14 Full Metal Jacket
HobbyBoss 1/32 F-84G
Thunderjet by Guy GoodwinFREE KITS!
N
ow that was a shameless
way to catch your eye, but
in fact it is almost true.
Sometimes the unsung heroes
of our magazine are the team
who build our review kits. Many
of these have been featured in
this title for many many years
and a few have gone on to write
full build photo features.
In fact, that is exactly how I
started when I went to my first
IPMS club meeting and met
Alan Hall, a name many will
remember for his 30 years of
editing model magazines. It was
Alan who seeing my latest kit
persuaded me to try my hand at
writing a review article. At the
time I was just married and living
in a small one bed flat, so my
modelling was restricted to a lap
tray with a storage area for my
tools on top of the fridge freezer.
I remember that kit well it was
Academy’s then new, B-29 which in1991 had just been released and was
a major improvement on the Airfix
kit, which had been released 25
years earlier. I also remember what
a challenge it was as I had never
built such a large kit before and
achieving an overall natural metal
finish in the days before the range
of metal lacquers and paints we
have today was a major challenge.
So, a month later I had a large
B-29 model for photography and
in those days my only camera
was an old 35mm compact and
I remember taking two reels of
film, then taking them to Boots
to get them developed only to
find from my 48 photographs I
had only two that were useable.
Onto the final chapter I had
to write about it! For me that
was by far the hardest part,
handwriting longhand over a
whole week to produce just 400
words on the build and then
persuading my lovely wife to
type it up and proofread my first
effort. If only she knew what that
that first article would lead to!
Fast forward 27 years and howthings have changed. Nearly all
of us have mobile phones that
have cameras that easily exceed
the capabilities of my 35mm
compact and you have instant
access to the photographs to see
if they are any good. Also, there
is a vast range of editing tools
available, which can sort a lot of
the issues that you may have.
Access to the web means
researching the history, colour
and markings is easy while most
computers come with a word
processing program that even
checks spelling and grammar.
Though my wife and our proof
reader are still vital for me.
So nearly everyone can build
a review kit take a photograph
and write 500 words about the
build or so you would think?
In fact, my current team
are struggling to keep up with
the number of kits that despite
the moans that the hobby is in
a poor state continue to arrive
each week. So that’s where
the free kits offer comes in.
I am looking for new reviewteam members for 1/48 scale and
smaller who can take a couple of
good photographs of the finished
model and also write a couple
of hundred words and of course
build to a good but not necessarily
medal winning standard!
Up for the challenge? Well
just send a couple of photographs
of your latest build and a short
review to david@sampublications.
com and you never know
where it may lead to just like
I did all those years ago!
Until then enjoy the latest
issue of your magazine.David Francis, Editor
[email protected]Subscribe
see page 544 • AUGUST 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
WELCOME
Scale Aviation Modeller International
August 2018 • Volume 24 • Issue 8004-05-Contents-0818.indd 4 12/07/2018 11: