PMM Totally Massive Modelsphere: June 2024

All right folks, welcome to the 12-Minute Model Sphere. Only this time it's not the 12-Minute Model Sphere.

Yes, it's going to be much, much bigger.

I think we're going to call it the totally massive model sphere this week, this month.

There you go.

The month of June and May was busy, dave. Yes, it was, and June doesn't seem like it's going to be much less so, but that's all right.

Yep, no, it's just accelerating, but it's a good thing. I mean, I don't know about you, I'm jazzed from all of this.

Well, I'm jazzed too, and I'm jazzed because we've been places and we're going places, yep. Well, folks, we just wrapped up a day at Wonderfest here in Louisville, kentucky, had a pretty good time.

Had a pretty good time. What are you talking about? We had a great time. That's we did. I will tell you that's the most fun I've had at a, at a model contest since oh, I don't know, maybe heritage con last year, which was the first Heritage Con, which just you know because it's your first, it just blows you away. But I had a great time.

Well, I did too, and look forward to that one being on the calendar again next year.

Yes, absolutely.

You know we did pretty good this time. We got some segments we're going to share with you folks, but all in all, you know, it's just a really interesting show.

Yeah Well, not only did we get some segments, we learned stuff. We learned about parts of the hobby that maybe you and I don't have much visibility in. We learned manufacturer thinking and what they go through. It was just a great time. A great time Plus. The fact that the model room was just stuffed to the gills with quality does not begin to some. I mean just some of the most amazing and imaginative stuff you'd ever want to see.

Well, let's quit beating around the bush. We often talk about these shows and our involvement in the hobby being a lot centered a lot around the people that we meet as we're walking down the street. Well, we ran into one of our Canadian friends, Dave.

Yes, we did. Fellow podcast appearer Anthony Goodman, Jack of all trades, who comes down to Wonderfest on a semi-regular basis, who comes down to Wonderfest on a semi-regular basis. Last year at Wonderfest he and I kept missing each other and could never get hooked up, but we managed to wrangle him this year.

Let's see what he had to say.

You got it.

Well, dave, we were on his turf a few months ago, yes, and now he's on his turf. A few months ago, yes, and now we are. He's on our turf. Canadian modeling celebrity Anthony Goodman. Hello, how are you guys? We're good. We told you we were going to pull you aside and talk to you.

This is attempt number two because last year Dave and I were like two ships in the night. No, we kept passing each other.

Now it's different for you. This year, at Wonderfest, you're putting on a seminar, correct?

Yes, yes, it's a whole different experience.

Now is this the first seminar you've ever done.

Geez yes.

Yeah, absolutely, it is All right.

Yes, for sure, in any venue or format.

Well, you're opening on the big stage because, man, as far as the science fiction fantasy, gundam, whatever I mean, it's like a Nationals. The line for the model room was out the wazoo. I'm just amazed at the number entry. So you're going to have a big audience.

Yeah well, we'll see. You know what? Hey, if only a couple guys show up, they're going to get lots of attention. Oh, that'd be good.

A lot more people come than that.

It's going to work out either way. I think that's amazing. So, dave, you have a long history with Wonderfest.

Oh yes.

You're not a stranger to this. It's like the Nats.

I am not. I am not. Well, what's? Amazing to me is how much over the years it has grown into the premier national show of its kind. I mean, there's nothing else in the US that matches what goes on here.

And then it's in our hometown essentially.

That is amazing.

That helps.

That's incredible. So, Dave, you go way back. You were telling me earlier and I was asking you what was the first year of this show, Because I think it's 99.

Well, see I think it's 99. Well see and.

I.

I think it's older than that. It's older than that. Our club was participating in the judging the non, the prototypical stuff, the real tanks, real airplanes, all that they were helping out in cars that show up. We were helping out with that for a long time.

Oh yeah, but this I know it existed before I incorporated it. I incorporated it sometime in the late 80s, early 90s.

Okay, so that is definitely, I think, the sort of origin I always understood it to be kind of early 90s.

Yeah Well, and it was really. It grew out of a figure club. Oh, okay, yeah Well, and it was really. It grew out of a figure club. Oh okay, Figure. And then the sci-fi guys kind of came in and the figure guys started doing some sci-fi stuff. And then it developed from. There.

Yes.

But I'm not the one being interviewed.

I'm interviewing you Are you sure he's trying to turn the tables on us.

I'm turning the tables on you. I'm interviewing you. Are you sure he's trying?

to turn the tables on us. I'm turning the tables on you. I'm going to inch of myself, so we know you're doing a seminar.

Yes, yes, this is. How many years have you come down to Wonderfest?

My first visit was 2005.

Okay.

And then there was a big gap. Right, the following year is when I spent in Japan, right, right, the following year is when I spent in Japan, right, I happened to go to a wonder festival in Japan, which I don't know if the namesake was inspired by, but that's a huge, crazy show. It's bigger than that, it's bigger than this. But you know the Japanese, they go all the way with their love of hobbies and passion, that's right.

And then I came again in probably 10 years later, 2015 and 2017. And then I came last year and then this year again. It all kind of just worked out, just timing and family obligations, do you?

drive down. Yes, yes.

And it's not bad. It's not too bad, it's not.

We go up there, we go to Hamilton and it's nine and a half hours.

It's a doable road trip, especially with good company. I came down with a couple guys from the club. We had a great time. We had an easy border crossing, we made good time and it was fantastic.

Did you come across at Detroit or Buffalo?

Yeah, Detroit, Buffalo is a long way. I've taken that route before. It's worth the drive for sure.

Last year you did pretty well. You brought a bunch of entries and you had a successful show, a banner year and now a lot of that's in there. Some of it anyway, on display in the display room.

Yes, which is amazing. How'd that feel? Pretty awesome. So last year, just because I hadn't been for a bit, I had a, an accumulation of of builds.

