Thursday, March 08, 2012

Lariot etc. in Hornby Magazine

One of my favourite projects appears in Aprils Hornby Magazine - a loriot wagon complete with a Bucyrus shovel.

What started out as a "that looks like an interesting wagon" moment in my local model shop ended up as a model I'm really proud of. Plenty of character and using a variety of techniques, it's the sort of thing I aspire to produce more often than I actually do. I find a use for all those wooden coffee stirrers you've been pinching too !

Lariot

Elsewhere in the issue, I'm painting a Ten Commandments plaster building. Working on a stonecast model is interesting - the paint doesn't behave as you would expect if you're used to plastic and metal models. The process is much more akin to tinting the surface with water colours - repeated applications build the colour slowly. It's great if the effect you are after is faded paint as what is normally difficult to achieve is dead easy.

Plaster buiding

Finally, I've got a few items in for review. The speed that some of these have appeared in print amazes me since they were nothing more than words in my head about 3 weeks ago. The Gramodels terraced house kit was only picked up at Doncaster, which was less than a month ago !

Terraced house

Hornby Magazine website

Key Publishing: You've probably already read elsewhere that Key Publishing has bought the entire Ian Allan magazine group. I've already spoken to Mike the editor about this and it appears that nothing should change in the magazine for the moment. Looking at the new owners portfolio, Hornby Mag fits in very nicely alongside Airfix, and is a good deal less specialist than their aviation titles.

For someone who remembers the debacle that surrounded Irwell Press selling Modelling Railways Illustrated, it's a little disconcerting but hopefully everything will be all right. In one way it will make life easier for the behind the scenes people as the owners and editor are now a bit closer together as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm due a slap-up lunch at some point by the Key people. If I do, I'll let you see a photo of the pudding.

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