You will notice guys in the morning that the blog is getting away from echoing the email UPDATE. I think the blog is about ready to stand on it's own and I am sort of getting down a routine. The email Update has only got about two more weeks and I am planning to announce the existence of the blog to some other folks. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Until next time, have a good one!
I was far too tired to get these pictures put together last night when I got home from Cincinnati. I did get them done today and here are some of the highlights from the meeting on Wednesday. I am going to try to do one of these after every meeting from now on so that folks who couldn't make it can at least see what went on. It was a good meeting. The big news was that the folks with the Sherman Tank are interested in coming down for the Ft.Thomas show if we can work out the transportation costs. Hammer Six and I are trying to work that out. The other big news is that it looks as though there will be approximately two thousand school children going through the exhibit Wednesday through Friday. That is going to be a handful, but very exciting at the same time. Sounds like we have got two vendors for sure and some other displays (not 1:6th) that are really going to round out the entire event. I am very excited about it.
You will notice guys in the morning that the blog is getting away from echoing the email UPDATE. I think the blog is about ready to stand on it's own and I am sort of getting down a routine. The email Update has only got about two more weeks and I am planning to announce the existence of the blog to some other folks. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Until next time, have a good one!
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Hey guys, this is going to be a short one tonight. I got back to Columbus from the meeting at 10:30 pm and it is now a quarter after 11:00. It was a great meeting, really good to see everyone. I don't know about you all, but I am pretty jazzed about the news on the Sherman tank. If we can really get those guys to bring it down for the Ft. Thomas show, it is going to be a real draw. ![]() This is what we are talking about, a beautifully restored, fully working Easy 8. That would be so awesome. Let's just keep the old fingers crossed and see where it goes. It sounds pretty good though. There was some great stuff at the meeting tonight. I am hoping to put my pictures on here next time. I haven't had a chance to get them off my camera yet. I want to send a special thanks to Dr. Zorkon for his help with my Firebase project. I really appreciate it buddy. I also want to mention that Hammer Six got an email from one of my friends from way back, a HOH trooper from Green Leader's site, T.C. My buddy Tim had some really nice stuff to say about the website and our presentation and I can tell you Tim, we all really appreciate the comments. Thanks for checking us out. Well that's all for tonight guys. I am hitting the bunk, lights out! Until next time, have a good one! ![]() In Wednesday's email UPDATE I am going to talk a little bit about this book, WARGAMES by Jenny Thompson. I personally cannot say enough about this book. If you read and enjoyed CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, you will find this to be a very good read as well as it looks at the world of the Modern War Reenactor. My premise in the email UPDATE is that reenactors and 1:6th modelers share something in common, the desire to strive for Authenticity, not just in their impression or their figures, but Authenticity in their photos. Think about it. We will do just about anything to make our little guys look real and reenactors try incredibly hard to have period-authentic photographs of their events. Here are five examples of reenactment photos from an event that I was part of at Ft. Carson Colorado. The first four pictures are in black and white and have had some tinting and noise added. See what you think. The last reenactment photo is in color, but it has been done in the style of 1940's color photography and is intended to look washed out. This is me, sitting in a tree line watching two GIs in a draw below the ridge that I am on. Let's here it for camouflage, they never saw me and I had two more kills. I know I work just as hard trying to make my little guys seem real. I remove backgrounds, I add backgrounds. I mess with the color, the hue, the brightness and contrast, I use filters and anything else I can think of to try to achieve realism. It doesn't seem all that different to me. We want to fool people into believing they are looking at the real thing. A little harder with vinyl men, but we still try. So tell me what you think. Read the email UPDATE and then post a comment. I would like to hear if you think I am off my nut, or if you agree. What are some of the techniques you typically use? Inquiring minds want to know. That's all for this time, until next time, have a good one!