So I had nine builds and I was able to come back with 11 awards. So it was great. It felt nice to be acknowledged and the nice thing about coming here for a sci-fi guy like me is that people are recognizing the subjects. They kind of get the vision that I'm trying to put out there, which is really nice. And I think it's easy for if you want to be objective and you're at a model show and you like what you like, most of the time you can walk around and just say you know what? That's a beautiful model. I don't know anything about figures or minis or whatever thing, or you know World War I planes, but you can say that was really well done. You know, you can recognize that right Even without the subject matter, absolutely. But I think that us sci-fi folk we feel like we don't get a lot of that the other way. Yeah, when you come here and you're like, yeah, that's this thing from a Gundam show in 1987. Yeah, it's awesome, and I'm like, oh, yeah.

You get it. You get it, sir.

We saw that we saw that guy yeah.

Yeah. Well and it is nice to be around. I mean, I enjoy hanging around any modelers, any genre, any venue. But when you're with modelers who are into what you're into and build what you build, you're already connected, there's a language that you already speak, and so then you start almost immediately diving in to the nitty gritty and you know drilling down onto subjects that people who don't build your particular genre wouldn't understand.

Yeah, and you know like I love plastic models, I'm a bit of a generalist. So I was weird this year and I brought a real-world tank just because it was the last build I finished. And this year I'm not in the contest so I can just display a couple things. So I'll just put it out there and show it off. And you know a lot of the sci-fi guys. They're already sort of cross subjects, naturally, and you know by virtue of what was available at their local hobby shop or whatever, right, so that part's really great. But it is extra fun when you have that connection of the recognition of we're fans of the same subject, same show that we watch or whatever, and then you build the piece from it. So it's great.

That was a recurring aside from the the amp show we went to right there's, it's like a. The fraternity amongst the the attendees is higher than like at the ipms nationals. Yeah, because that's everybody you got to find your tribe within, yeah within all this but you know, with amps being all armor and this being the sci-fi horror genre, I mean everybody's on the same page at some level.

But interestingly, the stuff I like is sort of we were talking about this earlier probably my truest favorite subject is 80s anime mecha, right, like Gundam Macross, those are kind of the big flagship franchises that kind of came out of that particular style, and even that's a bit of a niche here, right.

You come here and it's man, it's Star Trek, it's Star Wars and that stuff's awesome, and so there's even that further. There's just so many great things to be into right, and it is a place to line up. You meet a few friends who are really kind of into the same thing and that part feels great and what I was going to say. So last year's builds ended up being part of a display this year and that was really cool to be included. It ended up being there's the B room and there's some vendors, but it's always a big display. A lot of them are organized by a fellow named Jason Eaton. He's a real talented modeler and we had him on our show and he does a lot of cool stuff and he's a studio scale Star Wars builder.

Yeah, we saw that stuff in 21.

It's a whole other hobby of its own. He's tracking down the kits that the model shop makers were using to build those first Star Wars models and then recreating their process. That's a whole other thing and it's fascinating. I'm never going to do that personally, but it's fascinating to hear the stories and the process he's doing and he's very talented. But he often does some kind of theme build, like it's the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi coming out, so they're doing all these Star Wars ships from that.

This year he put a call out for a tribute to 80s Mecca and there's tons of shows. And I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the presses. And he's looking for people who have something. And I said, man, I can bring out my Macross stuff, a few pieces, to do a little display and that would be amazing. And I was already trying to think of how to do, like, basically, a macross sig. So, having talked to a couple of the ipms usa guys last year and they were talking about sigs being kind of the big sea change and how they were trying to approach different um people's subject areas, that'd be really cool I want to do a macross display. There's not enough Macross here. So he ended up doing that anyway and I thought, oh, this is amazing and I, you know, I kind of feel like I get to play with the big dogs a little bit.

Because I would go to that room to see what's been brought, and it's always amazing and breathtaking. And now I got a little corner.

And I've got to say I love the Star Trek original series. Shuttles, yes, with all the different variations, that's just I mean.

So that was another little. People have been. The friends have been coming over the years. They're doing a Galileo mashup.

Yeah.

Oh, they were really funny. Gilligan's Island with the Galileo.

The A-Team Star.

Wars with the Galileo.

Herbie the Lovebug Herbie the Lovebug.

Inventive beyond belief.

Tongue in cheek right. It was a lot of fun.

They took it and took it seriously, but took it seriously in a really, really entertaining way.

Yeah, it's fun, right, you can tell they're having a great time. Yes, it's cool to see what happens. So I think he often ties in some kind of like little friendly competition based on some you know goofy theme or whatever he sort of thinks up and it's a lot of fun. So having the display in there was a big deal. The demo is a little bit nerve-wracking. I've been working for three weeks on a presentation and trying to recount all the steps of you just sort of go and do it right.

You did it.

After you figure it out, you just start doing it and you know what you're doing. But I've got to put this into words that people will understand and hopefully take away something useful. And what's the subject? Yeah, so let me back up a little bit to last year. So I brought my VF-4 Valkyrie Lightning III and, if you think about it right, we got the World War II era P-38 Lightning I and now we have the F-35 Lightning II and in the 80s they somehow figured out there was going to be a Valkyrie Lightning 3 isn't that cool?

But you know what that model really turned out? Great, it's basically just a Macross fighter. It appeared very briefly on screen in some anime from 1987 or whatever, but it got a kit a couple years ago, which is amazing, a really nice kit, yeah, and I just everything sort of came together on that build and people just flipped out over it. It's not the one I thought people would like, but I was walking down the hallway carrying it and people were like whoa, stopping me and really got a kick out of it, and that happened multiple times and it caught a gold, which is miraculous, and it also won the category award for best anime subject.

