Upcoming Meeting November 6

That time is here again…

Meeting Tuesday Nov 6 at the usual spot at the usual time.
Please bring something along to show.

Unfortunately, I won’t be there this week, I have something on the go.
But don’t let that stop you from coming :)
Tony, the Club Secretary, will be there to open the door, and he will be taking a few pictures to send me, so I can put that up on the page next week.
Just let Tony know if it is OK to post the pictures out in the wild.
Tony? No faces ok :)

ELECTIONS
The December meeting will also be Election month.
If you have a desire to become involved with the executive, I would ask that you discuss with someone who would be willing to nominate you at the December meeting.
More to come by email before the meeting.

Joe
ipmssj@gmail.com

HIstory/Models at The Rooms

IPMS SJ member Steve F. would have recently alerted us to an exhibit at the "The Rooms" Museum/Archives/Art Gallery cultural facility here in St. John's NL. http://www.therooms.ca/

"I visited The Rooms yesterday to renew my membership there and checked out a couple of exhibits in the museum. Outside the entrance to the 2nd floor level in the wall display cases is an exhibit on the uses of black powder from the15th - 19th centuries when black powder ceased to be used as a primary military explosive. There are several small - probably period models- of field guns in this display.

The best models on display however are on the 3rd floor in a small room off the main display area. This consists of two ship models on loan from the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, U.K. One is a dockyard model of H.M.S. Amranth to 1/25 scale. The real ship was stationed in St. John's for part of the Napoleonic Wars. The other is a very small yet highly detailed model of a British man-of war carved from soup bones by French prisoners-of-war during their incarceration.

Any members interested model building generally should find the exhibit interesting... and humbling...the models are over 200 years old! The skill and attention to detail are exceptional. More details are available on The Rooms website including a discussion at some point by curator Bernard Ransom. Good chance to see the work of model builders of 200 years ago."

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IPMS SJ member Rob would have went out for a visit to that exhibit on Saturday past and shared his impressions..

"Just to let you know that I went to the Rooms on Saturday past, to see the two ship models on loan from the UK's National Maritime Museum.
Gob-smacked is the best way to describe my reaction !    The HM Brig Amaranth in 1/25 scale is huge and completely detailed. ( and it was built 206 years ago ! )

And the French POW bone model is just the opposite, size-wise.........it looks about 1/700 or smaller.  (They used horse hairs and human hairs for the rigging......I guess its 19th century aftermarket :-)

If any of you have even a >tiny< bit of appreciation for sailing ship modeling, you need to see this exhibit !
Cheers/Rob"


Thanks guys for letting us know about this!

News from an old friend

Ray Welshman, our chapter past president, and IPMS SJ member for a number of years, relocated out to Western Canada last year, but still keeps in touch. Ray is an accomplished figure modeller.

Ray sends greetings, and a look at some of his latest work.

He went to the Ontario Model Soldier Society show recently and had an entry that did quite well.
"Best of Show" is not too shabby at all. :)

In Rays words...

"Attached is  a pic with my trophy from the Ontario Model Soldier Society show in September. The figure is a 54mm Historex conversion. I used the Historex parts to build a basic mannequin and from there used epoxy putty to add the detail. Its called "Winter Patrol" and it's a NWMP from 1876 on patrol in the Canadian Prairies. Its basically a Mountie with a red tunic but a buckskin jacket over it. Everything is done with putty and the arms were positioned with wire then built up with putty.  I used an Ultracast head.

I built it for my friend Ian Pearson who collects Mountie stuff as a gift. I wasn't going to put it in the Competition but decided later to put it in. I'm glad I did :)

For more detailed pics here's a link to my gallery on Planet Figure.

http://www.planetfigure.com/useralbums/ray.475/view

Cheers

Ray"

Good job Ray!

Keep in touch.....

Meeting Summary - October 2, 2012

We had a large showing of members last night, the biggest one of the year.

Welcome back Tony, good to see you again after a while…

There was no set business to cover last night, so we went right to the sharing of work and talking.

You can always count on a lively informal conversation on all sorts of topics.

