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Round 2: These Times, They Are A Busy
Here at Round 2, it seems like I’m always playing catch-up. The only priority is the one that has a date attached. It’s a constant cycle- plan the product, get pricing, draw up the details, create the package, check the test shots, prepare for a presentation, prepare for a show. Mix it all up and start it all over for many products and selling seasons.
Things get hectic and with preparing for and working all weekend at Wonderfest then coming back to catch up on other matters. Then we get a holiday weekend but like everyone else that usually means yard work and family gatherings.
And all I want to do is create the next great Star Trek model kit… or at least figure out how to make repops even better as the new stuff is brewing. Anyway, at times like this my desk and office get to look like a toymaker’s workshop with all kinds of interesting goodies lying around. Here’s a pic that shows what state I’m in now. For the heck of it, I’m showing the shelf above my computer monitor that shows my varied taste in toys. Some other time I’ll show my shelves of Batman or Marv figures for anyone that cares.
Some things are blurred for our protection.
Model Kits: Countdown to Wonderfest T- 2
Phew… one more Wonderfest model kits preview to go… after this… So come back tomorrow for one more… I’m getting slap happy…
1/1000 scale Enterprise Refit- We’ll have a package mockup. Sorry to be so anti-climactic. If you can imagine our big 1/350 Enterprise A kit but a lot smaller like our 1/1000 TOS Enterprise and with a few little corrections here or there… well, you get it.
I’m sure we’ll get lots of interest in this kit. We’ll be happy to discuss it with you. We definitely won’t have a test shot or even a mockup but just knowing its on the way is exciting.
Space: 1999 Model Kits: All New Hawk Mk IX
It has been no hidden fact that we have been considering other scales to use for our line of Space:1999 model kits. Kits in a new smaller scale will allow us to shoot for the same accuracy we always pursue, but let’s us bring kits to market at a lower price point. It allows our tooling consideration to go further. Instead of one big kit every couple of years, we can bring out a series of kits in the same scale just like we do with our line of 1:1000 Star Trek kits. So if 1/48 is too big to keep up the pace, what scale would be acceptable for these ships. This question was recently posed to a Space:1999 facebook group to get the answer straight form the consumer. The overwhelming favorite was 1/72 scale. At this scale an Eagle comes out to about 14 ½” long. Landing at 2 ½” longer than the old MPC kit, that should give us a enough room to work and get plenty of detail.
But, why do another Eagle right away when the last Space:1999 ship we created was an Eagle. So, we decided to take a step in this scale with a Hawk instead! By no fault of its own, our new 1/72 Hawk kit will land at about the same size as the old MPC/Airfix kit. But don’t worry. We are ignoring that old inaccurate kit and starting from scratch. Our new model will be as close as we can manage in injected styrene to match the original filming miniature.
So here for the first time, we are showing the progress on the kit thus far. We are shooting on a May release. So look for it at Wonderfest 2018.
(some higher res versions of these files will be posted to the Round 2 Models Facebook page.)
Polar Lights Model Kits: iHobby Recap!
Our shows for the year have wrapped up with our attendance at the international iHobby Expo last weekend in Chicago. October has been a busy month for us with our two biggest shows of the year falling within the same month. iHobby covers the entire gamut of the hobby industry and is open for industry days on Thursday and Friday and open to the public on the weekend. For the past few shows, I’ve ended up working on consumer days which suits me because I’d rather talk to the guys building the kits than sitting around a conference table talking to guys with ties on. It turned out that I was assigned to help set up the booth and then return to work the last day of the show and tear it down again. Overall the show seemed less attended than previous years and I was surprised to see many booths close up mid day on Sunday and some had closed up even before consumers even had access. (Shame shame on a couple of our distinguished competitors…)
At the show we announced our plans through mid 2011 and gave a sneak peak at a couple things beyond that. Let me run down the highlights…
Batmobile– With the kits going to tooling, we were able to unveil our packaging plans. All are still subject to licensor final review. Of course we showed off the beautiful Alex Ross painting in support of the kits. Many have asked about prints of the poster. Sorry to say that that is not allowed under our current agreement. We gave a hint at what will be included in the deluxe version of the kit. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, ask your friends who did. (yes, that is a tease)
Star Trek– As usual we had plenty of buildups and box mockups and/or preproduction samples on display. We featured a buildup of the Klingon Bird of Prey sitting comfortably atop its new landing gear as well as other buildups previously on display at Wonderfest. We announced the classic Klingon Battle Cruiser would return this year. We are looking into what little bits of accurizing we can do to the kit. Also announced was a re-release of the classic AMT Enterprise. Sure we brought that one back once already but we have put a nice spin on this one. We are calling it the Tholian Web Commemorative Edition. The kit comes injected in glow in the dark plastic along with the usual decal sheet complete with decal dressing to create the ship as the U.S.S. Defiant. To cap it off, we are including two new Tholian Web Spinners. We showed a buildup of the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-B and showed a coupld of the revised parts, specifically the lower saucer and rear deck. We had no announcement regarding the 1:350 TOS Enterprise though the kit is still under consideration. Though we did have a prototype of the new movie Enterprise, it could not be displayed due to an error in the output. I’ll be showing that off in my next blog post though and explaining why it couldn’t be displayed.