So my pal Terry. He's a great friend of mine, a great modeler, and he's been involved with the show for many years, helping organize the events, working on the judging team an unsung hero. And you guys may have heard Terry on our podcast once or twice he was on ours.

We caught him up in Cincinnati one time. He's got friends in that show so yeah, he talked to us for a few minutes him and I.

I think we're really the A-team of the Skamawa podcast. Shh, don't tell Stuart and Jeff, but he was just last year. I was off having fun, having a great time and he was telling me how they just got overwhelmed with judging. They didn't have enough help for just sort of helping administrate the technical demos. And he said well, your faculty aren't really great. I'm going to get you a spot and you should talk about that or whatever. And people love that. I'm like, yeah, I'd be happy to. Little did I know that I would be like my hair falling out. My eyes were going in two different directions as my head spins, thinking I got to make it good, so I'm looking forward to it.

I'm sure it will. Good luck with that.

Back to your original question with that back to your original question. The subject is aircraft weathering. That you can. Spaceship weathering is kind of the same thing. The example build is this vf okay for lightning and I think that's what makes that one so neat?

because I think those macross fighters, they're plausible. Yeah, they don't. Yeah, they don't stretch the magic. It looks like it could be a real thing that would actually fly. Exactly, it's not like a Star Wars or Star Trek when?

it's quite unique right.

Where it's defying all known physics just to do it on the screen.

Yeah.

But you've incorporated well, you take that as a palette and you've used some fairly conventional, I think, aircraft weathering techniques and panel lining and all that on there, yeah, and I think it just came out great. Your finishes on all your models are just brilliant. I really appreciate that.

Because for me, I'm really focused on the smooth painting.

You must not have dust in the air in Canada. Oh my goodness, cat hair dust, the place can't be clean enough, right, constantly brushing?

it. When the weather gets cold enough, all the dust precipitates out.

Then you have the it's like a clean room.

I try to clean my shop once or twice a year.

Me too, because it's about the rate I finish. Yeah, you and me too. That's usually when I clean up.

The kick for me is when the science fiction thing kind of looks real and you almost have to scratch your head and say, oh well, that's not a real thing. I love that. And Matt Cross they those guys the original um creative team that was working on the eighties. They were it's just a love letter to like aviation yeah, they're all aviation and history and World War II aviation fans and Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans. You can kind of see where they're. They loved Gundam and a lot of them were like junior staff on Gundam and then kind of had a chance to do their own thing. So they were.

There is tributes and inspirations everywhere for that stuff and I love that idea that it's almost real or it looks like it could be real. So and I, yeah, I look to, I look for references that are just the real life comparison. So the Macross fighters that I'm interested in, they're basically 80's contemporaries of the Hornet, the F-14, that kind of thing. Or consider the replacement inside that universe. I think the Tomcat was meant to be the replacement for the F-14. It's just kind of a neat way to look at things well, one thing I wanted to close with for the F-14.

It's just kind of a neat way to look at things. Yeah, well, one thing I want to close with is this year, maybe start of last year, clearing off your Shelf of Doom.

Oh yeah.

How's that going?

So it's been really good. It's a thing though because I think we all suffer from that Are we stricken when you see the box and you're really excited and you're like there's a ton of possibility and I could do this and I could do that. And then you get through the build and you're like this is not fun and this is work and I don't care about this anymore, and I'm 80% of the way there and I'm putting on the shelf and I'm ripping open the new one, and we all do that right. And I ended up with a scenario, which maybe you've heard of or maybe you're familiar with, where you have 20 started projects oh yeah, and you're just sitting and maybe you've moved it from one house to the next and you've had them for 30 years. Maybe you've moved it from one house to the next and you've had them for 30 years.

And I always felt kind of guilty, like buying a new kit or opening a new box, and it kind of wasn't fun. I was just putting the stress on myself. So a couple years ago, I kind of did a quick inventory and I looked through stuff that was started at different points. I said you know what? The work's not good, that I've done. I've advanced since then. Gone Into the parts bin. I'd look at another kit and say this kit's from 89. The engineering was not great. It's going to be really difficult to separate parts. There's probably a new kit by now that is better engineered of the same subject. Gone and I was left with about, I think, just about 15.

I thought what I've done is pretty good. These kits are, it's finishable, it's doable just from a practical standpoint, and I just need to get these out of here. And so I lined them up in in order of completion, so like this one's 90%, it is first, and I just tried to really tuck everything out of the way. And I used to do I'd be always building, always painting, always working, but nothing done because I'm tinkering on this, tinkering on that. So it's like no, put it away, finish them in order, and I've been knocking out, like this year I've already got four builds done and half the work was done or more right. And some of the things are like so this armor piece I was mentioning that I brought it's the tank's been done.

The figures Hank's just about the figures, never done figures, and like that's the last 2%. So alright, it's time, and you know what they came out alright. Next one's probably better, but they're not bad. I just spent time on them, got off the book that I have from the crew school. Yes, you know, looked at a few pictures and just made something and it's great. And then you get. You're not in love with it anymore at that point, but there's a satisfaction with having it done and bringing it and showing it to your buddies, whether it's at the club meet or at the show. So I'm sticking with that. I'm in the single digits and I'm going to open a brand new 10-year-old kit soon. You know, the Lazy and Greatest that came out 10 years ago that I spent a bunch of money on has been sitting there. I get to open that soon, but that's kind of my reward.

Okay, I'm going to ask you when do you get to start something new?

Oh, I'm going to try and be good, wrap up the last couple and I got a real special kit this year, so I hope I'll be able to crack into that soon. But yeah, I got a few more on the bench and they're humming along and it is really nice to like. There's that satisfaction in finishing a project that we all, no matter what subject, that we feel just as model builders and model makers.

It's nice to have that done right, that elation. Almost I need to feel it more, but I don't.

