SCALE MODEL NEWS

  IT’S HALLOWEEN AGAIN and here’s a chance to look at a kit that definitely fits the idea of ‘spooky.’  Mat Irvine:  I’m in the process of writing a book on dioramas, and for one of the chapters there’s a look at kits that already come as a diorama. And this kit from Polar Lights certainly fits the bill.  The Polar Lights model started out as an Aurora kit way back in 1965, but was on sale for less than a year. Most Aurora tooling originally ended up with Monogram, and Monogram did reissue some kits, but nothing like the whole of the range. Some tools were also licensed to other companies, so we did see again kits that Aurora had made, but which hadn’t seen the light of day for many years. Then we jump forward several decades, and the idea of ‘lost Aurora’ model companies started to emerge. Only two ever really fulfilled the promise though, those being Polar Lights and Moebius, which have created kits that Aurora might have made, but that it actually did not....

MATTHEW TEEVAN IS AN illustrator who shows his work on Art Station, an online centre for the visual creatives community. SMN report:  In Matthew Teevan's words: "I like to build models in my spare time, and grew up on plastic model kits, Airfix, Revell, Matchbox and Aurora kits. Some wishful thinking here in the form of fantasy what-if box-top artwork. Also some wishful thinking on movies that could have – and should have – been made!" We say, well done Matthew – there's plenty here we'd like to spend our Autumn nights constructing. THUNDERBIRD 2 ( header, below ) We can all dream of a top of the line, large-scale Airfix Thunderbird 2. As the scale size was imagined as being more than 76 m (250 ft) long, even a 1:144 scale kit would be a biggish build, some 530 mm (20.8 in) in length when assembled. RTL 2 ( below ) This was a supersonic transporter that appeared in the Thunderbirds episode,  The Cham-Cham . At 1:144 scale it would be some 457 mm (18 in) long. MAC’...

This week in 1962 – actually September 23 – saw the first episode of the Jetsons, a US cartoon TV series featuring a ‘space age’ family living in the Orbit City of 2062. Mat Irvine:  75 episodes of the Jetsons were made by Hanna-Barbera Productions, who also made the famed Flintstones cartoons. The Jetsons featured family man George, his wife Jane, their children Judy and Elroy, and the family dog, Astro. The family’s main form of transport was George’s flying car. Remember this was written at a time when we all reckoned that in the future there really would be a such a machine in everyone’s driveway. However, it took until 2001 for the first model kit to appear of this car, from Polar Lights. It was one of the company’s simpler kits with snap-together pre-coloured parts, and all five family members.  Twelve years later, the kit was reissued in a different box, though this time with only two of the figures, George and Astro, and these were pre-painted in a different pattern to...

A GRAND OLD CLASSIC, the Airfix Bentley is still an excellent kit that shows off the famed Le Mans race car incredibly well. SMN report: And now Airfix is releasing the 4.5 litre Bentley once more. But you don't have to stick to classic looks when you make it, as Mike Turner Design has some ideas for a modern take ( below ) on an old machine.  The MTD Bentley has double rear tyres, a popular racing item in the early days of auto racing. It's easy enough to ape the look, simply by adding matching tyres at the rear. The wheels look rather like Porsche components, though the large 1:12 scale means you might have to make these yourself or cut off the tops from plastic bottles. Either way, by leaving behind the old spoked wheels, Mike Turner has mode the whole car look much more modern.  Shown ( below ) on one of the banked racing circuits that were built before World War II, the Bentley is shown leading competitors, following far behind. The LED lights give a modern, st...

WE COVERED THIS NEW MAGAZINE when it was launched in 2019. Now Fantasy Figures International (FFI) has reached Issue 6, so it’s time for another look. Mat Irvine: FFI seems to have settled down to doing ‘what it says on the tin.’ Early issues included some articles on subjects that were not really ‘fantasy,’ more traditional historic figures, but that was probably down to gathering enough articles to fill the pages. But now the vast majority of features back up the fantasy label. OK, in this issue there is an article on the Millennium Falcon , but that’s OK as Star Wars is generally regarded more as ‘fantasy’ than ‘scientific’ science fiction, even if the Falcon is a spacecraft, not a figure. There are quite a few manufactures of fantasy figures. Some traditional kit companies are represented – two examples in this issue are Hasegawa and Airfix – but most models are from smaller ‘garage’ companies, such as Evolution Miniaures. Intriguingly, two articles in this issue of FFI use the s...