TOMORROW IN THE EMAIL UPDATE we will be talking about this 21st Century Toys favorite. ![]() My favorite version was the NAM version of the helicopter. Of course it wasn't really a NAM OH-6, it was just a repainted AH-6, but right along with everyone else, I thought it was pretty cool. But as we will discuss tomorrow, an OH-6 had some different features, such as only having 4 rotor blades, rather than five. The tail was considerably different in configuration as well. Still it was a great looking chopper and as we will discuss tomorrow, could look even better. But for the moment, here are a couple more photos of a real OH-6. Without a doubt it is one cool machine. I know that at some point I sure want to detail mine, there is just so much that could be done. Has anyone tricked one of these out? Let us hear from you. What changes did you make and more importantly, how? Well, I said this was a double header... I want to share a couple of shots with you that I took of some of PanzerCommander's troops.I had added a Gallery Page for PanzerCommander, so when you have a chance check it out. There are a couple of great looking German officers and some outstanding Japanese and WWII Marines. Well, that's all for tonight. Check out the email UPDATE in the morning and then come back and make your comments here. Want to hear from you.
Until next time, have a good one! In Monday's email update, we will be looking at the M-151 Special Ops Mutt from 21st Century Toys. Thought to tie in we would talk a little about Mutts. The M151 Mutt (Military Unit Tactical Truck) replaced the M38A1. It was designed by Ford and later built by Kaiser, AM General Corporation, and GM. In 1951 the Ford Motor Company was given a contract to develop a Military Utility Tactical Truck (MUTT) to replace the WWII era MB Jeep and it's descendant the M38. A production contract was awarded in 1960 for the 1st of over 10,000 units that would be used by all US and many foreign military forces. Tested and prototyped by Ford through most of the fifties, the M151 MUTT ("Military Unit Tactical Truck") went into production in 1959 and became the principal combat Jeep of the Vietnam era. ![]() 21st Century Toys released 3 versions of the Mutt that I know of. All 3 were M-151 A2s. The first one was supposed to be a Nam version in Olive Drab. The only one that came with a trailer. There were very few A2s that made it to Vietnam, but contrary to popular opinion, there were some there. The next one was a camouflaged version of the A2 that has a very 80's look to it. And finally there was the special ops version shown here. This was my favorite I suppose. It was just loaded down with all sorts of cool details. In tomorrow's email UPDATE you will find some pictures of a real special ops M-151. After you see that, come back and post comments on what you would like to see done with this particular vehicle, what you would do if you had one. I know what I would like to do with mine, I would like to hear what you would do with your. That's all for tonight, have a good one.
Well, tonight I am going to continue the discussion from last night on the subject of displays. In tomorrow morning's email UPDATE I spend a little time talking about my own plans for Ft. Thomas and then look once again at some historical displays that I have looked at before, which feature both 1:6th and 1:1 scale items. I see a lot of merit in that sort of approach, especially in a situation where education is a goal as well as recruitment. Tonight though, I want to take a look at some display examples from previous Ft. Thomas shows and make a few observations. ![]() My first illustration comes from the Evil Dr. Zorkon, this is one of his figures which has been done as a very straightforward, simple display that is incredibly effective. If you had just the figure of Bob Hope on display, it would have been a great figure, but it would not told a story. Zorkon has included the story here by making it available as text and pictures. Now, those school children who have never even heard of Bob Hope can suddenly understand his (and the USO) importance to US service men in several wars. ![]() On a somewhat larger scale was this incredible display of WWII militaria. Boy, I sure hope this guy is going to be at this year's show. This is a beautiful display and I would sure like to see it first hand. It would be a great display with the photo board and the gear, but the clerk's desk and footlocker make you feel as though you are looking at a museum display. I don't know the particular story behind this display, but what a fantastic tribute this is. This certainly falls into the category of Museum-Quality display that I have been talking about wanting to achieve. I know I can't personally put together anything this grand, but it certainly gives me a bar to shoot for. ![]() And while we are on the subject of 1:1 stuff, all I can say Sniperjoe is that I will have money in my pocket, so bring some of this stuff to this year's show. I would be all over this table. The merchandise is well displayed. "In your face as it were" and a reenactor would be glad they came. This display (above) appears to be purely informational, but I want to call attention to the board with the photos on it. I think this can be very effective behind any number of figure displays. Example, you have a display of WWII American figures, the backboard could have a historical picture for each figure and a brief history of the unit. Now the next couple of shots are actually really old pictures from a show in Colorado that I attended, but they kind of demonstrate what I mean. ![]() Both of these boards are those cheap foamcore presentation boards that are used for school science fairs, etc. The first one traces the development of action figures (as they existed at that time) to give the viewer an idea of the progression. Notice at the