May 1st, 2010
This month’s entry comes with a soundtrack. Hit the play button below if you’re up for a little music.
What a great time for fans of plastic figure models. Five years ago, it seemed the “big guys” had declared our hobby dead and not worth resuscitating. Polar Lights was at the end of a spectacular run of kits, including a few wonderful originals and many “repops” of classic Aurora monsters and heroes. But Playing Mantis, PL’s owner, was purchased by a larger company that was much more interested in Johnny Lightning cars than model kits.
The message that seemed to come down to figure-kit hobbyists was, “You’re not worth our time anymore.”
Fortunately, a few “little guys” decided not to accept that the hobby was dead and took steps. Moebius emerged and started producing terrific figure kits. Monarch’s Nosferatu was a hit.
Wasn’t long before figure kits started appearing from other companies that had the molds handy. Revell has put a handful of Aurora classics on hobby store shelves for the umpteenth time. Polar Lights is back in the game.
Still there’s plenty of material to mine. Hobbyists throw out wish-list material at every opportunity, hoping for revivals of kits they knew and loved as…
Read the rest Filed under Historial, Producers, Styrene plastic, Swashbucklers and buccaneers | Tags: Atlantis, Aurora, Blackbeard | 5 Comments » |
April 5th, 2010
Monarch’s ad for the upcoming Sinbad kit. Says Scott McKillop of Monarch: “I was hoping to achieve the DC comics look that the Aurora ads had back in the Silver age.”
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January 1st, 2010
Some people like pro football, so they pay attention to NFL players, and not just when the players are on the field. Same goes for fans of every other sport, or movies, books, daytime television … whatever. If something interests us we study it, and the people involved, with more enthusiasm than anything our social studies teachers could have dragged out of us.
I like model kits and have learned a lot about the people who make them. One fellow I’ve always wondered about is George Stephenson, founder and former owner of GEOmetric Design.
GEO was one of the first big garage-kit companies I became aware of after re-entering the hobby in late 2001 and its models quickly captured my attention. They were wonderful, affordable kits sculpted by some of the most talented people in the hobby, including William Paquet, Mike Hill, Jeff Yagher, Joe Simon, Thomas Kuntz and Takayuki Takeya.
It didn’t take long to figure out George was the man who ran GEOmetric. It also didn’t take long to figure out George was quitting the business and slowly shutting down GEO.
Bad, bad news for this budding middle-aged hobbyist. It was a relief when Phoenix Comics owner Al Matrone made a deal to buy GEOmetric in 2003 and continue the company.
In the years since, I’ve crossed paths with many of the creative people involved in GEOmetric and have interviewed some of them for Resin the Barbarian. George … well, I briefly met him twice, once at Imagine-Nation…
Read the rest Filed under Monsters, Producers, Resin, Sci-Fi, Swashbucklers and buccaneers | 4 Comments » |
December 1st, 2009
The Head Merchant. What a name for a character. When he lumbered onto the garage-kit scene a couple years ago, I was struck by both his originality and his familiarity. The character is a cheerful but deadly, axe-toting barbarian on the back of a …
whatever that horned creature is, packing a bouncing supply of severed heads. If someone told me this was an image that flowed from the paintbrushes of Frank Frazetta, I would have believed it.
But it’s not Frazetta’s work. It was created by sculptor Kent Kidwell, and for many hobbyists it was a memorable introduction.
Kent Kidwell, 40, lives in Florence, Ariz. He’s married to Linda and has four kids, Chessa, 4, Gabriel, 6, Kaleb, 14, and Samantha, 17. His business is
Kidwell Concepts, which offers sculpting, mold-making, casting, design and multimedia. Running his business is a full-time endeavor for Kent; he says it’s all he knows how to do.
“Sadly, almost 20 years of sculpting, mold making and casting has made me unqualified for normal employment,” he said. “I would get fired at Taco Bell, I would get caught making a zombie bust made of beans and that would be it.”
The majority of his clients are private buyers who want unique fine art for home use, some office, but he has done work for larger companies as well.
“Being so young in the resin kit industry, I have just focused on releasing original kits,” he said. He’d like to do familiar characters such…
Read the rest Filed under Monsters, Producers, Resin, Sculptors, Swashbucklers and buccaneers | Tags: Head Merchant | Comments Off |
October 16th, 2009
Scott McKillop of
Monarch Models shared this with me. It’s the official high-resolution photo of Sinbad, built and painted by Randy Eveleigh. Click it to see the whole image. I think Monarch still hopes to have this out before year’s end, but don’t quote me on that.
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