I don't really have a huge backlog ever yeah, but well, good for you, but I'm slow, yeah, well, and that's like that's a whole other thought process. Right, and? And actually in my presentation I'm trying to demonstrate a couple practical techniques is my goal, and also to help people think about the workflow. And to you know, because it does, it's not fun when you're like so deep down a rabbit hole or you looking at the same model for five months. That's not. I don't think that was the intention. Right, it should take one or two months and then you get to show off your work and, like you know, get another one. So, yeah, well, thanks for stopping by.

Oh, it's been great. I can't believe you.

When you said you wanted me on the show, I thought am I getting you guys coffee?

and like taking notes. Am I going to be a helper?

Yeah, if you wouldn't mindison with that gang. You know what I'm a one big show a year, kind of justification, that's fine yeah, I would love to see you again.

Yeah, see you at uh heritage con next year? Yeah, that that's.

that's one for me is in my neck of the woods. It's an hour, so it's an easy one, but I'd love to attend that someday. For sure it's on my bucket list 2025 is in Norfolk.

It's a wonderful place, yeah, really. They've held it there before. I was there. I can highly recommend it. Awesome you can even drag the family.

Yeah, turn it into a little vacation.

Yeah, because you've got Virginia Beach, you've got Six Flags, you've got Yorktown and Williamsburg.

Although I can't concentrate on anything else when I'm here.

I don't even know what time of day it is I'm not sure what month, it is anymore.

Yeah, I hear you.

It's always a sell, but then it doesn't work that way. It did come at the two Disneys that way, but that was different.

I really appreciate you guys. Thanks a lot. I hope you're enjoying your time.

Good luck with your seminar and good luck with your bench clearing of the it's coming, it's coming along.

That's great.

Thanks again, guys. All right, take it easy anthony's a good guy.

I'm glad we got to sit down with him.

It's he and I were competing, trying to interview each other, but yeah, natural podcaster. Yeah, it's always good to see anthony. We've got I hate to admit this tons of canadian friends and anth Anthony's one of our favorites.

Well, another thing that's kind of cool about Wonderfest is well for us anyway, not being so tied to the genre. Yes, and when I say genre, there's a lot of sub-genres at Wonderfest, even within what we as more traditional modelers might try to throw under one umbrella. Yeah, that's probably unfair of us and our type, because there's a lot of crazy stuff there, man.

Oh, there is. There's a lot of amazing stuff there.

Well, as we were cruising through the vendor room looking for somebody to possibly talk to, we ran into a cottage industry there called Sci-Fi Models and Stuff Mm-hmm, and he had some sculpts that really caught our eye. We can get into that in this next segment, dave.

His name was Dan Garden and we learned not just about his particular genre but learned a lot about stories from the movies, stuff that inspires many of the items at Wonderfest, and you could tell from the moment we started talking to him he had a real love of this stuff and not just a motivated person to manufacture some stuff and sell it, but he had a personal investment in the stories behind it.

Let's have a listen, because he can sure tell it better than we can.

Oh, man can he.

Well, dave, we're always looking for new things to talk about and things that catch our eye. With us right now is Dan Garden from Sci-Fi Models and Stuff. I love the name of your business, thank you.

Thank you, I'm really glad to be here and I'm also really glad on your pronunciation. You got the garden right on the first try. My entire life, I get it Gardone, okay.

Or Gordon or something. So very good and thank you.

I'm glad I let him do it, because I would have gone to Gordon Read the business card. What do?

you see that's right, there you go.

There you go.

Yeah, where are you out of? I'm out of Charlotte, north Carolina, so about eight hours away from here in Louisville. Come up every year and seems like the drive gets a little bit longer every year.

The gentleman who does our intro and some of our ads we've done them all at some point is a voice actor named Bob Bear that lives in Chicago.

Oh, I know Bob Bear very well. I'm in IPMS club, okay, yeah.

Voice of Bob is a good friend of ours, that's really funny, I'll have to tell him that's how he has helped us out along the way.

That caricature is something that Bob had done and gave it to us at the last.

That's so funny. I can't wait to tell him Bob is a great guy. He's great, he loves my stuff too.

Well, cool, yeah, he does. He likes sci-fi, yeah, yeah. Well, let's get to that. What caught our eye that I think kind of meshes? Well, what you're doing with this wonder fest is scale modeling show in part, and it's got this kind of comic-con kind of vibe to it too horror, sci-fi. But a big part of this is is these guests they bring in, who are the, the model makers and the creators for a lot of these things that we see on the screen? So it's kind of all the behind the scenes people, uh, and it seems like you know't, seem like I think it actually is those people within this crowd of folks are just as famous to this crowd of folks as the actual monster, oh yeah.

Absolutely and the movie itself. Right yeah. So you have a couple of pieces that are on your table.

One is the, the physical actor who was inside the godzilla suit, and the other was uh uh, you're thinking the creature from the black creature from the black lagoon, yes, and the makeup artist for that, uh, yeah yeah, right, which I had no idea, that there was a woman who was behind the creature from the Black Lagoon. You know it's a classic movie. Can we talk about?

that Can we do a little deep, dive into it. A little history lesson for the viewers here, right? So Creature from the Black Lagoon is probably the most famous of the universal monster properties here at Wonderfest.

So maybe not everywhere. You know Frankenstein Dracula, but here at Wonderfest, creature is king, right and you'll see. You know Frankenstein Dracula, but here at Wonderfest, creature is king, right and you'll see, walking around, everybody's got their own Creature. Some of them are cartoony, some of them are scary, some of them are smoking cigars, Some of them are life-size, some of them are literally life-size, right. All right. So taking a step back 1952, creature begins production.

There was a woman named Millicent Patrick who was an animator for Disney at the time. She was literally the first female animator for Disney. So Millicent was an artist. She did all sorts of art and stuff. She gets picked up by Universal to work on this new project, black Lagoon. Long story short, there's literally an entire book about it.

