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Round 2 Models: Ever heard of this old show called Star Trek?
You know, it had been a long, long time since I had watched an episode of the Original Series of Star Trek. I’m not sure if I had seen one since my elementary school days before we signed up the license. I remembered it fondly but I fell into the “Star Wars guy” division of sci-fi fandom. I couldn’t help it, it was all the timing of the thing. Sure I had seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the big screen but it didn’t have the quick pace of Star Wars. What can I say? I was just a kid.
Fast forward to the last year or so. Once we lined up the license, I went back and watched a few old episodes over the net. I had to do a google search to find out which episodes were supposed to be the best. It was a novelty for a while. I watched a few episodes of the remastered show before it too was cancelled.(around here at least) Then I asked for and received the first season on Blu-ray. I watched a few episodes and marveled at the beauty of the cinematography, the lighting, etc. It is a beauty to watch.
As I was working on the K7 Space Station illustration, I played old episodes over the net again. I concentrated on the second and third seasons since I has season 1 waiting for me downstairs. There is a lot more good stuff than I remembered. Then this last weekend, I watched a couple disks worth of season 1 while assembling test shots. I’m just past half way through season 1 now. I have to admit, I feel like a fan now. I genuinely like the show whereas I had just respected it and remembering liking it as a kid. I can take it seriously now I guess.
What I’ve found is that my personal preference is that I like the episodes where they stay on the Enterprise more than the ones where they have an away mission. Stand out episodes…
Balance of Terror – My favorite single episode. The Romulan Bird of Prey is becoming one of my favorite ships. I can’t stand Yeoman Rand though. I’m interested to see what order the episodes were filmed in. This one seems pretty early even though it aired in the middle of the season.
Carbomite Maneuver – It was good until we got to Ronny Howard’s ugly little brother as the big bad. Couldn’t take it seriously after that.
The Menagerie– I liked everything that happened in the “present” much better than the stuff from the pilot.
Trouble With Tribbles – I LOVE Scotty. He’s by far my favorite character and the fight scene sealed that.
Mirror Mirror – Made me want to shave my beard into a goatee so I could become evil.
Whom Gods Destroy – Green Yvonne Craig… Yum. It dawned on me while watching this one that Star Trek has to be the show with the highest babe guest stars per capita. Virtually every episode had an outstanding guest-babe that put today’s starlets to shame… except for Yeoman Rand. I still don’t like her…
Let That Be You Last Battlefield – I’m not one for having to “think” about my sci-fi but even as heavy handed as their social message was in that one, it was done very well.
Shore Leave – started VERY weak but ended pretty strong.
Squire of Golthos – I’ll never get that 45 minutes back again. It seems like I either love an episode or hate it. There are only a few I would say fall between. This is the worst I’ve seen so far.
Other favs in no particular order… Tholian Web, Doomsday Machine, Galileo 7, Naked Time, Immunity Syndrome, Amok Time, The Enterprise Incident, Deadly Years and The Ultimate Computer.
With all that said, I can’t wait to put my hands to work on more Star Trek TOS projects for Round 2 models.
Round 2 Model Kits: On the Air
We were recently invited to be guests on a radio show out west. I know you are thinking “why us”? and that’s exactly what we thought too. It turns out that Steve Kates hosts a radio program out west called the Dr. Sky show. It is a show about all aspects of space from real science to science fiction and pretty much everything in between. He contacted us to see if we would be interested in coming on his show and discussing some of our Round 2 model kits. To be honest, we were a little weary, not of Dr. Sky but ourselves. Bob can talk at the drop of a hat (though he won’t admit it) and I usually clam up under pressure. We felt like it was an opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up.
Feel free to give it a listen. You can download our interview here.
Star Trek model kits: A New K-7 Box Illustration
I had the opportunity, so I had to make the time to do a new box illustration for the K-7 Space Station Star trek model kit. It was a fun change. I had to decide whether to do an image showing the “real” station as seen in “Trouble With Tribbles” or more likely “Trials and Tribblations”. I decided it would be best to just paint it as the kit since that’s what’s in the box. The kit is way off model (pun intended) from how the station looked in the shows.
I had hoped to achieve an old school look with this one. Since it is going on a retro style box I was hoping to emulate the look of the boxes of the other vintage Star Trek model kits. I overworked it so it got too tight for me to call it a success from that standpoint. (I need to loosen up) This is the raw scan so it will probably look quite a bit different once I tweak the colors and do a little retouching.
I’d estimate about 30 hours in it. b/g including ships was all done with acrylics. The station itself was rendered in 15 year old bullet point Design markers. (I chickened out of painting the whole thing or airbrushing it after the last illo.) I went back in with colored pencil here and there and a few touches of gouache.
Round 2 Model Kits: A Genuine Article
I may have noted here or elsewhere that we are open to posting articles written by modeling fans on our website. The subject could be about any Round 2 model kit. It sometimes takes a while to get them edited and posted up but it is a great way to share insights with others about our kits.
The article can basically be about anything. If you want to review a new kit, write about an advanced modeling or want to talk about the history behind any given kit, feel free to submit a pitch. We ask that you be able to write well, take nice photographs as needed to communicate your story and be willing to take a little bit of direction if we feel something could be tweaked about the article itself. What do you get in return? Why kits, of course.
Be sure to see our website for past articles by Bob, Jim Small, Mark Budniewski, Kurt Brown, and myself. They cover many aspects of modeling but there are an infinite number of topics to explore. Take a look in our ARTICLES or WORKBENCH sections of the website.
Round 2 reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to use or not use any submitted Material. Any parties submitting any idea or written or photographic material (“Material”) warrants that the Material is original with the submitter and does not infringe the copyright or other right of any third party. Further, the submitter agrees that, by submitting the Material, Round 2 or its affiliates and assignees have submitter’s consent to use the Material in any manner whatsoever without further consent or authorization or without compensation to the submitter. By submitting the Material, submitter releases Round 2 or any affiliated party from any liability to submitter or any third party, and in the case of any claim by a third party, submitter agrees to indemnify Round 2.
U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 Refit: IT’S HERE!
In case you might not have heard, we’ve been developing a 1:1000 scale U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 Refit. It’s kind of been a big thing.
Well, they came in today. I bet they all fly back out today too. More are on the way. This batch should hit distributors next week and then they’ll go on to retailers soon after. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
Round 2 Model Kits, WeTube… see what I did there?
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Start your subscription today and let’s see where it all goes — we’re just getting started!
Star Trek Model Kits: To “B” or not to “B”…
Long story short (don’t worry it’ll get longer again in a minute) is that we ran into a snag in our plans to re-release the 1:1400 Enterprise 1701D. I’m not going into that right now. To be honest, the result of looking for a replacement kit is much more intriguing anyway.
We keep a handful of kit ideas in our back pocket in case our intended plans go awry (which happens all too often). On our backup list is the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701B and U.S.S. Reliant. Personally, I like the design of the Reliant but I’ve always seen an overwhelming amount of support for bringing back the B or the Excelsior. To be honest, I wasn’t very familiar with the B. I had seen ST: Generations when it came out years ago but I think we can all agree it was a pretty forgettable film. I barely remembered the Excelsior. In my mind it was the new ship that could live up to the A. It wasn’t until recently that I re-watched that one again to see that it was Scotty’s ingenuity that made the ship stall out.
We were scrambling to figure out which kit to do. So I put some feelers out. I asked Jim Small, our go-to buildup guru about the Reliant and the B and then I put a poll out on Starship Modeler. Between these two sources, I knew I’d quickly be educated on the state of the kits and get a better feeling about which way to go. It seemed like the majority of folks who liked the B actually would have preferred the Excelsior. This led to a lot of discussion on the board about what state the tool of the B would be in. Had the tool been permanently altered to transform the Excelsior kit into the Enterprise B? It became a case of model kit archeology- determining a hypothesis, investigating the clues, waiting for the vault to be opened to find out the truth…
I could see the differences between the ships but I had never cracked open a copy of the kit. In fact, at the time, all we had was the Excelsior. Jim had copies of the kits so I had him send down some pics of them. We found that many of the sprues looked the same and probably were identical but something stood out right away. The belly of secondary hull of the B had been split into two halves while the Excelsior had been one solid piece. I could see why. The flares added onto the hull would have caused a draft issue. If the original hull tool had just been modified, the injected part would never have come out of the tool.
I investigated our tool list, which is our only real documentation, and it is spotty and unclear at best. To boot, I have never gotten a clear explanation of the info included one the list. If the tool had been recorded, it shows the corresponding numbers. Most tools, which have been transferred from the US to China, have had the tool numbers documented. Most kits that have never been repopped and are still in storage in the US have no tool numbers and the tool would need to be physically searched for. The list showed two tools were required to make the Excelsior and three tools were required to make the Enterprise B. The two Excelsior tools were the same number as two tools need for the B.
The strange thing about the list is that many of the kits are listed more than once. I never noticed why until I really concentrated on this conundrum. There is one column labeled Cat # which showed a year in it like 1998. My determination is that this is the year a kit appeared in a catalog. Both the B and the Excelsior would have been shown in the catalog for several consecutive years. The Excelsior came out one year before the B but both kits looked to be available in every year the B was produced. With the volume of kits produced during that time, I doubt that the company at the time would have produced enough inventory to last for four years, then permanently alter the tool to create the B.
We landed a copy of the B and compared it to the Excelsior firsthand. There are definite shared parts as well as completely unique parts. The detail of the top saucer is much more crisp on the later Enterprise B than the Excelsior and although some injection points are close, they don’t match exactly. The troublesome part is that some sprues with many common parts have had one part switched out. That’s where it gets dicey. My theory is that the saucer top, the belly of the secondary hull, the base and the other sprue of parts for the B are all on one tool. This would leave the saucer top intact as the Excelsior but I think some of the other smaller parts may have been switched out. If these were done as tool inserts, we shouldn’t have a problem. In any case, if we find that the Excelsior parts have been lost, have a lot of existing tooling for the kit gets us a long way. Retooling the missing parts should be affordable to do at some point.
