SCALE MODEL NEWS

Mat Irvine's Smallspace 6 model show  blew the weeds off similar events yesterday. Until next year, how about a look at this concept. We're looking at our existing Star Trek miniatures, thinking of ways to customise them!

WE'RE HUGE FANS OF CONSTANT SCALE MODELLING. It's the only way to be able to accurately compare different subjects. SMN report: However, while there may be a fair difference in size between, say a B-17 Flying Fortress and a Spitfire, such comparisons fade into insignificance where sci-fi subjects are concerned. So, just for once we have to agree that constant scale simply isn't an option. Fun video though! The USS Enterprise  ( below ) in its many forms remains a hugely popular subject.   As for Romulan craft ( below ) well, they are kinda ugly, but make for rewarding kit subjects all the same.

The US movie effects company ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) is coming up to its 40th birthday, due in May 2015. Formed in May 1975 by George Lucas, ILM has made groundbreaking special effects (SFX) for many big-name movies, including the scenes from Star Trek: Heart of Darkness  seen in the video above. However, the most influential of ILM's movie's has to remain the original Star Wars trilogy, starting with 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope . The biggest difference between then and now is that in those early days, moviemakers made physical models for almost all SFX scenes - computer generated imagery (CGI) was in its infancy, and the amazing movie trickery today's audiences regard as normal lay decades in the future. Even so, Star Wars broke new ground in adventure science-fiction, for the spacecraft attack sequences looked absolutely convincing, and ILM created leading-edge technology to make them so. For example, to film the attack on the Death Star, cameras flew along a b...

Watch out for a fresh new look at Scale Model News, due very soon. We'll have more models of all sorts, presented in a cleaner style on screen. Features will include new versions of the Star Trek Romulan craft (above) and reviewing the history of an old fave, the classic polythene-bag Airfix Spitfire (below). Ships will include more miniatures like this diecast Japanese aircraft carrier (above) and mixed-material kits like the paper-tech Pagani racer (below). Coming soon - look out for the new-style SMN.

It's good to return to our friends at Industria Mechanika, purveyors of original science-fiction models that are a world away from standard-issue Star Wars and Star Trek. Not that Star Trek and Star Wars aren't great subjects for models - it's just that Industria Mechanika's range is based on original concepts, created by talented designers who work mostly in the world of video gaming and movie-making, so IM's stuff comes from their spare-time heart and soul. The kits are mostly to standard scales too, which means that it is not difficult to incorporate them into existing collections, or to add production kits as diorama extensions. Visit Industria Mechanika here. And some interesting sci-fi stuff available below. Industria Mechanika's Kastor mobile hovertank may have a steampunk flavour, but that's no bad thing at all, and it's convincing as a futuristic combat machine, and even better, comes in military-model standard 1:35 scale. More IM articles at SM...

Star Trek lives with an interesting fortnightly, ‘The Official Starships Collection’ from partwork publisher, Eaglemoss. As usual with such publications, you get a colour magazine (above) in this case 20 pages long, packed with data and background information. The episode shown here is the fifth in the series, a leaf-green Romulan Warbird. Conceptually a 24th Century design, the Romulan D’Deridex Class Warbird is a biggish ship, some 1.3 km (0.84 mile) long with power to match at a maximum Warp 9.6. The power supply is nifty, the Romulans having designed a mini-black hole that creates an enormously strong gravity field. So now you know - and there’s plenty more info like that to read in the magazine. Apart from the pseudo-science, there’s a lot on offer in the mag, including designer details on the creation of the ship for the series. It's fascinating stuff for sci-fi nerds like me - note the alternative vertical design shown above. What do you get apart from the mag? There are thr...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS Ask any film enthusiast, and probably many non-enthusiasts, to name the best science-fiction movie of all time, and you will probably get 9 out of 10 voting for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey . For all those fans - and for space modellers too - comes the new book,  2001: The Lost Science by Adam K. Johnson. About the book Adam Johnson - also the driving force behind specialist model outfit AJA Models - has compiled and written the most detailed reference book on the movie so far, full title 2001: The Lost Science - the Frederick I. Ordway III Collection . With much material supplied by Dr Fred Ordway ( more on him below ), a great deal of the content has never been published before. Its 112 pages are full of detailed original plans (of which there were originally 2,400!), many of them painstakingly digitally enhanced, as the original blueprints have long-since faded. Examples of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ process are shown in the introduction. Other 2001...

REPORT BY MAT IRVINE: Here I continue my review of the 2012 WonderFest science-fiction and fantasy show, held at the end of May in Louisville, Kentucky - and take a close look at the test shot ( above ) of the huge 1:350 scale USS Enterprise due for release soon. The large scale means that the bridge of the Enterprise is clearly visible (above).  Main runners (below) for the kit.   Mighty starship Jamie Hood of Round-2 showed off the upcoming Star Trek USS Enterprise . This is the original version from the first series, and ‘the best’ as Scotty might maintain, “No bloody A, B C, or D…” The kit is made to a massive 1:350 scale, and stretches some 813 mm (32 in) long. Five moulding colours are involved: two shades of grey and three transparent tints. The Enterprise will be sold under the Polar Lights name, and should be available in October. You even get a tiny Galileo shuttlecraft, seen below next to a business card. Munsters at home Frank Winspur and Dave Metzner...

SMN EVENTER BY MAT IRVINE Each year sees the Crown Plaza Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, transformed into WonderFest - an event that presents all that’s wonderful in science-fiction, fantasy and horror model-making. WonderFest 2013 was held a couple of months ago, over the weekend of May 25-27, and your occasional SMN writer attended the show as a first-time guest.  CultTVMan invite All this was down to an old friend, Steve Iverson ( on his stand above ) who runs the CultTVMan website, who had been suggesting for a few years that I should, “Come over for the event”, and this year decided to sponsor me - so there was no argument! Mat Irvine (above) preparing one of his talks during the SciFi University session (below). SciFi University I’ve attended many UK science-fiction conventions and also a number of model shows in both the UK and US, but WonderFest is a unique mix of both convention and model show. I arrived for the Friday session, which featured the SciFi University ( above )...