But she was kind of a vivacious, fun, beautiful woman and the bigwigs at Universal were upset about that because she was getting attention. She was supposed to do a press tour. There was actually a stop in Detroit. It was the first stop where she would talk about how she made the monsters. She sculpted the creature's suit, she did all these other things and the head of makeup at Universal got so pissed about this that he wasn't getting the attention so he blacklisted her, he fired her. She never worked again in Hollywood. She died in obscurity. Nobody knew her name In the late 70s. There was an article in Famous Monsters of Filmland if you or your viewers are familiar about a guy who worked with her and he wrote this article. That was basically like hey, this woman was a pioneer and nobody knows who she is. So it's a really good story. Just a little pitch there for a really great nonfiction book called Lady from the Black Lagoon that I'm unaffiliated with, but it really inspired me to make this kit a tribute kit to her.

And you're right. First of all, your sculpt is beautiful, do you sculpt?

your own, I don't. So I started out as a painter. I was a builder and a painter. Right, I would build plastic and paint plastic, just like everybody else. And you know, there's kind of an evolution, right. I got tired of cars so I went to boats, and then I got tired of boats and I went to airplanes. Then I got tired of that and went to ships and spaceships. So there's that evolution and you're always kind of looking for the next thing to focus on, right? So I got into figures and I'm looking around at all these monster kits and again, everybody's got a creature, everyone's got a Frankenstein, but I wasn't seeing the kind of kits that I wanted to do, right? So, um, I started my own company.

When did you start it? 2020, I think about march of 2020, right at the beginning of the pen. So in covid everybody had all sorts of time, right.

so you know, sculptors were looking for work and, uh, painters and all sorts of people, so I was able to find sculptors to work with. So, um, millicent, my tribute kit was like my fourth or fifth kit. My first it's kind of funny was Edgar the Bugman from Men in Black, great movie. Everybody loves Men in Black, they're playing it at the bar.

It's on the bar right now.

So that was the first DVD I ever had in like 98. I've seen Men in Black 200 times at least. So great movie, great character. I figured everybody would want this kit. Like Edgar the Bugman is going to be it. It's going to be like painting a monster. He's got all this rotting flesh and stuff and I came out with the kit and like nobody wanted it. Like nobody, I mean. To this day I have a closet full of them.

I have one on my table with a sign that says please buy me. And I still nobody has bought one yet. Well, guillermo del Toro, I'm sure he bought one. Right, he didn't buy one, darn, no, no.

Let's talk about him though, because it's very interesting that you bring it up. But yeah, so I was looking for models that I wanted and not finding them, so I started to make my own, and it's like commissioning any work. It's like making a building or something you know. Like commissioning any work, it's like making a building or something. You hire an architect and you kind of manage the process and then you know, you kind of add your things.

I do my box art and my packaging and, of course, my marketing and sales and everything. Well, the sculpt on that Millicent figure, that woman who did the Black Lagoon creature that's I mean obviously clearly she was a very pretty woman and the sculpt just brings that out. It's really attractive.

And it's funny. So you know you'll walk around Wonderfest. And now there are multiple tribute kits to her, which is great, and it's perfect that she is getting this recognition Again. You know it's 50 years late.

Right.

It's nice, you know.

So when we talk about, these behind scenes kids and I'm sorry if I'm talking too much here but, um, the one you alluded to earlier with godzilla, a man named nakajima.

Haru nakajima was the man inside the godzilla suit and, like millicent, he was a small time actor in the 40s and he stepped into this role and he's kind of a hidden figure like you wouldn't know who he was right you.

You never see his face on the.

He is literally the most famous actor in Japanese history and we're talking and you guys don't know his name.

Right.

And many people don't. So, yeah, we're trying to kind of bring to light the things that made our childhood and our nostalgia, and you know the things that we do, so nostalgia and and you know the things that we do. So, yeah, I'm glad you guys are interested, because I love talking about the the kit.

You've got the prototype of the actor nakajima and you're gauging interest in whether people want to to actually would be interested in this, and it's a great concept because it's the bottom half of the Godzilla costume, with the top half of the actor who's wearing suspenders, which is how the costume was held up. But then you have it so that you can remove the actor and put the top half of the costume on and you have a full-blown Godzilla figure and that's just a. That's a really neat idea. I'm sure from it appears that there's a lot of interest in it.

Yeah, and you know that's one of the other things with small kit production garage kit production is this literally takes thousands of dollars before I get a kit to market, Right, Right. So the sculpt alone costs X amount of money. And then I have to mold and I have to cast and I have to get it ready for packaging. So what I'm doing here is I'm kind of gauging that interest with the sculpt finish so I know whether I'll make any money or not. Realistically I won't make any money. I'll break even if I'm lucky, Right. So but it's good. As you said, David, interest seems to be very high in it and glad to hear it.

Yeah, it looks interesting. Now I'm going to ask you a question that is a particular area pet peeve of mine. Have you had any problem with recasters and knockoffs and people taking stuff that you've paid thousands of dollars to produce and knocking them off?

I have not. I have been really really lucky and also I've been fairly under the radar for the last five years, so this is my biggest year yet. The last year was my biggest year yet and the year before, so I'm growing right, that's the way it's supposed to work, and it's going to happen at some point. I'll have to deal with it, but right now, no, I've been very fortunate.

That's great Good deal. Well, what's next for your company, you think?

I don't know. Every year I say I'm going to take a step back. I start having nightmares about Wonderfest in December every year, every night. Just oh man, what if I get in a car wreck and I'm not at Wonderfest, kind of thing. So we have lots of ideas in the hopper and we'll see. I'm always open to suggestions and I'm always open to giving people advice or talking about the process or anything, or talking about the process or anything. So if any of your listeners are interested, you can find me through. Instagram is probably preferable sci-fi models and stuff on Instagram. And yeah, we'll go from there. I'll have to keep some things under wraps.

