Quick question for the folks at FSM. Over the years there have been fewer and fewer pics in the Gallery of SF-themed models. Even after the article on Gundam kits ( which I personally have no interest in, but are relatively popular ), none of the mecha have appeared in the magazine. My question is why?
Is it overlap ( seen it in the Gallery before )? Are the submissions not considered good enough to add to the mag ( someone snap-fitting a kit and not even painting it or something like that )? Maybe there just aren’t any pictures being submitted? I’m just curious.
Thanks.
I couldn’t even find my way back to “normal” with the Hubble!
Yeah Kugai, I think it’s a submission problem.
As you can see by the amount of posts in the science fiction forum, the average science fiction modeler doesn’t seem very prone to participation, I’m afraid. I think it’s more a question of lack of participants more than a lack of quality.
Unfortunately, most of my SF stuff is back in the States in storage, and most of what I do these days is armor, so I don’t really have anything to contibute myself, other than in the forums.
There is a Billiken Mecha-Godzilla 2 and a Tsukuda Irisu (from Gamera III) in the closet…perhaps I should crack into them and submit?
It’s a shame since there are a ton of us out there. The STARSHIPMODELER.COM boards are full of sci-fi modelers with some amazing subject material. I think it is a chicken and egg thing:
the sci-fi modelers think FSM doesn’t do enough sci-fi so they don’t read or submit
the non sci-fi modelers think there isn’t enough interest since there aren’t more submissions.
How do we fix it? Not sure. I guess we just need someone to submit… perhaps I can organize something to have someone submit from teh starshipmodeler.com boards.
By the way… I did see that Raiders of the Lost Ark flying wing article. I thought it was a great conversion piece, but still had the military aircraft flair… not really a true sci-fi, IMHO.
would it be possible for FSM to start a sci-fi column in the magazine to spark up more interest in submitting? Only one page would work fine most likely at first, since I know that paper=money since I work in the same field (mail order catalog)… I think it would be interesting to see a one page article every month detailing a sci-fi model that someone might have submitted… or are there really no sci-fi submissions being made? it’s kinda hard to believe…
to tell you the truth, the only reason that i haven’t subscribed to FSM yet is because of the lack of Sci-Fi coverage… not that big of a deal really to me, since I still get every issue almost off the newstands, cause there’s usually some good article that i can conver to Sci-Fi use, but I would love to see more Sci-Fi coverage in the mag…
Look no further than the November issue; it’ll have a big how-to feature on electrifying a Klingon Bird of Prey (i.e., adding LEDs and other lighting elements).
If it goes over well, perhaps it’ll encourage more sci-fi items in the magazine.
I doubt if we’ll ever be able to run enough material please people who build all sci-fi all the time, but I’m wondering if we could get some good response from modelers who do mostly FSM’s aircraft-armor-ships subjects but who like to do the occasional sci-fi/movie/fantasy item?
With the Star Wars series seeming to be losing steam and Star Trek pretty much having run its course (except for the current TV series) and Babylon 5 having passed on to re-run land, maybe we’re in a fallow period for sci-fi? (You have to be, uh, a certain age to remember Space: 1999 and Battlestar Galactica, not to mention the brief “new” Buck Rogers TV series ca. 1980…) As specialty niches, these subjects seem to be thriving, but right now there doesn’t seem to be the mass-market popularity to fuel the production of new kits.
That’s a shame, because I remember them all, and remember the flurry of kits that followed them… It’s a shame that the interest hasn’t continued on a large scale. Everyone was building this stuff when it was new and popular.
I’m afraid Lawrence is right. The predominate kits available are all Star Wars / Star Trek, and why run an Enterprise feature for the upteenth time? I love Sci-Fi but a lot of the really cool kits are OOP; i.e. the Halcyon ‘Aliens’ series and S.F.3.D. - gone to collectible status now. (Though S.F.3.D’s are being re-issued under the Maschinen Kreiger label - definately worth a look!). The only other semi-recent issues I can think of are the two iD4 kits by Lindberg and the ‘Lost in Space’ kits by Polar Lights. I rekon Sci-Fi modelers need to start hammering the kit manufacturers to produce a kit of (insert your suggestion here).
While it’s true that there’s not a lot of sci-fi movies or TV shows right now, I wonder why we as modelers will go ga ga over a new molding of a sixty-year-old plane like a P-61, but hardly anyone remembers 20-year-old (or more) sci-fi like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rodgers.
Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Gallactica, etc arent the only Sci-Fi models out there though, there is a TON of anime inspired Sci-Fi kits, Gundam, Macross, etc… you can find some of the simpler Gundam kits even at walmart… there is a younger crowd to them, but that doesnt mean some of them aren’t older like myself. And how dare you say Star Wars is loosing steam!! (hehe, im a huge SW fanboy, so don;t mind that last comment… :))
Folks,
If it seems like the major sci-fi franchises are losing steam, then why not focus on modelers who do their own thing and making up sci-fi models of their own design? I remember the January 1987 issue of FSM, where we saw a showcase of Randy Cooper’s original designs in model form. In that case and several others where modelers used their own designs, our hobby really got elevated to an art form. One reason people are interested in science fiction is that it helps us imagine our future. Models are an excellent vehicle for such visualization. I have run into a distinct lack of kits of the types of things I want to build, so I’m using found objects and kit parts to develop my own designs. When I get my first model done, which will be a freighter, FSM will be the first to get a photo. You already know this, but if we want to develop the sci-fi wing of our hobby more, then we need to lead from the front.
Howdy, folks!
Been over to the Sci-Fi forum lately?
Things seem to be be picking up a bit!
I think there’s been more activity and pix posting in the last week than in the 6 months I’ve been a member here!