There was conversation revolving around diorama construction, with Dave’s Afrika Corps Volkswagon Bug providing the source of that. A lively scene with lots of balance, the strength and value of being an artist pays off well to create this vignette.

As usual, lately, weathering of armor models is a hot topic.

Should you weather modern armor or not? No, there is no argument there any more, that has been put to bed. In case you need more evidence, (his pictures are ALOT better than mine!) look to member Chris Jerrett’s work over the last year. You can link to his blog on the right, under sites of interest. The question now is how far can you take it? And more importantly – how do you do what you do? You will see Chris’ latest work on the block, the M1A1 Abrams TUSK with Mine Plow. Chris brought that in last night to see in person, and it is even more impressive in person, even though Chris he is an accomplished photographer. That created a conversation on what products to use and what techniques to use. Suffice to say, small brushes, lighting, magnification goggles, and AK Interactive products were mentioned. AK Interactive seems to be getting a lot of attention these days with their premixed, purpose built weathering products. They would appear to save time and allow most modelers to improve and produce better work.

While most of us build somewhat regularly, we don’t always have something to bring in, but Steve F. never disappoints. He always has something to offer. This time Steve brought in his completed Dornier 317, a rare Special Hobbies kit. Steve is a long time modeler and has classic skills that make working on old (and let’s say not the quality we have become accustomed to today) kits that need special care and attention not so much of a challenge for him. In this one, Steve had to do a lot of sanding, the mold was not as “smooth” as it should have been.

Same thing with Steve’s Canadian Tudor aircraft… This kit had an awful canopy fit, he had to build up and out and then vacuform a new canopy. As well, the fuselage was not to the proportions it needed to be, so he had to sand down about 1/16 of an inch on each side of the halves. This kit represents the first iteration of the Snowbirds, using the aircraft that had been used for the Canadian Golden Centenaires show team, a precursor to the Snowbirds. Steve intends to produce a number of Tudor models with different paint versions of the Snowbirds from their history starting in 1971.

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That's it for this month. If there is enough interest, we might be able to convince Chris to do a bit of a demo on his armour weathering techniques at the next meeting..
Show your interest and make a comment!


Hope you enjoyed the update...
See you all next month!
Joe

Launch!

After talking to most members last night at the meeting, the idea of a blog website was very well received.

A couple of points..

We will use this space to:

- Be a landing pad to promote the club
- Inform members of relevant information
- Post recaps of meeting nights for the information of those who could not attend       (with photos of work)
- Post Build Blogs of member projects
- Anything else we think would be of good use

 For personal privacy, we will only refer to first names on the blog, and in the event of multiple first names, go with last initial.

With respect to photos of work, permission from the modeler will be solicited before posting any pictures.

If you want to post a piece on the blog (Blog build, tips/techniques, or anything you think would be valuable to share), for now, just send it to me and I will post under your name. We can look at other methods of getting your content on the blog as time goes forward.

The email address ipmssj@gmail.com has been established for communication to the club. It is posted in the profile information at the left, for anyone that wants to make Club inquiries. We all have our own personal emails and can talk to each other that way. I will give access to the club email to all executive so that we can all monitor.

If you want to leave a comment that you want associated with a particular blog post, press the word “comment” below the post. It is the hyperlink. Be aware that you will have to create a GMAIL account first in order to post. That will be used as your credentials. The “comment” button is actually the number of comments for a post i.e. “No Comments:”,” 1 Comment:”, etc…  If you want to read comments, same thing – press the “Comment” link.

If you want to be notified every time there is a post to the blog, go to the “Follow by Email” section at the bottom left, put in your email and press Submit. It will ask you to verify, and send you an email to to ask you to activate the subscription to the Blog.

Just a word about the photo in the background.. It is a Zero completed by member Tim Frampton, who tragically passed away a number of years ago. I thought it might be a good way to keep his memory going, and appreciate his friendship, efforts and contributions to the club.

Thoughts about the Blog, content or its use are always welcome. This is our little corner of the Internet, all of ours to shape.

Joe

IPMSSJ Club President