My Hasegawa Ki-45 Nick in FSM

I’ve written an “Airbrushing and Finishing” feature for Finescale Modeler magazine about my Little Nick. As I described in a previous post, I added most of a resin cockpit, scratch built the engines and gear bays and added other details. I then painted the model, including the markings, with Tamiya acrylics. You can read about the […]

Remember Model Ads in Comic Books?

Most people spring clean. I do too but I get the most cleaning done in the fall. And by cleaning I mean purging. The rule I have adopted is “if I have not touched it in 2 years, then out it goes.” But there are a few exceptions: Stuff that doesn’t actually belong to me […]

The 2019 Ottawa Scale Auto Contest Report

Now I know what you are thinking: Are there model aircraft at a model car show? Absolutely! And I will get to that below, because there were some great ones! The 6th Annual Ottawa Scale Auto Contest was held on a very rainy Sunday on October 27, 2019. Since its inception in 2014, it has been […]

2019 IPMS Ottawa CapCon Show

Held on September 28, 2019 at the unique and wonderful Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, CapCon is the bi-annual scale model show and contest hosted by IPMS Ottawa. It’s Been Ten Years?!?!? CapCon is the first contest I ever went to (2007) and the first contest I ever entered (2009). I still remember being a […]

A Model Maker Revival: Scale Models and Social Media

It seems a bit silly to be discussing the virtues of Social Media & scale models in a WordPress blog post. Has Social Media hit scale modeling? Of course it has. Has this been a good thing? Of course it has – even if there are some downsides. I believe one of the biggest changes in this […]

Hobby Stores Bucking the Trend – The Hobby Centre (Ottawa, Ontario)

We hear a lot about the demise of the hobby and certainly the demise of the brick and mortar hobby shop. Of course the internet, China, Japan, video games, expensive kits, lack of youth interest, the economy, oil prices, and the way the winds are blowing that day are a few the many reasons for […]

AMRO 2019: A small show brought to you for 30 years.

Last weekend I attended the annual contest and model show put on by the Association de Modeles Reduits de l’Outaouais – otherwise known as AMRO. As far as I can tell, this is a small local club that meets regularly in the home of one of the organizers. AMRO is not affiliated with any formal society like IPMS […]

Finding Inspiration: A Visit to the Canada Aviation & Space Museum

I love pretty much anything aviation related. I love seeing airplanes, reading about them, building models of them and for a short while – actually flying them. And when it comes to seeing actual planes, I really enjoy visiting aviation oriented museums. I have featured several aviation museum visits on Model Airplane Maker: A Visit […]

Tamiya’s 1/48 P-38 Lightning and the Significance of ‘Miss Virginia’

When the announcement of Tamiya’s latest 1/48 scale release hit, I could only think of my “wish list” from back in January 2019. There I wished not only for a Tamiya 1/48 Lightning, I also wished that it would be an early variant with “Miss Virginia” markings. Earlier this year I got to see a […]

1/72 Hasegawa Ki-45 Nick

When I decided to go to the 2018 Nationals, I wanted to compete and not make a fool of myself. I figured the only way I could safely bring a model with me was as a carry-on. That meant something small that could be protected in a small box; something that could easily fit into […]