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Polar Lights Model Kits: A sneak peek at the new 1:144 scale C-57D
We announced our plans last year at Wonderfest to do a 1:144 scale model of the C-57D flying saucer and the project is nearing completion. Here is a behind the scenes look at some of its development.
Everyone is aware of our larger 1:72 scale kit. It is legendary for its difficulty in finding a place to display it, measuring in at 28” in diameter. We knew that the smaller kit would be rather simple and that the interior detail that the larger model presented would not be featured in this one. We did want to maintain the opening landing ramps and offer both the central landing pillar was well as a lower dome cap to replace it to display in a flying position. Other than that, we put no faith in anything found in the large kit. We knew of the upper dome profile so we didn’t trust that and figured the rest of the kit’s proportions would be just as unreliable.
In the early stages, we strongly considered using a system of three pie wedges for each of the upper and lower saucers in order to keep tooling costs in check. We could then use three copies of each part drawn from a smaller tool. Every modeler we mentioned this to hated the idea and after taking another look at things, we determined to go the extra mile and do it right with solid upper and lower saucer parts.
As with most sci-fi subject matter, the first thing we needed to decide on what size would the “real” ship be and what size would we want to make our model kit? We had a ballpark size in mind based on the tooling budget we had allotted. We just needed to figure out what logical scale might fall within our range. The first thought was to go to half of the scale of the larger kit and shoot for 1:144. With a 28” diameter being cut down to 14”, the kit was going to be too big. My second inclination was to use 1:200 scale based on the saucer diameter I had found in a set of plans that stated a 162’ 9” diameter. That would have provided us with an approximate diameter of around 10”. I also looked into 1:144 scale at that scale and found that to be over a foot in diameter. This was a bit bigger than we had planned, but we decided it would make the most sense, but further research would be needed to nail down that size.
We enlisted Jim Small to do the research and to draw up a set of plans for the kit. As we explored figuring out what size the kit would ultimately be, we found that the proportions of the measurements we had found did not match those of the filming miniature. We felt pretty beholden to the height measurement of 38’ 6” that was based on the movie set which had pictured real men standing under the ship. If anyone wanted to do a diorama using 1:144 scale figures, the height would need to work with that in mind. We then took that consideration and used photos of the large filming miniature to determine the diameter would end up around 144’ which presented a handy 1-foot diameter for our kit.
Jim used screen grabs and photos of the filming miniatures to draw up the plans based on our final measurements. As he worked through the kit, he engineered a simple spring mechanism that would hold the ramp doors open or closed without having to glue them in one position or the other. Besides the detail the ramps present, the other interior detail we added to the kit is the inner motor “cage” that we see rotating in the lower dome when the ship is in flight.
As usual, the factory created a digital version of the ship for us to critique. Thanks to the quality of Jim’s blueprints, we only found a few minor matters to correct. Eventually they supplied a physical mockup that, again, had few things to complain about. The tooling was cut and test shots were sent. We tidied up a few things here and there. Jim did the buildup for us and the product is on track to be released this Spring. Here are a few images from along the way.
Polar Lights model kits: Clawing our way to the top
A few months back I showed the initial sculpts for our upcoming Marvel Comics Wolverine model kit. That covered the digital work done to create the basis of the model. This report shows the next steps- the factory digital file work and mockup of the kit parts.
Once the digital sculpt was done, the model was processed and we had a rapid prototype built for Wonderfest. We then sent both the files and prototype to the factory. They made the decision to use the digital files for the figure and the prototype to create the base. I am guess thing they went this route because the base looked more… irregular in that it was a mechanical object that had been battle damaged. With some “artifacts” in the RP, it looked even more beaten that we had intended.
Sculpting for injection molding and for a rapid prototype or resin casting are different animals in that we can’t necessarily capture every single detail of the sculpt. A certain amount of revision needs to be made to alleviate mold-trapping problems. Another hurdle is that the person making the mockup is not an artist trained in understanding human anatomy. They don’t realize that shaving a bump off here or moving one there might be cause for concern. In the images of the mockup you can see a few spots where I circled a spot on his leg where they had shaved a muscle off to fix a trapping problem. Not the best solution, but that is why we do the mockup. This is the stage where all of these kinds of problems get worked out.
The colorful images shown are images captured from the factory’s digital mockup. With these files, I can explore the model by hiding or showing the parts and examining cross-section views. It allows me to turn it to virtually any angle. This gives me a clear idea of what to expect in the model.
Once the digital 3D file is settled, the next stage is to make a full-blown mockup of the kit. This represents every aspect of the kit from size to assembly. There are always little things to tweak and change up. This kit was no different. Probably the biggest adjustment we made was to raise the angle of the head up a few degrees to keep him looking eye to eye with the viewer.
We should have some test shots of the kit around Christmas. I’ll be sure to post pics of that when I can.
Star Trek Models: TMP Cadet Series
With the huge deal the big Enterprise has been, I don’t want to gloss over a few cool kits that might not measure up… (badumpump kish!) As mentioned back at Wonderfest, we are bringing out a new Star Trek: The Motion Picture Cadet Series set which includes a newly tooled U.S.S. Enterprise Refit, U.S.S. Reliant and Klingon K’t’inga Battle Cruiser all in 1:2500 scale. I want to take a minute to give these little kits their due.
We had Angelo Bastianelli do the computer work on these to get us started. I worked with him to noodle out all of the details to get everything just right. Those files were sent to the factory where they were adjusted for production and parted out. We received test shots a few months back and we have had a few rounds of adjustments to get all of the parts to snap perfectly. As you can see by Jim Small’s work on our buildups, the ships came out great. As usual, the kits come with all the decals you will need to get al of the paneling details on the Enterprise and Reliant. Look for the kits to hit store shelves right at the turn of the New Year and keep an eye out for a TOS Cadet set in 2013 (more details on that later).
Round 2 Models: Alien
I’m not going to say much in this post. I’ll let the image speak for itself for a while.
We will have more news on the Alien license at Wonderfest. Feel free to speculate until then. 🙂
Polar Lights Model kits: Wolverine model kit development
I’ve said many times before I’m a lifelong comic book collector. As a young kid, I was into the standard Superman, Batman and Spider-Man fare. I loved team books like the Justice League of America and the Avengers. If I already had the current issue of my favorite solo characters, I’d buy the book that had the most costumed heroes in it. As I grew older, I started actually READING the books instead of just looking at the pretty pictures. One day I stumbled across a comic I hadn’t eve noticed before and picked up X-men #136. My fellow readers can probably tell you that this was at the point where the X-men were growing in popularity among readers due to the classic work of writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne whose run on the title was building to a crescendo. No one outside of comics really knew about the X-men. They could point out Superman or the Hulk, but they wouldn’t be able to tell you who Colossus was. This issue hooked me and I loved every character in the book. A few years later Wolverine was got the spotlight treatment in his own mini-series and the story presented him as a deep, but savage and ruthless character. Over time, the X-men and especially Wolverine continued to grow in popularity until the rest of the world caught on. I still read Wolverine and X-men comics and they are all in incredibly different places now, but some of my fondest comic book memories are of the guy that claimed, “I’m the best there is at what I do… but what I do isn’t very nice…”
So it was with those fond memories in mind that I began our Polar Lights Wolverine model kit development. I wanted to keep him in his 70’s/80’s era look and landed on the yellow version of the suit mainly because that’s the one he started gaining popularity in. I also figured that anyone wanting to see a later version costume could omit the shoulder cuffs and with a little putty filling and sanding could make the brown suit version or with further mods create a more contemporary look. My goal was to make a great looking kit in his classic costume and keep it in reach to make any other version a modeler might want.
For the base, I originally considered making it out of a mass of dead Hellfire Club goons or ninjas. I felt ninjas would, by design, cause too many trapping problems on the tool. After thinking about how much more it would probably costs to sculpt several figures lying in a pile, I abandoned the Hellfire Club goons pretty quickly. Besides as villains, they weren’t terribly recognizable by anyone but longtime X-men fans. I landed on doing a Sentinel head. Even though they aren’t considered Wolverine’s arch foe, they were the villains in the classic “Days of Future Past” storyline in the Claremont/Byrne run in which Wolverine played a key roll. They would return to battle the X-men on several occasions. Besides, robots are cool and anyone who isn’t a die-hard would accept it as a normal occurrence for Wolverine to have taken down a big one.
So here I show my original control drawing of the model. I wanted to capture a pose with plenty of movement for plenty of great views in the round. It was important for m to have the Sentinel look like he had lost a fight and supply plenty of room for additional detail in the eyes, mouth and other wounds. (I can’t wait to see someone add some fiber optic spark effects) We’ll be including the unmasked head, but the second set of claws has gone by the wayside.
We hired Erick Sosa to sculpt the kit for us. If you are familiar with the many licensed resin statue products on the market, you may know his work. He has sculpted some great ones including iconic Punisher and Deadpool figures. Erick sculpts digitally in Zbrush and works on the look of the figure before posing it. This shows his initial sculpt which I deemed to be too contemporary for what I intended for this kit. The look of the character was too close to how we see him in comics today rather than his “bronze age” appearance. I wanted to stylize him slightly to make him look more like a character from a comic book rather than a real guy in a suit. We had to weigh the realism we can achieve today with the flavor of an Aurora-style figure. I think we ended up striking the perfect balance.
Here is a look at the Sentinel head before getting battle damaged. Figuring out the “waterline” was no easy task. As with all comics, the drawing allows any number of cheats, but translating it into real life gets tricky. I had designed it with an exact angle in mind that would result in a clean pull from the steel tooling. Conceptually, besides the rectangular shapes around his head and the structural damage protruding from the eye socket, it could be made as one piece. Whether or not this will be the case remains to be seen.
A look at the sculpt and images of the factory’s digital mockup next time…
Star Trek model kits- Galileo Shuttle
Hi all. I know all of you 1701 Club members are anxiously waiting to find out what is going on. Update #8 is finished and should be sent out soon. Many have been asking when we will ask for payment information and you may be assuming the worst that delivery has been delayed… and unfortunately it has a little bit. Fear not though. All development is complete and the kit is currently in production. Details will be in the update.
This blog post might not fill the void left from the above statement, but still we must carry on.
Hopefully you have had a chance to review our Wonderfest video that went live as of my last post. If you stayed tuned in until the end, you found out that the winner of our poll was the 1:32 scale Galileo shuttle! It seems that the Galileo benefited from a grassroots movement that made it the clear winner. I was surprised, but not shocked by the result.
All of the candidates were strong contenders. Some have made the point that with so many great subjects to choose form, some kind of cannibalized the votes of others. If, say, either the Reliant or K’tinga had been left off the ballot that the remaining 1:1000 scale craft would have drawn the votes of the other and therefor put it over the top. I purposely tried to stay out of the nomination process. As long as the winning kit would fit what we had in mind for the size and budget, I knew whatever won would do well. But, I didn’t want to limit the choices in any way. Why? Because I wanted the modeling public to get a taste of the decisions we have to make when it comes to our product line. Our range of choices are also nearly unlimited. Whether it is another Star Trek kit or any other license there are tons of great subjects deserving of being made into a great kit. Figuring out where to start is the trick.
You might wonder if any of the other contenders could get made someday. I threw out several ideas at the presentation covering several types of kits from many properties. In the perfect world of my mind, they would all get made some day. The disappointing truth is that I doubt that 100% of them will get done, but they are all on a list of kits I pull out each year to determine what we will do next. I’ll need to weigh our tooling budget and licensing responsibilities against popular demand.
When it comes to creating brand new kits, we need to hit a home run every time. With reissues, if something doesn’t sell well, we are only out the time it took to create the packaging, etc. But if a newly tooled kit fails, the chances of getting another one made lessens. We have heard the demand for NEW kits and we are putting a plan into action to create new tooling. It will be up to you guys to vote with your wallets to tell us you want more.
Getting back to the Galileo, Gary has already begun digging into the project. As you know getting the interior set to fit within the craft as seen on the show is impossible so our work is cut out for us. We have already started discussions on what kind of details we hope to include in the kit. We will do our best to get the kit finished and on store shelves by the end of 2013. I’ll keep you updated as we progress.
Next week… Wolverine…
Round 2 Models: And the winner is…
Believe it or not, I’m still here working away on Round 2 Models of all kinds. Just like you I wish I could have posted sooner than this. Many people have been clamoring for a 1701 Club update. Of course so much time and work has gone by that I have a lot to write about. So much so that as I’ve been writing it, I’ve come to the realization that I will probably have to find a way to break it up into two reports. Besides the 1701 Club, many people are waiting with baited breath to hear what ship won the poll I talked about in my last blog post. More on that in just a bit…
I have a sliver of time this week where I think I can write up several blog posts showing progress on some of the projects I mentioned at Wonderfest. I’ve already got some test shots on the Motion Picture Cadet kits, a few versions of the Wolverine kit digital files and I’ve have reviewed he mockup for the Robby the Robot kit featuring Altaira. I should also be seeing the 1:144 C-57D mockup soon. I look forward to sharing some behind the scenes looks at these kits similar to what I’ve been sharing in 1701 Club updates. I’m not sure I’ll have time to get quite as in-depth as those reports have been, but there will still be plenty to share. Once I get them written, I’ll schedule them to release once or twice a week.
Back to the poll results… as you may know, we recorded video footage of this year’s Wonderfest presentation just like we did last year. We had hoped to get it finished and posted some time ago (like before the poll went live) but as things usually happen, other fires got in the way. That isn’t to say we haven’t been working on it all along. Modelman Tom is well known for his Youtube model kit reviews and he has been putting in all kinds of time on our video to make it extra-special and much more entertaining than last year’s edition. As production on the video has wrapped up, the poll has also come to a close. So like a Reese’s peanut butter cup, two great things have come together. So as they say… WITHOUT FURTHER ADO… Check out the 2012 edition of our Wonderfest presentation video to find out the poll winner!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIbgnXVOZDU
After you’ve viewed it, give us some feedback and let us know what you think.
Round 2 Model Kits: And away we go…!
A month has gone by since Wonderfest and this is the first sliver of time that I’ve been able to quickly jot down some vital info to recap. (as usual, things are super busy in my wing of Round 2 Models) I know everyone has been waiting to hear the details of some of our announcements. Right now, I’m going to give a quick rundown. I’ll be able to go into more detail later on as the kits progress. So without further delay away we go…
New kits-
Dirty Donny’s Two Much – As announced in our last enewsletter, we will be producing a kit based on this Kar Kulture artist’s character design. He’s a crazy-kewl creature that will include several decal options to decorate him with.
Forbidden Planet Robby the Robot Movie Poster Edition- This kit will recreate the classic poster. It will consist of several parts from the existing kit, but with new legs, Altaira (as depicted in the poster) and base with cardboard standup.
Forbidden Planet C-57D 1:144 scale- We are happy to offer the classic flying saucer in a size that will fit on your bookshelf. The model is based on all new research and will not be based on our 1:72 scale kit. It will feature parts for a landed or flying pose including opening and closing landing ramps.
Marvel Comics Wolverine- The fan favorite character gets the treatment he deserves in a plastic model kit. He will be offered in his yellow costume as depicted in the early days of the character. He comes with two head options, masked and unmasked.
Star Trek TMP Cadet Series 3 ship set featuring new tools of the U.S.S. Enterprise Refit, U.S.S. Reliant & Klingon K’tinga as 1:2500 scale snap kits. The Refit and Reliant will come with the surface decals just like previous Cadet kits. The hope is to release at least one kit or themed set like this one each year to expand on the Cadet Series.
New licenses-
Elvis- Yes, he seems to have returned to the building. We are exploring an HO scale Graceland and possibly figural kits. We will see what the future holds for the king.
Wizard of Oz- The first kit we will look at doing is the Wicked Witch of the West in 1:8 scale. Depending on the reaction to this kit, we will take a look at doing the rest of the cast of characters from the iconic film.