So where do we stand right now? We are having the Enterprise B/ Excelsior and Reliant tooling moved to our factory to have test shots done. This is really the only way to know what we really have.
Have we decided which kit to bring out? Right now, it looks to be the Reliant just because it is easier to move ahead with not knowing what the status of the other tool is. We do have some ideas for the Reliant which I think Star Trek model kit fans will like but we won’t be making a final announcement until we receive costs back and we are sure we can carry our plans through.
As for the Excelsior/ Enterprise B, I’ll keep you posted. One way or another, one kit or the other will be back out again some day.
Round 2 Model kits: It’s a brand new year
So it’s the middle of January already. Needless to say I’m embarrassed that I haven’t been able to keep up with blog posts like I would have liked. As usual we are buried with responsibilities split between our model kit lines and our Forever Fun holiday line. Every time we see a light at the end of the tunnel, it caves in again. Maybe one of these days we’ll get to take a breath.
We ended up with 13 sci-fi (genre) releases in ’09. We’ve currently got 36 on our plan for 2010 including new subjects from the latest Star trek movie and a 1/25 scale Batmobile among other possibilities. We’ll be bringing back spiffed up fan favorite ships from Star Trek and a couple that haven’t been seen in decades including the K-7 Space station (another long lost kit is scheduled for later in the year…). We’ve got plans to bring back other long lost non-licensed model kits including the Pilgrim Observer and haunted Glo-heads. We’ll be gearing up for Wonderfest soon where we’ll make some schedule announcements for the second half of 2010.
I’m looking forward to another great year. Here’s to 2010…
Star Trek Model Kit: Giving Away an Enterprise
I posted before iHobby that if people would sign up in that thread and show up at 1:00 on Sunday of the show, I’d have a drawing for a test shot of our latest Star Trek model kit, the 1:1000 Enterprise Refit. Well, people came and went and I was wondering who would stop back on time. It would have been great odds as we only had a few sign up but no one did.
I decided I still wanted to give one away to let someone who is a die hard modeler have a crack at it and let me and everyone else know if it is as good a kit as I perceive it to be. Heck, I’m way too busy to actually glue, seam fill, paint and decal a kit. I’m lucky if I get to do the glue and decal parts. I’m hungry to do it but I’m just pinched. But hey, anyway, I wanted someone who could do a good job with it and I knew one where die-hard sci-fi modelers congregate, on Starship Modelers boards. I’ve seen lots of people post there and I’m familiar with some of their work from what I’ve seen at Wonderfest. I didn’t want to play favorites though so I offered up a drawing again. I figured we could even take the hit on the shipping so I offered it up. We had an outstanding response.
This is how I actually conducted the drawing. I basically printed out the entire thread. I then cut out everyone’s little avatar and threw out the ones who posted but said they didn’t want to be in the drawing. I also tossed all of the duplicates so everyone got one entry only. I folded each little piece up and put them in a kit box to toss them around a bit. I picked one out and it was Rogue9 of Tennessee. Congrats to him.
I sent out the kit the following Monday and he’s been posting his progress in the “On the Bench” of the SM message boards. I’ve got the prototype decals on their way here so they should get to him next week hopefully so he can finish his build. The kit he received was 99.5% of what the final one will be. Only a couple little adjustments were made before giving the final approval on the kit. Now, it is only a matter of time before everyone else gets a crack at it themselves.
Star Trek Model Kit: Boldly Going…
Have you heard that we are developing a new Star trek model kit of the TOS Enterprise in 1:350 scale? We assigned the job of putting together the plans for the ship to Gary Kerr. I hope to interview Gary at some point to give you some of his background. Although he isn’t really a modeler in the sense of one who builds them. Though, he makes the yearly trip to Wonderfest. I got to meet him there last year. Bob had already started a dialog with him about the project. Gary has been around the Trek universe in a way many of us could only dream of. He has actually gained access to review and document the actual filming models used for the Star trek TV shows and movies including the 11’ model of the TOS ship.
Gary has already dipped a toe into the model making pool. Actually more like jumped into the deep end and swam like Michael Phelps when he joined forces with one of our friendly competitors to help them plan a highly detailed kit of another iconic sci-fi subject. (sorry can’t advertise for them here)
So about a month ago or so (or was it longer…) we received an email from him saying he was nearly done with the plans and would start emailing them over. The first batch was 26 sheets. They detailed the nacelles… That’s right, 26 pages covered just the nacelles. He continued to send batches over the next couple of days until we had the entire ship documented. Let me tell you, Gary is thorough and particular. There are very well spelled out details in his plans that, in all honesty, I don’t think you will pick up on in the model even at 1:350 scale. I can’t wait to get started. Since receiving the plans, we have gotten approval from the guys up stairs to get costs, etc to start the mock up. That was great news to hear. It will all happen one step at a time. It’s almost time to reserve the space in the dry dock…