Marvel Comics- We showed a buildup of our re-release of the Captain America kit. We will also be bringing back Spider-man (actually sooner than Cap) and a few other Marvel surprises later in the year. We will be doing these kits in Comic Scenes style boxes complete with cardboard backdrops and full color comic book instruction sheets. The faces in the Captain America kit will be resculpted. One of the resculpts is shown on the buildup but is subject to licensor approval.
Strange Change- We’ll be bringing back the Vampire and Mummy versions in the first half of 2011. The buildups on display showed how great they look when a great modeler gets ahold of them. The kits function really well (though I had my doubts as I was putting together test shots.) Look for the Time Machine version later in the year probably. And please also note that these kits will be made in the USA.
Dark Shadows- All three kits will return in 2011 with Barnabas Collins leading the way. We had great looking buildups of the figure kits on display. We are planning on reproduction boxes and glue parts just like the good ol’ days and we’ll throw in both soft PVC and styrene sets of arms.
Leif Ericson- When we brought back the UFO kit, most people asked if or when we would bring back the LE. Here it comes complete with reproduction box art, clear engine parts and lights (this time LEDs.) What I would like a little bit of feedback on is would you guys like the engines injected in red or clear so you can paint them whatever color you want? Or maybe a couple different color options. I’m listening for feedback on this.
Man In Space set- This set of historic NASA spacecraft will return with its original packaging art as well as the cardboard gantry that had been included in the first release of the kit. We had a mockup of the gantry on hand but just ran out of room to display it.
KISS and Yellow Submarine- We’ll be bringing back the stars of each band in a series of pre-painted model kits. As you may see in the photo the packaging offers a different twist to appeal to collectors. We’ll be doing the Yellow Sub in a lunchbox tin later in the year and we are exploring the possibility of doing prebuilt models of these subjects as well.
So that’s the plan Stan… or Bobby… or Richard… or Steve… (I’m getting slap happy now after so much planning and work) Thanks to everyone who stopped by and were universally complementary of our display.
Dukes of Hazzard: Not Just For Daisy! by Mark Budniewski
One of the muscle cars that bridged the gap between the true early muscle cars and the “tape stripe muscle car” era was the ’73-’74 Plymouth Roadrunner. Governmental regulations were putting a damper on horsepower, and the manufacturers were still getting a handle on how to deal with all of the new rules and still build in some excitement. The basic hardware was still there under all the hoses and wires for anyone who was able to do a few sub rosa “workarounds” in order to find it. And the styling was still quite good, even behind those “five mile per hour” bumpers.
Starting with the 1971 models, MPC was handling all of the scale promotional model business for the Plymouth Division of Chrysler. They had produced the Barracuda promo models starting in 1968, but now had the midsize Plymouth too. As in most instances, what was offered as a promo usually made it into kit form, and the Roadrunner was no exception. The Roadrunner was pretty typical of the MPC promo-turned-kit in those days: accurate body styling, good engraving, and standard interior and chassis detail including the molded-to-the-chassis exhaust system. The ‘Runner had been reissued a couple of times before Round 2 Models entered the picture, but some of the details weren’t quite right. Some parts were altered for use in later kits and not backdated to correct ’73-’74 spec for the reissues.
Until now! The box might read “Dukes of Hazzard“, but what’s inside is 100% stock Roadrunner, with stock stripe decals in three colors so you can lay the body color of your choice over the white plastic. There are even extra air cleaner decals in case you want to do some parts swapping and use a different Mopar engine from some other kit. For the first time since 1974, you get not only a chassis pan with dual exhaust detail, but also the correct instrument panel. So, if you aren’t a Dukes fan, you can still add this generation of Mopar muscle to your collection!
