess you could cut the business end off (which is well done) and substitute a thin aluminum rod(s) for the cannon barrels. The other thing I noticed was the converters. In the center are supposed to be spaces. They are there but there are only 6 of them. Going to images there are more - I didn't bother to count them, but just suffice to say there are more. I'll go out on a limb and say it is represented this way just as a matter of fitting as much detail as human fingers can fit into a 4 mm space and not lose mold rubber in there. I guess if someone wanted to cut out that section - the forward and aft parts are good - they could subsititue a similar sized tube and scribe "more" of these spaces in to the center of the converter. With the one I have I'm not going to do that; my eyes are not that good and I would spend more time scribing these tiny things then it would take to build, paint and weather the craft.

The last thing that one notices is the harpoon. Looking down into the muzzle the 2 barrels are off set in an 8 oclock/2 oclock postions. That looks strange. So I go online looking and see that there are 2 barrels indeed, and the larger one is directly above the smaller one. Then I see an image from the SSM site and while that part of the ship isn't highlighted it does look like they are offset. Okay, so now I take out the DVD and start going thru the battle scene. Yes, as usual there is no canon placement of the harpoon barrels. ILM modelers must just have thrown these harpoons together. One snowspeeder as it leaves the base has the harpoon barrels straight up and down but the small barrel is one top and a space in between them. Other's are straight up and down with the larger barrel on top and a space inbetween. Wedge and Zev Senesca's (Rogue Two) harpoons appear offset. Finally Luke's harpoon is straight up and down with the larger one on top, but his has this rectagular piece of harpoon part inbetween the two barrels filling the space. Sheesh. So if you want Wedge's or Zev's ship just install the harpoon. If you want any of the others just cut the barrels off and rotate them into the postion that best represents the T-47 that you want.
All in all I give it a thumbs up. Thanks for producing this Allen!

Rader Studios Baryonyx OOB review

A white box was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday, and when I saw the return label was from Jon Rader Studios, my heart sank. For even tho Jon had marked the box "fragile" in a number of spots the USPS put this box thru the grinder. Almost every edge showed signs of being crushed and one seam had actually split open. But after I opened it, enuff peanuts had remained inside and with the ample amounts of bubble wrap all the pieces were intact! Whew!

The Baryonyx comes in 7 pieces of white odorless resin. The detail is terrific. The pour stumps have mostly been removed, and there is no evidence of their being any flash. Only it's hands, the very end of it's tail, and one leg show faint seam lines. The spines on his back are all there and only the tip one claw on one hand and the tip one claw on one foot was missing. No big deal replacing those with a tiny bit of Aves. Cleanup is going to take only a few quick minutes and once pinned, the joints are only going to need a tiny bit of putty to make them disappear. (Image is from Rader Studios)

Baryonyx (pronounced BAYR-ee-ON-iks) is an early Cretaceous theropod that roamed the Alluvial plains and river deltas of what is now England. It was about 20 feet (6.1 metres) long and probably weighed over 2 tons. Baryonyx had a long crocodilian shaped head and is known to have eaten fish as a fossilized meal containing fish remains was found in its stomach - and was for a long time the only known fish-eating dinosaur. It was found with a huge (1 ft.) claw. It is not certain if this claw was attached to the front or rear feet. It is possible that Baryonyx used this claw to hook fish out of water, while hunting on riverbanks. In any case, Baryonyx was named for this claw, Baryonyx means "heavy claw".

My final verdict is definitely two thumbs up for this kit. I too wasn't too jazzed about the meat hanging from his mouth. But once I saw the whole kit in person it's not obtrusive, and adds some "story" to the kit. Also, it's small so depending on how you paint it you could make it almost disppear if you wanted to. I'll say Baryonyx it's a must for dinosaur fans hobby bench. My only problem will be should I paint it a subdued or a Luis Rey style color.

Barking Mad Bust OOB Review

My Barking Mad bust arrived yesterday from Charlie Dunton and Mad Dog Resin. Wow what a kit. It comes in white, non odorous resin. The kit has 6 pieces - the head/torso, two arms and two hands. The base makes the 6th piece.
I couldn't find one bubble nor one obvious seam line. The only pour stubs visible on the bottom of the torso have been reduced to two small raised areas that are easily sanded off with a fine sanding stick.. The skulls on the base has tiny "bumps" on them that look like they should be there - dirt or moss. But could easily be sanded off if you want them smooth. The rest of the kit is imaculate. The detail of the face and hands are great and dry fitting the parts - arms to shoulders and hands to arms will fit with the tiniest piece of putty to hide the seam.
Overall I recommend this kit to any werewolf/ wolfman fans and even if your not, this is a good one to have to start your howling facination!

Thoughts on Recasting

In the scale model world, Recasting is taking someone elses work, making a cheap, inferior copy, passing it off and selling it as your own - which is just wrong. In certain modeling genres recasting is rampant.

There's not a week goes by over at The Clubhouse - a mostly garage kit figure forum - that there isn't an announcement that someones work has been copied and the recaster is selling it as his own.
Today, you can hardly trust any figure kits you see on Ebay anymore, especially if they originate from SE Asia (but it is certainly not limited to that region). Some recasters even have the nerve to say in the auction text that it is a recast. Even if it's not mentioned, you need to do a little homework before buying. Ask questiuons in places like The Clubhouse. Look around on the net; If other places are selling the kit for $100 then the guy selling on ebay for $25 is most likely a recaster.

It's also detrimental to the hobby as it kills the producers incentive to make new kits. There are quite a few garage kit producers that havequit the business because they just can't compete with their own kit. They need to charge $100 for it, and some guy sitting it Thailand (which seems like the recasting capital) is selling a bogus copy of the kit for $25.

We have to stand firm and not give in to buying recasts of kits we just can't afford or are out of production. If you can't afford it - you can't afford it. Is it right to buy something out of the back of a truck just beause you can afford to buy it in the store? No.
If it's out of production there's always a chance that they will reintroduce it. Talk to the producer, if there's enough interest he may bring it back. Being out of production doesn't give a recaster the right to make an unauthorized copy and sell it.
We can't say we won't support recasters, unless they have something really want. That just doesn't work.

In my Links column, there is a link to a Recasters FAQ. Everyone needs to read it and stand firm against these thieves.