As we transition from the warm sunny days to the cold wintry blasts we find ourselves facing the holidays. This
means that we are asking all members to donate a new, unwrapped toy for our annual Toys For Tots campaign sponsored
by our illustrious United States Marine Corps. This donation event has been sponsored by this club for as long as I
remember and has always been a big success. If you can do it, please bring the toy to our regular club meeting in
December and a big THANK YOU from me and the board! Just one more thing to consider - sometimes the older kids get
left out a little bit, so you may consider a gift geared toward older children as opposed to the little ones.
The December meeting is also the deadline for the President's Challenge contest. I'm pleased to announce that new member Doug Kozub has entered the contest one full month later than the rest of the entrants, so he's even more "under the gun" to meet the deadline, especially since he chose a Hasegawa 1/32nd scale BF109G which he hasn't touched in 11 years! Good luck, Doug and we're looking forward to seeing the finished product. Also, I encourage all participants to bring in their "works in progress" to see how you're coming along and some advice if you're stuck. Remember, there's A LOT of talent in this club and most of us are willing to offer advice.
As I announced at the last club meeting, anyone who is bringing in a project for our round table displays at the meetings will be required to fill out a brief form. As one who tries to get the best descriptions of your efforts, I find that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get accurate notes. The way I see it, if you bothered to bring in a project, I should at least put in my best effort to describe what you're doing. So, in order to help me with this, please fill out this form and place on it anything in particular you want mentioned in the newsletter. That way, you get proper credit and kudos for all the good stuff you folks do. I'll have paper copies at each meeting and starting next month, you will be able to find the form on our website so you can fill it out ahead of time if you'd like.
Please have a safe and enjoyable holiday and keep on building!
John R. Zaranek
President
IPMS Niagara Frontier
IPMS USA No. 47993
Model Table Round-up for October 2013
First, a quick look around the room as the meeting gets started.
Matt Klukowski offered up is President's Challenge update, a 1963 Chevy Corvette. He painted the body Tamiya
acrylic black, chrome silver trim and a Citadel red interior. Looking sharp, Matt.
Frank Blonski brought in some custom printed decals he designed for fellow member Mike Butry. The decals are
for a Town of Niagara police patrol car and most certainly look like the real ones. The model shown has paper
printouts attached to check the fit of the decals.
Bob Raithel returned after a brief hiatus to show us some scratchbuilt sculpted science fiction figures. Bob
built them up from a simple wire and foil frame and applied molten scrap styrene and Apoxie Sculpt to get the features
he is looking for. Welcome back, Bob and nice work!
Tom Brown, Sr. brought in his 1/1 scale dueling pistol he's "working on" for the President's Challenge. By Tom's
admission, he's made absolutely no progress on it yet. Tick-tock, Tom, tick-tock.
Every time Paul Hines brings in one of his pencil drawings of cars, you think he can't do any better - wrong! Now,
Paul is working in color with the sketches and they are breathtaking! He's using watercolors with pen and ink details.
Outstanding work, Paul!
Another new member, Doug Kozub brought in a really impressive work in progress, a German Marder in 1/16th scale
that is totally scratchbuilt. This project has been on-going for about three years and one can see the attention to
detail Doug is bringing to his model. He also brought in his German Panzer III of which he replicated chips and wear
using the "hairspray" technique and made his own tarps out of toilet paper. Welcome aboard, Doug!
Tom Brown, Jr. offers some nice figures of Warhammer fantasy figures of Beatmen and Ratmen painted with Citadel
acrylics, enamel metallics and an oil wash. Nicely done, as usual, Tom, Jr.
Richard Fusani is especially proud this month because is beautifully rendered Hasegawa 1/48th scale Bell P-39
Airacobra is the first model he's finished SINCE HE WAS A KID! Way to go, Richard and hopefully you won't wait so
long next time!
Diorama builder extraordinaire Doug Safe displayed his log cabin dio built with sticks carved and notched much
like the real thing. The chimney especially looks the part since it's made out of real stones gathered from a creek
near his house.
Yours truly made some progress on the chassis for my fire truck project.
There were a number of other items on the tables about which we unfortunately have no information. Hopefully,
the information sheets will prevent a recurrence of this problem.
New member Johnny Newman presented a well received demonstration on applying washes.
Finally, some around-the-room shots of the tables and the meeting.
Thanks to Cindy Klukowski and Tony G. for the photography!