AMT Model Kits: A Little 3-in-1 History by Mark Budniewski
Recently, John Grezcula asked me if I’d like to contribute to the Round 2 Models blog. I’ve done some “around the edges” contributions previously, never anything like this though. I’ve been into model cars for as long as I can remember. I still have a few of my late Sixties builds; all of the survivors are AMT model kits–no surprise there, because they were my favorites back in the day.
Besides collecting the kits themselves, I’ve gotten into other items relating to AMT and MPC car kits, particularly the catalogs. In the early Seventies, the original AMT company made their dealer catalogs available to the public. This was done via advertising placed in a couple of the 1:1 car magazines. I’ve held onto the catalogs that I sent for starting in 1975, when I first learned they were available. The occasional earlier catalog, foldout, or single-page sell sheet turns up on occasion, and I am fortunate enough to have located some of those. The old Auto World mail-order catalogs fill in the gaps where no AMT or MPC catalogs exist, or where I haven’t found them (yet!).
Back in the day, it was nice to know what to expect in the way of new releases in the coming year, and when to start looking for them. Today, looking through these and the old Auto World mail-order catalogs, you can get a pretty good history of our corner of the model car hobby.
Many of the AMT and MPC car kits we have looked forward to seeing again have been in and out of the lineup many times over the years, with changes in box art and the occasional parts alteration in order to appeal to new generations of builders and collectors. In some cases, you might not know how far back they really go. Here are a few pics of earlier issues of some current Round 2 AMT car kits. Next time, we’ll get into the particulars of one or two of them.
First: AMT 25th Anniversary (1973) catalog illustration of the ’49 Ford and Mercury. The Tournament of Thrills series included the 1950 Ford convertible also. An authentic set of thrill show jump ramps was included, but this issue saw the custom options deleted from all three kits. Future issues would see most, if not all, of the customizing options restored to these kits… just the way they should be! The ’49 Ford was first released in 1962 (though it doesn’t appear in the ’62 catalog). The ’49 Mercury first appeared in 1963. If there is a ’63 catalog, I’ve yet to see one.
Second: The 1975 catalog saw both of these classic AMT kits returned to the lineup with the customizing parts restored and the thrill show ramps deleted. The catalog illustrations were often done quickly; note the similarity of the ’49 Ford to the earlier Thrill Show illustration! The Seventies-style side exhaust setup shown here did not make its way into any issue of the Ford. The Mercury illustration with the blue custom car was never used on any kit box, and shows the Merc with mag wheels that were never in any issue of the kit.
Third: The 1971 catalog shows a partial selection of AMT’s dragster kits. Of the four shown, three are currently available from Round 2, and the fourth was reissued a number of times and can still be found. Though the nostalgia craze had not yet caught on with drag racers, the Double Dragster was still hanging in there. 1971 would mark its final appearance in an AMT catalog… until now, of course!
Star Trek Model Kits: Wonderfest Count Down. 5…
Ok. I’m crammed for time but I promised so I want to deliver. We’ll be setting up our booth once again at Wonderfest and we will be showing off some plans for upcoming Star Trek Model Kits. Today, I’m going to give a quick review of our plans for bringing back some classic AMT kits.
First, we’ll be showing off our buildup of the K-7 Space station. (Don’t mind the kitty cat induced battle damage- feel to ask me about it) Jim Small went through the added step of adding lights to this great little build. We’ll be posting a how-to article on the Round 2 models website to coincide with the kit’s release. The kit is basically a pressing of the old jalopy from AMT. It reminds us of the K-7 but don’t get too picky about the accuracy. The new release includes our standard dome style stand and a small sheet of decals that includes some alternate numerals so you can make it any space station you wish.
Next, we’ve got the Romulan Bird of Prey. Again, this is a re-release of the vintage AMT kit. We’ll be including the stand as well as optional parts to add the weapon on front and adding nacelle domes. This is personally one of my favorite TOS ships. Many have requested it and we’ve listened. You could have one of your very own by the end of the year.
Both the K-7 and Romulan Bird of Prey will be released in their standard retro-style packaging. The K-7 gets a new illustration while the Bird of Prey will get its classic box illustration. And both will also be released in collector’s tin editions to go along with the others we’ve already brought out. The K-7 will come with a bonus Tribble while the Bird of Prey will get a print of the box art.
Speaking of tins, we have special plans for a couple 2011 releases of the AMT Enterprise. Come see me at Wonderfest and we can talk about them…
Model Kits… Larger than life!
Hi all, I’m Mike and this’ll be my first post to the Round 2 models blog! I’m the guy who lays out the box art for most of the mass vehicle model kits. I get the pleasure of photographing the professional buildups of our model kits for the photos you see on our kits. Being a shutterbug in my personal life as well, it’s a real joy to be able to present these amazing kits to the world through photography for Round 2.