All right. Well, thanks for sharing this little bit with us today.

I appreciate it Good luck with your projects and have a great Wonderfest. Thanks guys. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Well, that was funny. He sure seemed to enjoy telling the story and, uh, I think the most interesting thing for me was, uh, aside from uh, the story he told us about the woman who created creature from the black lagoon costume and sculpts was, uh, you get into the whole small world thing. You know, I mentioned that we were friends with Bob Bear when he said he was from Charlotte, and sure enough, yeah.

Well, Bob was one of those guys that when you meet him, you're instantly his friend. So it does not surprise me that Dan not only knew Bob, but considered him a friend.

Well, I tell you, I look forward to next year and see what kind of things along this vein of behind the scenes type subject matter he happens to come up with. Because I think, like I mentioned in the segment it's such, a part of Wonderfest is the I don't want to say idolization, but the appreciation, admiration, I don't want to say idolization, but the appreciation, admiration, admiration and appreciation these attendees have for the behind-the-scenes creators, for all this intellectual property and film and all this stuff.

So really, really, really cool. Well, and you take a look at the guests they had this year. Those guests, for the most part, are not movie stars, not the people you see on the screen. Almost all of them were the creatives, the folks responsible for creating and putting the stuff on the screen.

Yeah, and it's like that year after year. Yes, it is. That's kind of the whole vibe of the show, so good to see what Dan had going on.

Yes, and I love seeing these cottage industries pop up. They get inspired by this or that and dive into it, and he seemed like he had just a real enthusiasm for the stuff that he was doing and that was great.

Dave, our final segment from Wonderfest is something we tried to set up when we went up to amps to South Bend, indiana. South Bend was not only home to the amps international convention this year but it's also the home of round two, the model production company, diecast production company, who owns the current Star Wars, space 1999, star Trek now Black Hole, yes and a lot of vintage automobile maker licenses. You know they've got all the old AMT and MPC kits and just a whole lot of nostalgic stuff and a whole lot of new stuff. And we were hoping to get over to visit them while in South Bend but we just couldn't get our paths across to get that to happen. But we did catch up with Jamie Hood from round two while at Wonderfest and it's an interesting conversation.

Yes, absolutely. It's a fascinating behind-the-scenes. Look at the business.

Well, dave, we tried to get this on the record up in South Bend but we couldn't. Our schedule's a sync up with these guys. We've got Jamie Hood here from Round 2, round 2 Models up in South Bend, indiana. How are you doing today? Doing all right? Thanks for having me on. I've seen you down here at Wonderfest before. I think this is probably a pretty big show for you, you guys, as far as, uh, I guess, like I said on our walk over here, some product announcement and pr and and all that.

yeah, I think this is. We missed a few shows over covid. But thinking back, I think it's been 15 years ago was the first show I came to uh here at wonderfest and it's always been a thrill. It's always a very rewarding show to come to and generally we're showing off our wares, what we've had out in the recent past, what we have coming, and it's just always a great experience to get a one-on-one with our fans, with everybody that builds our products.

Well, I know, walking through the model room, there are any number of models in there that clearly at least started as your all's kits. I mean, it's amazing what these modelers are doing with the lighting kits and everything else, but there's a lot of your product in the model room.

Yeah, you know, a lot of times I don't advertise that we, you know, sell a built product, a finished product, because we don't.

We sell the basis for something great for someone else to build, put their energy and their talent into form, their vision, and we're happy to supply, you know, the most basic of plastic parts to get them started, in some cases the light kits and the decal sets as well. But part of the fun of coming to Wonderfest every year for us is to be able to go through the contest and we award an award for the best use of one of our products. And it's pretty much whatever we see that catches our eye and what we think is maybe either the most imaginative or the most well executed. Uh, we've had a range where, you know, the execution might might not have been the best in the show, but the idea behind it you can't deny it. So you know we choose something like that. Sometimes there's not a lot of great work and one piece really stands out, just quality wise, and we award that. So it's. It's always a always just a fun experience for us to come in and see how our products get used like that.

Well, I think a key word there was fans, and a topic we've touched on on our show a couple of times pretty hard is nostalgia, and I know Round 2 has a lot of classic brands MPC, amt those have been around forever. I think you have some of the Aurora stuff, some of it Very little, very little, yeah, but even I mean Polar Lights, early days of Polar Lights.

Yes, polar Lights Either rebuilt Aurora tools or borrowed them from the current owners at the time. So that's kind of where the confusion gets caused as far as the relationship with Aurora. But yeah, I think, especially in my tenure as leading Polar Lights, we've kind of evolved that brand from recreating something vintage to creating something that's very authentic in a common scale, that kind of thing.

Well, it looks like you've got several new things that you have upcoming For 2025, you've got a that's from Thunderbirds.

From UFO. Ufo, yeah, jerry Anderson's UFO.

Sorry, they all run together. Yeah, point. But yeah, how I mean I know that stuff. If you look on youtube, the ufo stuff is just super popular and it seems to be getting a resurgence. So yeah, I mean the.

I think really, ultimately the charm of all of Jerry Anderson's productions was the production value that went into the work. And when we deal with an audience like we have here at Wonderfest, where everybody's a scale modeler, they want to put their craftsmanship into it. It's really an art for everyone. They look back at those shows and that's where the spark of creativity might have come from. Whether or not that's the start for them, they surely appreciate the effort and the work that went into those shows and UFO. You know we had success with Space 1999. And if you imagine it correctly, you could say UFO was a precursor to that.

Right.

So it kind of fits with what we've done. So that's why we kind of went to that next.

Did you have any difficulty navigating? I know you know that's older IP. Did you have any difficulty navigating getting the ability to do that.