DC Comics- Our approach to the Wolverine kit should give some indication into how we plan on creating new figural kits of some of the most widely recognized characters in the world. They will be well posed and detailed, but with a hint of nostalgia mixed in. Our initial ideas are for Superman and Batman kits inspired by some classic comic scenes and artists.
Iron Giant- Though this isn’t technically a new license for us, it was the first we had announced the possibility that we could do a kit form the animated film.
What comes next?
Our biggest announcement is that we are reaching out to the modeling community to decide one of our 2013 kit releases. The audience in attendance at our presentation took an active role to determine who the candidates will be. Everyone is eligible to cast their vote. Go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6HFNN6Zto answer a few questions for us and vote for one of the following kits
1:1000 scale U.S.S. Reliant
1:1000 scale Klingon K’tinga
1:32 scale TOS Galileo shuttle
1:2500 scale U.S.S. Akira
I2” tall Iron Giant
We are putting the finishing touches on our youtube video of our presentation. We have a lot more in the mix this year so please be patient as we get it all tidied up. We hope to have it ready in the next couple weeks. I’ll let you know as soon as it is finished.
Round 2 Model Kits: Wonderfest – All This Is Ready To Be Won…
Sci-fi and figure modelers everywhere are scrambling to finish their entries for the annual sci-fi modeling contest at Wonderfest and it is no different for us here at Round 2 Models. The show is being held May 26 & 27th in Lousiville, KY and we have our work cut out for us as we prepare. We won’t be entering the contest, but we are sponsoring a couple model contest awards this year and that is just the beginning of the fun!
We will issue special awards for the best use of a Round 2 brand model kit by an adult and another for the best use by a junior/teen. Any AMT, MPC or Polar Lights kit can qualify. We know you guys do a lot of kit bashing and modifying. To qualify, the use of our kit has to be easily recognizable.
On top of that, we will have our usual display of product, our annual modeling survey and have a special little giveaway. But wait, there’s more…
First test shots of our new 1:350 scale TOS U.S.S. Enterprise will be fresh off the press and we will be making two available to the public at the show. Members of the 1701 Club that attend the show can enter a drawing for one set. The second set will be available to anyone through the show’s silent auction. Take home an Enterprise before anyone else and support a great charity at the same time! But that’s not all…
Come to our presentation at 12 noon on Saturday to hear about the progress of the big E, be the first to hear about other new kits coming by the end of 2012 and find out how you can help us decide the next new kit we will put into development. That’s right, the crowd in attendance at our presentation will have an opportunity to help us decide what brand new kit will be added to our 2013 release list!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Round 2 Model Kits: Defying Expectations
I’ve been hinting at new Round 2 model kit product announcements from time to time. I don’t take any joy in being coy or secretive. I’d rather let you guys know what we are up to, but history has shown we are better holding off on announcing development plans until we have something substantive to show for it. Generally, we like to hold off on making most of our major announcements for shows like Wonderfest or iHobby where we can see your immediate reactions. Wonderfest is just around the corner (May 26 & 27) and we can’t wait to reveal some pretty exciting plans for later this year. We’ve decided to let one small tidbit out now to give you a taste of things to come.
I asked a while back for some input about the scale of the Deep Space 9 kit. We have already let it be known that the kit is coming back and we are looking at a Fall release for it. The kit will be injected in clear ABS plastic and will come with window templates to benefit modelers that feel like lighting it up. For those that don’t want to take that step, window decals will accompany the kit for the first time. That might all seem kind of “ho-hum.” That is the kind of treatment we give all of our re-releases. The exciting news is that we will also be including a 1:2500 scale U.S.S. Defiant this time around! (and not just a glow in the dark copy of our U.S.S. Enterprise kit) This will be a brand new snap-together model of the Defiant as featured in the Deep Space 9 TV show. It will measure approximately 2 5/8” long and will be comprised of 6 pieces. The images show the first look at the digital model the factory will use to cut the tool.
Like I said, this is just a taste of things to come. We will have plenty more to talk about at Wonderfest. We made one of the biggest announcements in modeling last year. What are we going to do next? Let me just say, you will want to be sure to attend our panel session this year. I’ll be talking more about that, as we get closer to the show.