Most of our model kits use the standard 1:25 scale box size. However, AMT-632 is huge, so we needed to enlarge the box! Though still 1:25 scale, this truck crushes any other scale models in its path. The 1988 TNT Motorsports National Points Champion was Everett Jasmer driving his USA-1 Chevy Monster Truck. I love the details on this truck that make it look larger than life. The realistic tires, the detailed suspension, and the USA-1 decals all come together to create the ultimate model kit. It’ll be as much fun to assemble as it was to photograph this monster!
STAR TREK Modeling: A Brief History of the Shuttlecraft Galileo Pt. 1
As the lead developer for our line of sci-fi kits, I can’t be an expert in everything so it is good to know people that “knows people.” One of Round 2’s “go-to” consultants is STAR TREK expert Gary Kerr. If he doesn’t have the answer to any given question he knows who does. He has a lifetime of “side adventures” that have given him close contact with many of the Star Trek filming models and in some cases, our kits are based solely on his exhaustively documented plans of some of the ships he has encountered. Most recently, his plans were used to develop our 1:32 scale Galileo Shuttle model kit. Along the way, he was given the opportunity to write up an article about the Galileo for STAR TREK Magazine published by Titan Publishing. As he wrote, he found that his information overflowed his allotted word count. Neither of us wanted that effort to go to waste so we invited him to publish the overflow on our blog. We’ve chosen to break it up into a series that will be rolled out over the coming weeks. So without further ado. Here is part 1…
A Brief History of the Shuttlecraft Galileo Pt. 1 By Gary Kerr
Poor Lieutenant Sulu… slowly freezing to death after a malfunctioning transporter strands him and the rest of the landing party on the increasingly frigid planet Alpha 177. The glitchy transporter beams down heaters, but they are non-functional, and the landing party seems doomed unless Scotty can repair the transporter in time.
Modern viewers of “The Enemy Within” might be forgiven for wondering why the ship simply didn’t send down a shuttlecraft to pick up the landing party. The truth is that even though the Starship Enterprise sported a pair of clamshell hangar bay doors at the end of its engineering hull, it didn’t yet have any shuttlecraft or a hangar to house them in.
This article will examine the history of both the “full-size” Galileo mock-up and the filming miniature. To begin, we should backtrack and examine the origins of Star Trek’s first shuttlecraft.
In the Beginning
As the final design of the Starship Enterprise began to gel in 1964, it became apparent that a starship would probably carry an assortment of smaller craft. Art Director Matt Jefferies added a hangar bay and a pair of clamshell doors to aft end of the ship, but deciding what kind of craft would be housed in the hangar bay was not an easy matter.
One of Jefferies’ initial concepts called for a small, aerodynamic pod that would be light enough to be lowered from the studio ceiling on wires to simulate a landing. This ambitious concept was abandoned as being too costly. Desilu continued to give the construction of shuttlecraft a thumbs-down, which is one of the reasons for Lt Sulu’s predicament in “The Enemy Within.”
All seemed lost regarding the shuttlecraft situation until August 1, 1966, when Associate Producer Bob Justman informed Gene Roddenberry that Desilu attorney Ed Perlstein had concluded a mutually beneficial deal with the AMT Corporation.
In exchange for rights to produce a plastic kit of the USS Enterprise, AMT agreed to construct both an interior set and exterior mock-up of a shuttlecraft for an estimated $24,000, plus an additional $650 to build a miniature shuttle. The work would be done at AMT’s Speed and Custom Division Shop, in Phoenix, Arizona. Gene Winfield, who was serving as a consultant style designer for AMT’s auto kits, served as production manager.
At this point, nailing down the design of the shuttlecraft moved into high gear. Although Matt Jefferies favored a rounded, aerodynamic design for the shuttlecraft, he became the first, but not the last, Star Trek art director to learn that compound curves were a no-no on a television budget and time schedule, and that a shuttlecraft had to be built from sheets or plywood and Masonite. Winfield and Jefferies set about designing a flat-sided shuttle that could be built in the allotted 30 days. The inspiration for the preliminary design seems to have been Jefferies’ 1964 sketch of “Space Dock Utility Craft Personnel Carrier”.
Jefferies and Winfield passed a preliminary design to Thomas Kellogg for further development. Kellogg was an industrial designer, working at the Raymond Loewy Associates design studio in San Francisco. Kellogg worked in some design elements of the studio’s renowned design of the 1963 Studebaker “Avanti” car and created a color rendering of the revamped shuttlecraft.