No, it was free and clear to do. We just had to add it to our licensing agreement.

That's great. That's an interesting topic. I spoke to your colleague out there on the floor earlier about it. But the breadth of subject matter you have in the round two lines across all the different brands that are under your umbrella. Two lines across all the different brands that are under your umbrella uh, you've got a lot of licensing to navigate with. Uh, I imagine automotive manufacturers to current ip holders of star wars and star trek and all those um, I'm sure they're not all the same. Um, could you give us the to the level you can talk about it, um, kind of what that's like for round two.

Yeah, this is kind of a topic that's fresh in mind, because just a couple weeks ago I attended for the first time the licensing expo in Las Vegas. I happen to have been recently promoted this year and I'm actually shifting out of my duties on the model kit stuff into a pretty relatively high-level managerial role.

Gotcha.

So I'm helping the company to explore all our options as far as licensing goes. But to answer your question kind of more directly, as far as, like, what's it like to deal with these uh license holders, it really depends on kind of the, the size of the property, I would imagine. Um, okay, so here's the two opposite ends of the spectrum. Uh, with space 1999, uh, they might have uh, some photographs that are usually um production stills and things like that. They have a logo and from that it's basically we can go do our thing. So we developed the look of the packaging we wanted to have. We used the logo in the way we wanted to. We kind of established our own style for what we wanted our product to look like. If you deal with somebody like, say, warner Brothers for Scooby-Doo, scooby-doo has all that stuff figured out. All you're doing is plugging in your photograph, right? They?

don't want any variation, right. They don't want anything to look any different than what their entire marketing package already looks like, right? Gotcha Scooby-Doo, I wouldn't have thought of that.

Two buckets would come to mind. I don't know how true it is, but you have something like Disney and Star Wars, which the licensing is a really entrenched revenue stream for them, versus somebody that's I don't know. Maybe Space1999 is a good example, something that's older that's not generating a lot of revenue currently, or even maybe an automotive manufacturer. I don't know how those work, but there's two hands One it could be being driven as a revenue source by their IP department, or it's. Hey, as long as it looks right, you're helping promote our product and we're not really having to pay for it.

It's interesting because some companies you think would be easy to deal with aren't, and some that you would think are going to be difficult aren't and they're easier to deal with. I've been somewhat pleasantly surprised on the Star Wars front in the amount of freedom we're able to do, because they do have a lot of what they call style guide. That's the look of the package. So if you look at a Hasbro Star Wars item, it's definitely got a look to it that they've established. They're allowing us to depart from that because A they don't see really an opportunity for our product to really be on the same product as, like, a Hasbro action figure or something like that.

But also they realize nostalgia is a driving factor in the product we're putting out, in the product we're putting out. So they're allowing us the opportunity to, you know, appeal to guys that grew up with it, that knew what the old MPC packaging looked like, and be able to bring some of that, either reproduce that package or in some cases where great illustrations didn't exist for the old kits, we're doing new ones, kind of in the style as if they'd been done back in the day. That's really a great example of a license holder that understands the appeal of what they're bringing to the table. Surprisingly, here's a funny story from my very early career with the company.

The first product I actually worked on was Frosty the Snowman. We did figural. They weren't really action figures, they were poseable figures sold during Christmas time, right. So our license wasn't for necessarily the first Frosty the Snowman cartoon but the second Frosty the Snowman cartoon, because Warner Brothers, I believe, was the rights holder at the time and we were dealing with them and I believe they also held the rights to the music. So it was kind of a division of IP there.

Well, if you watch the second Frosty the Snowman show, they have a flashback, or not a flashback, but a flash forward of Frosty and his wife and their kids, or not a flashback, but a flash forward of Frosty and his wife and their kids? And they actually did, I think a stop motion animation feature later on that had the kids in it and we went and said, well, can we do figures of the kids? And they're like no, you can't, you don't have the rights to that. Or like, well, it's in the movie that we've signed the rights to. And they're like really. And so we had to educate them. And then they allowed us to do it and the next Christmas they had the kids in their style gates. It was in all of their gift wrap and all that kind of stuff.

So you helped them rediscover IP their own IP that they didn't know.

Yes, indeed, that's great. And in some cases know we'll go and we want to chase down something that's kind of out of the public eye. For you know they're like they're not making a remake or a sequel of, say, the time machine or something like that. We'll go and ask and say, well, can we do kits of the time machine? And they say no, and the reason is they don't want to put their their legal team on it. They don't want to put their legal team on it. They don't want to have to go search their archives and hunt down all that kind of stuff because the deal is not going to be worth it to them.

Whatever, our guarantee is not going to bring the amount of return they need. Interesting.

Now, have you ever just run into where you can't figure out where the rights are for something that they're just? They've disappeared into the mists of corporate bankruptcy or whatever.

Sometimes it happens more on, say, like the automotive side we do a lot of die-cast products and things like that. Sometimes we'll do, say, a vintage race car with a certain driver and we can't find that driver or his relatives, and so it's like, well, do we go ahead and run it? And you know, if someone comes out of their woodwork we'll just pay them later and beg forgiveness. Or you know how do we want to handle it, but most often we just won't run the item.

Sure sure.

Well, Dave mentioned the UFO product. Is there anything else for 2025 or you've got announced here?

We've been in a bit of a pause as far as new development, and this has been what's happening over the last year and we're just getting restarted. So some of the things that we announced last year. We had been talking about the UFO kits for a couple years now, just getting that really rolling. We've been talking about a land speeder for Star Wars and a TIE bomber for Star Wars, and we're just now getting those kind of further underway, so those should land in 2025. Those ought to be wildly popular Star Wars, and we're just now getting those kind of further underway, so those should land in 2025.

Those ought to be wildly popular. Yes, wildly popular.

On top of the black hole that's the other announcement we've made is that we've gotten the rights to do the black hole kits.

