PMM Twelve Minute Modelsphere: May 2024

dave, hope you're feeling better. I am. I'm.

I'm on the upside well, it's the may edition of the 12 minute model sphere. Man, uh, years clipping along.

I know the Derby weekend is this weekend. I was convinced we had another week ahead of us.

No, and my birthday is the day this drops.

Oh my God, that's right. International Workers' Day, or no wait, is the first International Workers' Day, mayday, mayday.

Romanowski will straighten us out on that. Well, I won't keep my hopes up for big parades. There you go. We may get one or two. Yeah, well, man, it's springtime. We've been doing a little traveling.

Yes, we have. Well, let's put it this way, we put in a lot of miles we have, but we got one of those shows last time.

Yeah, HeritageCon, We've been to Amps folks and if you'll claw back just one episode in the back catalog you can hear about all our escapades there. We ended up having enough material out of that show to put out a special, so that meant we delayed an episode that was already on the schedule for April. We kind of moved that into May. I guess we ought to talk about what we got going on in May, Dave. Yes, we do, Dave. May is a three-drop month so we're going to be a little bit busy.

Yes, we are but three good episodes lined up, man.

We do. Episode 114 will be featuring Steve Hustad. He's come back to have a little chat about small-scale armor modeling.

Yes, we got to see Steve at HeritageCon. I think I mentioned previously I got to check off a bucket list item. I have had a Steve Hustad patented Martini which was excellent, and there was a lot of good 72nd scale armor up at Heritage Con. So we got.

we got a fair amount to talk about we do and we've actually recorded that segment already and we we go off the rails a little bit so folks can get a little information about other aspects of how Steve does things, but primarily centered around small scale armor.

Yep.

And hopefully he's going to get me moving on mine.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, in episode one 15, uh, our Aussie friend Paul Gloucester is going to come back on and uh, paul has read a book recently. Do you remember the title of it, dave?

Oh no, it's a business book and I cannot remember the name of it.

Well, he'll tell us. He'll tell us Uh and the the book has inspired him to push some of his modeling boundaries. I guess he's carrying over the principles of the book right From business over to his his hobby. If you're a follower of Paul's Facebook page, glossy Kits, you've seen him crank out some small scale armor recently and kind of push the boundaries on a few other things he's been working on, and he's going to come on the show and talk about this book and how he's applied it and what he's gotten out of it. So I'm really interested in this because I know I've built a few things, in no small part to the Moosaroo Cup contest. I've built some things I might otherwise not have. And not only has it inspired me to build some other things I might not normally have in the past, but I think you can get a general improvement across the board, yep.

I think that's part of what he's looking for. So I'll be interested to sit down with him and talk and figure out what inspired him, what he's finding, what he's learning. The quokka is always a good interview.

And for our third and final episode for the month of May, we've got Austin area modeler Jake McKee as our guest, and Jake's posted a lot to the dojo and he's got his own Facebook page and a blog. The level of quality in his work is just really a high bar, I think, and he does a lot of things. One thing that caught our attention was he's pretty much fully invested in using extruded foam insulation for a diorama, construction, buildings, groundwork, all that, and that's just something that's always. I don't know why, but you know, raw forms and simple forms is one thing, but when you're actually putting detail into it and carving it and adding architectural elements to it, I've always found that intimidating. So I'm really looking forward to talking with Jake and learning how he got into this and why he likes it as a medium, and maybe give us some pointers for us who might like to delve into that here in the future.

I'm looking forward to that conversation because I'm like you. There is a alternate life of mine where I ended up not as a lawyer but an architect not as a lawyer but an architect, and anytime I see somebody using foam or foam core or the extruded foam to build buildings and put in architectural details, there's part of me that just geeks out over that. So I'll really be interested to see what he has to say.

Well, that's going to be it for May folks Please tune into all those and we look forward to your comments along the way. Well, dave the dojo has been going gangbusters. I know I've been approving new members. Hand over fist seems like many a day. Seems like it's on an uptick yeah, Really encouraging. And there's been a lot of great stuff posted. I know I've been having fun posting my stuff on there, but what are we up to man? A lot of great stuff posted.

I know I've been having fun posting my stuff on there, but what are we up to man? As of today, the dojo is at 4,251 members and again, that number will have changed significantly even by the time you listen to this. The thing that I'm enjoying is the fact that not only are we getting a lot of new members, a lot of people are posting their in-progress work, and I love seeing finished models. Don't get me wrong, but I really love the in-progress stuff because almost inevitably when somebody does an in-progress post, I'm looking at it and I'm going how did you do that? Or what are you doing there?

Or you see things in other people's modeling process that you don't recognize and and so you ask a question and the folks are really great about responding and you learn about new materials, new techniques or different techniques. Hey, this has never worked for me, but it turns out it works for this person. They've done it this way all their modeling life and never had a problem with it, whereas I tried that a few times and never got it to work. I really enjoy seeing the back and forth among the modelers themselves, the members of the dojo, talking back and forth about a particular kit or trying to model a particular prototype item. So guys keep it up. This makes me unbelievably happy.

Well, I know my in-progress stuff usually gets some pretty good commentary and I really appreciate that my stuff's slow going so you can get a lot of in-progress shots. Well, we should make that a call to action. Folks, if you got something you're in the middle of, let's see it.

Yes, absolutely.

Especially if you're doing something out of the ordinary with it in terms of a technique or product, or if you're just going the extra mile with detailing or whatever, or whatever you're doing.

Right, and don't don't be shy about posting your stuff. We can all learn from everybody, no matter what level you're on, no matter whether or not you take your stuff to shows or anything like that. Post and let people see your work. That is one of the most enjoyable things in modeling is for a bunch of guys to sit around and geek out about building models.

Well, folks, that's going to be it for me, and it's going to be a lot. I don't know if we're going to make any shows or not. I may try to make it down to Knoxville, I don't know.

I would love to, if you go, give me the word. I would love to make it down there, even just for a few hours. I don't know, given the schedules and given everything we've done, given that Wonderfest is coming up and then the Nationals after that and I'm going to have some house guests along the way. I got a lot to do, but we'll see. Never say never.

Never say never, folks. Well, we're going to have to say never to any more 12-Minute Models. Fair, at least this one, at least this one. Well, dave, we'll catch up in May.

Yeah, see you in May.