bottom of the board the copy with large red dates. This is sort of what I mean in the previous example. This could just have easily been copy about a particular uniform or unit. ![]() The second board I did was about scratchbuilding and customizing. Pictures and small examples displayed on the board and in front of it some actual examples. My point in all of this is that for the price of a cheap cardboard presentation board and some color prints, you can really add a lot to your 1:6th display. I don't think any of this is stuff that we all don't already know. I am not saying anything new here. I think we just sometimes are so focused on our models that we forget about the environment in which they are sitting. I know that I constantly struggle with this very thing. But enough about what I think. I want to hear what you all are thinking. So...check out the email update in the morning and then come back and post some comments here. We want to hear from everybody. Until next time, Have a good one! Over the next couple of days, the email DAILY UPDATE is going to be centered on a discussion of displays; in particular, ideas about the type of displays we want to do for Club Shows. As you all know, I have a lot of opinions and I am pretty vocal about most of them. I think it is very important though that we really put a lot of thought and planning into what each of us want to display and how we are going to go about it. Tomorrow's discussion in the email starts out with a look at how we want to do a large club diorama; is it a floor diorama? is it on tables? how many buildings are required to effectively get across the illusion of a larger city? How many vehicles, how many figures, etc, etc, etc. I think it is important to plan. You all have already seen this drawing of my firebase concept. Of course you have also seen the module in it's beginning stages and are aware of the fact that it doesn't look exactly like the plan because there were issues that came up during the building that I didn't anticipate. However, all of the features that I planned to incorporate in this drawing are in the actual module, even it it varies some in appearance. And I guess that is sort of my point, when we have a plan, we know where we are going, even when the road is rocky. Example two; Anyone who has ever seen a Haunted M5 story, has seen these buildings, but did you know that they started out as small scale drawings. My plan in building them was to have five buildings that could be set up in different patterns to create different parts of a city or town, or even a different town. I knew each building had to be a little bit different, but not so different that they would be instantly recognizable when they were meant to portray a different location than the last. So I started with rough drawings. And the result is seen below. Well, that is all for this evening. Read the email UPDATE tomorrow and then feel free to post comments on both here.
Well, this is the first time trying this, so I guess we will call it a test. I thought it would be good to get the procedure down to a science before we cut off the Email version of the DAILY UPDATE. So for a bit we will be running the email version and this blog version at the same time as a dry run. I have found that I cannot upload pictures to the site at work however, so I will have to do this at night. We'll see how that goes. It's 11:15 pm right now, so I am thrilled about that. -Point Man ![]() The Update for tomorrow morning, July 7th, happens to be about my Batman series, so we will tie into that here as well. I personally have been a big fan of Batman ever since I saw my first Batman comic book. The first TV program I even saw in color was the 1966 Batman show. It happened to be the one where Catwoman falls in the bottomless pit (ouch). It has been years since I have paid much attention to what was going on in Batman's world, but after seeing Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, I began thinking about doing a comic series with Batman. I chose as the central figure in my series the Medicom Batman. ![]() My understanding was that the Hot Toy's version of the Dark Knight was more accurate with the costume in the film, but I chose the Medicom version because it was supposedly a little more likely to stand up to the type of handling my figure would receive as an actor in one of my comic series. And look at the picture, if this is an inferior product in the accuracy category, well then it is a might nice inferior product. ![]() I decided that I was going to mess with the storyline of my Batman saga. Robin was going to be a girl - Robin Grayson, a Robin Hood type bounty hunter that takes from the criminals she hunts down and gives to the poor of Gotham. Noble, but not exactly in accordance with the law. In my story, Batman must first win Robin over to his side before they can become the dynamic duo. ![]() Robin Grayson is not all of Batman's female problems. In Batman Begins, Batman was faced with thwarting the plans of former mentor Ra's Al Ghul. In my story, Ghul's daughter Talia has arrived in town, intent on revenge for her father's death. She is determined to kill Batman/Bruce Wayne at any cost and will enlist the help of other criminals to get the job done. Thus far only one of these stories has been posted on Green Leader's site and it was a fairly straightforward shoot with basically two locations. As additional stories are done, I am going to have to come up with some unique ways of capturing the action because I can hardly build a city in my basement. It poses some interesting problems and I am going to need some unique solutions to make it believable. Honestly, at the moment, I don't have a lot of ideas, but I am sure looking for some. If folks have ideas, I personally would love to hear them. Point Man |
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