Yuku free message boards

Scott Alexander and Paul Bodensiek at Wonderfest 2009, and Scott's models for sale.
The link to my flickr set is here.

This is only the second WonderFest I attended, but I'll relate my impressions.

For those who aren't familiar with WonderFest, it's a somewhat schizophrenic collection of two general genres of modeling, "monsters" and "sci-fi/vehicles". Since the film Alien was featured this year, including a screening at an actual theater with a pristine 35mm print, the two genres coincided like the alignment of the planets in "2001".

The judged model contest ran the gamut from models made by kids to true museum pieces by master modelers. Even the furtive efforts of inexperienced modelers were nice to see, because the heart and soul of the modelers' efforts shone through their technical limitations. Besides, it was nice to see kids expressing interest in model making, using their hands to create and express.

While I'm partial to the science fiction/vehicle side of the WonderFest universe, it's truly astounding what people are doing on the Creature side of things. As one who used to scare myself when my glow-in-the-dark Aurora monster figures would beckon from across the dark bedroom at night 40 years ago, I could appreciate the ghastly entrail-dragging works of depravity at "that" end of the spectrum, as well as the unbelievably realistic, beautiful (and scantily-clad) heroines at the other end. If Aurora had produced kits such as those back in the day, they would have been forced out of business earlier. And I would have been banned from modeling.

Regarding the science fiction/vehicle side of things, there was a lot of activity, as usual, in the expansion of the Star Trek universe. There are frankly so many starships being made, with a cottage industry for makers of decals, photo-etching, masking and lighting, that I can't keep track. My experience with this genre ended with the original AMT Enterprise kit. It's nice to see innovation, though, and the new film has spawned another surge of interest.

The other big part of the show, as usual, was Star Wars, another crossover genre that has lots of monsters and vehicles.

I was struck by a couple of classic models this year: the large Moebius Flying Sub, from the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series. I couldn't figure out why this struck me as being so "cool" until I realized that it was the larger format of the model. It fit in my hands the same way the original, smaller model did when I built it at age 12. They're also releasing a large-format Jupiter II from Lost in Space later this year. That's one model that I wished they would have made 40 years ago! In the same vein, there are several models of the Martian War Machine from the original War of the Worlds film. I always loved that ship, and it took half a century before someone made a model of it.

The other well-represented topics were, of course, 2001:ASO, Space: 1999, Land of the Giants Spindrift, Fantastic Voyage (film and cartoon), etc. Although these are all classic models, it's too bad there isn't as much expansion of these "universes" as in Star Trek and Star Wars. The new "Titov" space plane, glimpsed in the Hilton office of Space Station V in 2001:ASO, by Stargazer Models is an exception. It wasn't ready in time for WonderFest, and sold out immediately at Starship Modeler. And of course, Scott is doing his part to expand the 2001 modeling universe, with the new Clavius Base diorama. Looking forward to the Big Aries, Moon Bus, Orion and Big and Little D and Big Pod next year . By the way, Paul Bodensiek, in the photo with Scott, is doing the Big Pod interior.

I attended a few of the modeling workshops. Difficult to see the details from the back of the room. The rooms had computer projectors... it would have been a good idea to hook up a small camera. Anyway, one of the lectures that stood out was on rapid prototyping. An excellent glimpse into the future of modeling. Maybe next year they will have an AutoCad hands-on session. Doing 3D is a lot like learning to build models all over again. The learning curve to do anything worthwhile is about a year. My results thus far look worse than the styrene kits I slapped together amid the toluene fumes 40 years ago.