Jefferies added a pair of warp nacelles to Kellogg’s design, and Winfield’s shop was ready to begin construction of a 22’ prop and a 22” miniature shuttle. Union Local 44 is a professional association of craft persons having specialized skills and talents at Paramount, and the studio’s practice of having outside, probably non-union, vendors supplying props for a TV production would almost certainly cause friction with the union. To avoid problems arising from the studio’s use of outside vendors, the studio and the union arrived at an agreement under which vendors would supply props in an unfinished state, and union craft people would perform the final painting, detailing, and installation of lighting.
Even though the filming miniature and the full-size prop were supposed to represent the same ship, they are not identical. The most obvious difference involves the shape of the hull, with the sides of the 22” miniature being parallel, while the aft end of the 22 ft prop (including the nacelles) flares out slightly wider in back.
Why the difference? To find the answer, we need to jump to the spring of 1992, when I met with Lynne Miller, the owner at the time of the large Galileo prop. The Galileo was located at the Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio, and I spent several hours documenting the shuttle, which was slowly undergoing a restoration.
Lynne revealed that Matt Jefferies had told her that the Galileo was only three-quarter scale. This made perfect sense after I’d climbed inside the shuttle. Being inside the mock-up was akin to crouching inside a very wide minivan. It was certainly a far cry from what we saw on TV! Making “full-size” props at somewhat less than full scale is a common practice in Hollywood. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Matt Jefferies’ brother, John, wrote in his biography of Matt, Beyond the Clouds, that Matt often utilized “illusionary perspective” to create the illusion of distance and makes things appear larger than they actually were. Looking back and seeing that many scenes involving the Galileo were shot at the rear of the prop, I am now convinced that when Jefferies made the rear portion of the 22-footer flare out wider, he was using illusionary perspective to make the three-quarter sized shuttlecraft appear larger.
The use of an undersized prop makes perfect sense: construction costs were less, the prop could be moved more easily around the soundstage, and it took up less precious storage space.
Come back next time as Gary dives into the construction of the miniature and the set pieces.
All images courtesy of CBS, except where noted.
TM & (C) 2020 CBS Studios Inc. ARR.
AMT Model Kits: James Bond Moonraker
Here is a special guest blog from Jim Small. Apologies to Jim. He had written this to be included on our instruction sheet, but a few matters shifted during the time when we started working from home as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and we lost track of this. So we gladly present it here.
The ending of the 1976 film “The Spy Who Loved Me” credits crawl stated that Bond would be back in “For Your Eyes Only”. However, with the surprise success of Star wars in 1977, that would all change. It was suddenly time to put Bond in space, and Moonraker began production, pushing FYEO on the back burner. The late great British visual effects legend Derek Meddings, who was quite at home with many previous (and subsequent) Bond films, was again hired to produce the many shots needed to achieve the first footage of what a real space shuttle launch into space might look like several years before NASA launched theirs, albeit with a lot of artistic license.
Along with a plethora of other miniatures, several models of the shuttles were built at various scales, 1/24th for the largest orbiter measuring a little over 60 inches long and 1/48th scale with the stack measuring 46 inches high for the liftoff sequences, the orbiter measuring 30 inches long for other miscellaneous shots. Other smaller ones for distance shots and seen attached to the massive space station were built too, possibly made from existing commercial kits. Drax’s Moonraker shuttles numbering 1-6, painted with orange stripes and the U.S. Marines version with the “star and bars” emblazoned on the fuselage and wings were the two liveries seen.
As there were several models made of each ship, all of them looked slightly different with various “technical markings” and other details that were often rather inconsistent. Therefore it’s up to the builder of this kit to decide where those smaller markings on the decal sheet that are not numbered can go. Suggestions are provided on the box art photos. Because the budget of the film did not allow for the expensive and complex new motion control & blue screen work employed in Star Wars, more traditional methods of simple “in-camera” multiple exposures were used to assemble shots with the models filmed against a black background, hard mounted on stands or suspended on wires. Consequently, unlike the real shuttles that were overall white with a black belly, the black was substituted (except for around the cockpit windows and other smaller details) for a dark reddish brown on the miniatures to help them stand out against the black background they were filmed against.
As a fun little bit of trivia, sharp eyed modeling fans will notice bits and pieces of the old MPC Space: 1999 “Eagle” kit placed throughout the Moonraker launch bay shown in the film!
Now here is a closer look at the buildups featured on our packaging. Both Moonraker and marine decals are included in the kit.