So we're bringing those back.

That'll be awesome. Were those MPC before.

Those were MPC yeah.

Yeah, I remember that one too. Well, thanks for stopping by for a little bit to chat with us. Hey, we didn't come visit you in South Bend. Maybe that opportunity will present itself the next time we're up that way. But Sure thing, I'll let you get back to work. I know you got to shake a lot of hands, you got a busy show ahead.

Of you.

Yeah, it's just getting started, but we're just here today, so we appreciate it. Thank you, thank you very much.

Oh, you're very welcome.

Well, Dave, we had a great time. Man, we did have a good time. The only way it could have been better if we had gotten to stay two days.

Yes, yes, and who knows, maybe next year we'll manage to work that out, but it was. That was fascinating. We met interesting people, got to learn. That's one of the things that I really when I go to a model contest. If I learn stuff, that's one of the things that I consider most rewarding from going to a contest Meeting the people, talking to them and learning from them particular technique or particular love of a particular subject. Or talking to round two in the manufacturing. I could have talked for quite a while with him about the ins and outs of all of the licensing stuff. Don't ever give a thought to how did that? How did the manufacturer manage to wrangle the IP in order to be able to do that kit?

So, folks, if you're interested in the sci-fi, horror kind of genre, superheroes, all that stuff, keep an eye on the Wonderfest website. It's still showing info for this current year's show, but that'll flip not too long down the road, I think, and typically it's kind of at the end of May, first of June time frame.

Either last week or two of May or the first week or so of June.

So kind of keep that in mind, and if you've wanted to come, but haven't we encourage you to do so? It's just a good time.

Yeah, and to be honest with you, it has such an infectious vibe. Even if this is not your particular main area of interest, it just has such a really positive vibe. Everybody there is happy to be there and they've got interest in their particular genre, but they also love talking with other people who have their particular genre. It's just, it's fantastic.

Well, dave, that's where we've been, and I think I don't know we'll have another one of these before the IPMS National Convention, but that's probably the next place we're going to be going.

That is the next place we're going to be going and I cannot wait.

Well, we're trying to set something up to give a little more information on that on down the road in June. So, folks, that's where we've been and June's looking to be similar, maybe not quite as busy.

Oh, but we've got some great, great episodes coming up.

We do, and kind of on the theme of these behind-the-scenes people in the film industry. Episode 117 is going to feature Mr Bruce McRae. Now, bruce is a retired Hollywood model maker currently living in Las Vegas, nevada, and he's been impressing folks with his 35th scale dioramas of late, both online and at AMPS. He was at the AMPS International Convention and he stopped by the table to tell us that he enjoyed our show, which was a. That was a thrill.

Yes.

And then he sat down in our hot seat for our interviews to take a load off and he just started talking in about, and about 12 minutes into it I was thinking to myself you dope, you should have hit record. Oh really, that would have done it justice. I mean, he's got a lot of stories to tell and does a lot of amazing work. So, if you read Ants and saw Bruce's work, you know what I'm talking about. He's been posting the dojo quite a bit here.

Yes, he has With a lot of historic photos from his movie assignments.

Yes, and take a look at it. Go back through the dojo and look at those, because we'll scratch the surface. But the depth and breadth of his work is just pretty amazing.

It is. So looking forward to that one man, I am too. The other episode we have lined up for June, Dave, is episode 118. We're going to feature longtime friend of the show, the Inch High guy, Mr Jeff Groves.

Yes, we've talked to Jeff at shows before, but we've never sat down and done an actual interview with him and, given all the books that he's lent you over the last couple of years, you owe him.

I think I do. Well, jeff is the owner and creator at the Inch High Guy blog and there you'll quickly see he's pretty much a 172nd scale purist. Yes, I told you he's a great guy, of course, 72nd scale purists. So yes, I told you he's a great guy. Of course we'll talk about his modeling pursuits and probably get into his how he manages those batch builds.

Man that's yes that's not for the faint of heart, I don't yeah, that's one of the things that that uh people who regularly go to his blog are are fascinated by is when he decides to batch build either 12 of the exact same model or eight of the exact same type of aircraft, but from three different manufacturers. And it's just really neat to see.

Well, Dave, what's been happening on the dojo?

Man, the dojo. Again, the growth continues to be exponential. As of this recording, the number of dojo members is 4,606. We're adding them in bunches every day 6,606. We're adding them in bunches every day.

We mentioned Bruce posting his stuff, but that's only part of what's been going on. Obviously, when you and I attended Wonderfest, we took a lot of pictures. I posted a bunch of those on the dojo, including a lot of the stuff that Round 2 was announcing for 2025, including the return of the Black Hole kits, the first of their Gerry Anderson UFO items. In addition, the ladies and gentlemen who are members of the dojo have been posting their completed work, which I find inspiring. I also find it embarrassing that I'm not getting as much done as they are, but I take inspiration from it and, in addition, the in-progress stuff is just fascinating. The in-progress stuff is interesting to see, just to see different people's process.

I can get lost going to the dojo. I can kill way too much time scrolling through the dojo and looking at all of the fantastic content. I thank everybody who's listening, who's posted. If you haven't posted, please do Share your work with others. It's a judgment-free zone. We want everybody to share what they've done and no matter what level you're at, be proud that you finished a model and post it and share it with the other listeners.

All right, dave, we're getting into this. I want to say one more thing. I want to thank Steve Hustad, paul Gloster and Jake McKee for helping make May such a success for us.

Yes, absolutely.

Three solid episodes, three solid guests and hopefully we can keep the steam rolling.

Dave 2024 has been a really good year as far as episodes up to this point, and I have no doubt that June is going to bring us two really great episodes.

Well, all right, man, we better get out of here. Yes, we should. As they always say so many kicks, so little time. Dave, have a good tune, you got it, thank you.