July Meeting Postponed til Jul 8, 2014

July meeting will be held on July 8 due to the observance of Memorial Day/Canada Day.

Club Day 2014

The St. John’s chapter of IPMS Canada held its Club Day on June 7, 2014. 

This is the first Club Day in many years and was well attended by 11 Members.

See all the pictures by following this link.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.518594478264109.1073741848.319507198172839&type=1

Steve R, Steve F, Tony, Dave, Gary, John, Tracie, Rodney, Rob, Mike, Joe

It took place over 6 hours at our regular meeting place.

With coffee, donuts, muffins and pizza, we settled into an unhurried banter about all things modelling and more.

We held two seminars on our Club day.

First, Dave presented Figure Painting, and surely made it look so simple that we are all going to rush out to get our Tri-Art Caucasian Flesh and Normandy Rose to try it ourselves. (Looks simple now J ).

Just to summarize, do not paint the faces or body, instead apply many thinned washes, to build up gradually, so the paint does not mask your figure detail. A good dose of dry brushing and darker paint in the shadows will round out any figure.

A challenge has been issued to all present to paint a figure for presentation at our Fall Show in October, for a special prize to the winner of the President’s Choice award.

Second, Steve F. presented scratch building. Steve has been a modeler for many decades and made a living making models at one point. Steve gave us some pointers in vacuforming, with his hand made vacuform tool. John also described his one time vacuform tool made out a soup can. Steve F showed us some samples of his carved and sanded copy pieces and the process to vacuform either parts or canopies. Some tips, don’t use squadron clear plastic, it will not work out, and make sure your plastic card is at least 20 thou, in order to stretch and thin without breaking for misforming. The other big scratch building technique is resin molding of parts. Steve F showed us how vacuforming can create your mold, to fill with your resin to make parts, sometimes multiple parts, easily.

Also on this Club Day we discussed ideas for our Model Show in October suggestions for attracting new members. We have some things to work on and hopefully this year’s show will be bigger and better!

Lastly, with my new camera I acquired from Chris when he upgraded his, we took some shots of various models in a light tent, including some of the competition pieces. One of the theme events was to bring an old model and a new model to compare how our techniques have (hopefully J ) improved over the years. There are also some point and show shots from the room on the day. For the photogs amongst you, the shots in the tent were F22, ISO 100, and 1/1.6 or 1/1.3 shutter for the most part.

Final words, congratulations to Rodney and his model and diorama of a derelict 1956 Ford F150. Brilliant work! I know lot of thought and work went into this, congrats Rodney! Also Kudos to Gary and John on your competition pieces. Each piece was a great work of art. Hard choice, lots of quality there!

Feedback from the day was positive and I think everyone got something out of it, I know I did! Got to get to work on my figure!....

Peoples Choice winner -Rodney's Derelict 1956 Ford F150 

Gary's Honda NSR250

John's 48 scale B25 Mitchell

Meeting Summary June 3, 2014

Attending on this night: Gary, Mike, Tony, Steve R, Steve F, Tracie and Rodney

Check out the Facebook album of June photos that goes with this post.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.517913884998835.1073741847.319507198172839&type=1

So guess who got a new camera? It is actually Chris’ retired Nikon D60 from where he upgraded to his 7100. I built a portable (break down) light tent, and this is an experiment to take photos this way for the meetings, I may not do this every month.

Not all the exposures are quite right and I have not had time to post process, but for what it is worth, there are photos from tonight.

So Steve F brought in a WWI collection. He brought up the point that this is the first time he has brought in more Armor than Aircraft. Currently at 716 models complete.Aircraft include the French Morane Saulnier N, which curiously only saw Squadron service with the British. Also the German Fokker E.III, and the British DeHaviland DH 2. On the tank side, the British Mk 1 Male (cannons), and the Mk V female (machine guns). Also the German A7V – Crew of 18!!!

Gary brought in an older build, a rally Mitsubishi Lancer (looks a lot different from my Wife’s Lancer!)

Tracie and Rodney are always building, and with the Easter theme just behind us, they show off their award winning (Easter) Egg plane completed builds for an ISM Group build.

Rodney also brought in an interesting and fabulous (almost complete) diorama of a 1956 Ford F150 derelict, the Revel 1/25 kit. Using hairspray for the chipping, and garden variety foliage, with some aftermarket grass to complete it, he turned out this awesome piece of work.

I will defer any more comments on this one until I post the Club Day photos.

I am now looking for your thoughts……
What do you think is more preferable?:
Photos in a light tent as we have here from June, or contextual "point and shoot" shots from the table? Or maybe a combo of both?

Thanks for looking..
Til next time,
Joe

Meeting Summary May 6 2014

Very tardy on this one, sorry, had a few things on the go, work, trips, work trips, flu.…..

Attending on this night: Gary, Mike, Tony, Steve R, Steve F, Meg, Keith, Chris

Check out the Facebook album of May photos that goes with this post. I have posted a few photos at the bottom.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.517877041669186.1073741846.319507198172839&type=1

A nice crowd in tonight - mostly regulars. Nice to see Keith again week. Meg hasn’t been around for a while, so it was nice to see her again. Keep Building Meg!

Just going to give a few highlites for this one, June and Club day to come shortly.

Gary has almost finished his Honda NSR250

Chris is scratch building an MT-LB 6M1B3, a lot of work in that one!

Steve F with is usually assortment of theme kits, this month WWII Pacific with American carrier fighter the F6 Hellcat, the Airfix kit, bit it looks exactly like my matchbox kit from 1976. Along with two Japanese fighters.

I think it was Tony who had the Fairey Firefly in the RCN service.

Keith has a slew of WWII armor on the go in progress: German Tiger 1, SdKfz 251 halftrack with Rockets, Russian truck with Rokets, and the large M26 Dragon wagon tank transported.

Last is a shot of my Bronco Staghound that I picked up in Toronto at Wheels and Wings. I am on a Canadian kick at the moment, with a Sherman Firefly VC, Staghound, 15 CWT truck with 25 Pdr, all planned or started.

Thanks for looking..

Meeting reminder June 3,2014

Our next meeting will be June 3, 2014.

New  members and visitors welcome.
Bring in something to show.

June 3  8:00PM
MUN Earth Sciences Building
Room 3005C

Email ipms.sj@gmail.com if you need directions on how to get there.

See you there !!!