Faust

Well, it seems like the snow is finally saying good-bye and the model show season has begun! In Southwestern Ontario, the first show of spring is the massive event that is HeritageCon in Hamilton, at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. As always, it was a great show, and there was plenty of awesome stuff on display. There were also plenty of awesome vendors, and I did very well on books and kits! Of course, most of the kits I got are weird as heck, so it only made sense to put them altogether and do a posting on them! Check out the weird mix of brass cars, airplanes and sci-fi I dug up this year! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/heritagecon-2025-haul/

A cardboard model! Nice!

That red one is perfection; it has all the gross black trim and weirdness I expect from a European car! They're actually very nice relicas, though. odd the car got uglier with four headlights and the black grille. The earlier ones are almost pretty! Well... except for the mess in the middle of the grille. I know it's a trademark, but so was the Edel's "horse collar", until it wasn't... Thanks for showing those! I'll have to keep my eyes open for them!

Man, it's cool getting to see the real thing! Yeah, it's a special kind of "crazy" to ride a missile in that tin can!

It’s been 40 years since a new cartoon about transforming robotic weapons and interstellar war hit the airwaves. No, I’m not talking about Transformers; I’m talking about Robotech! With its distinct visuals and storytelling, Robotech made an indelible impression on many of us back in the day. For many, it was their introduction to anime, which, for some like myself, has become a lifelong interest since! One of the more recent attempts to revive interest in this now-nostalgic (man I feel old) property was a tabletop wargame financed by Kickstarter in 2014. Unforntunately, the “Robotech RPG Tactics” game that was produced was… not very successful. However, the game set that was released DID contain a lot of miniatures of Valkyries, Regults and other neat Robotech/Macross mecha. Having recently acquired one, I thought it might be fun to look at it not from a gaming perspective, but from a modelling perspective! You can check out what all the quickly-forgotten hoopla was about below! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/robotech-rpg-tactics-oob/

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost 63 years to the day (Feb 20, 1962) that John Glenn rode Friendship 7 and an Atlas ICBM into orbit to be America’s first Man in Space! While space doesn’t seem to hold as prominent a place in the public consciousness as it used to, there’s no denying how big a deal the Space Race was at the time. It might be something of a negative commentary about our world that journeying beyond it no longer seems to hold our attention. But I don’t want to dwell on that! In a recent journey to a local shop, I came upon a more-or-less perfect reissue of Revell’s ancient Mecury-Atlas booster kit with launch complex, and was reminded of a time when this kind of thing really got people going. This particular reissue was to commemorate Glenn’s return to space on the Shuttle. I don’t normally build “Real Space” kits, but I couldn’t say no to it, not with the anniversary of that famous flight so close at hand! So, check out this kit; maybe you remember it as a kid, or maybe, like me, you’re seeing it for the first time. Regardless, it’s a pretty cool kit, even if not a perfect one! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/revell-1-110-atlas-mercury-everything-is-go-out-of-box/

Well, it’s the early part of a new year, so what a good time to take a look at the oddball mix of kits that I was able to accumulate over the holidays! Some were Christmas presents, others finds at local stores, a toy show, and even a few online purchases! There’s everything from old to new to something old being new again! One thing’s for sure, though; if you know my tastes at all, then you know there’s going to be some esoteric weirdness in here! Check out my 2024 Yuletide Haul at the link below! The pic is just the cars, but there’s a whole lot more to see! Here’s to another great year of modelling to all! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/yuletide-2024-haul/

Heck, I've got over 350 Gundams (unbuilt, and about 110 built) and I still build them! Just picked up four more today! I remember Zellers and K-Mart selling models and supplies, but I never saw a drug store do that up here.

One of the greatest forms of losermobile is the kind that is let down completely not by design, but by birth. Either shoddy workmanship, materials or both result in a great design being little more than a cautionary tale in the annals of automotive history. A great example of that is the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, a sporty, fun-to-drive car that was everything one could hope for, while also being an unrepentant rust magnet! In the case of the ‘Sud, the design was willing, but bad metallurgy and cost cutting doomed it, and the resulting flesh was weak, so to say. Obviously, having a replica of a loser like that is high on my list, and I was ecstatic when I got my Solido Cougars and found one of them was, indeed, an Alfasud! While it may not be a kit, I do think this is one of the only ways to get a replica of an Alfasud, so enjoy a look at a car that you certainly don’t see in real life anymore! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/solido-1-43-alfa-romeo-alfa-sud/

One of the great parts about being a modeller is being able to embrace the more esoteric subjects, or kit makers or even kit formats so that the hobby never gets stale. With the explosion of Japanese Sci-Fi and Anime kits in the past decade or so, this has never been more true. However, not every kit made for the the Japanese home market is intended to make it across the oceans to us here in North America. Just like in the early days, when mech kits were little-known and something of a niche, there are mech kits that, even today, remain largely unknown and unavailable. A perfect example of this are “gum kits”, which straddle the line between a mega-fancy Kinder Egg toy, and a full-on model. Pushing these even farther are the Kabaya Gum Kits from the G1 Transformers Franchise! Recently, I got my hands of a few of these, and I thought I’d take a look at the God Ginrai kit from a modeller’s perspective, rather than form the point-of-view of a Transformers Fan (which, of course, I also am). So, for something totally different that you won’t find on too many shelves, check out the kit below, and prepare to wish we had drugstores like Japan does! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/kabaya-transformers-gattai-dx-gum-kits-super-ginrai-godbomber-oob/

Glad I was able to introduce this plane and kit to a whole new audience. I really do wish that kits of these weird, interwar record-breaking and research aircraft were available again, or better yet as nice new kits. They're important, but they've gotten lost in the shuffle as technology has progressed. Gotta love FROG for bringing out stuff like this!

Yeah, I love it when we actually get some different marking options! This variety makes even Matchbox pale by comparison, eh?

If there’s one thing I like, it’s a two-seater. Most of my modern jet kits are, in fact, two-seaters! Well, that’s except for the ones that are single-seat variants of two-holers! That’s just the kind of backwards guy I am, I guess… However, I love esoteric aircraft as well; those things that are a bit more off the beaten path really appeal to me. Not a surprise, then, that I’ve long wanted a kit of a two-seat MiG-23 for my stash. I my eyes, the “UB” variant of the Flogger is probably one of the sexiest Soviet aircraft of all time, but it’s not one you see in plastic very often! Until it is! Check out my out of box review for the Art Model 1/72 MiG-23 UB at the link below. Man… they really do make a kit of everything, don’t they! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/art-model-1-72-mig-23-ub-flogger-c-out-of-box/

Since I was looking for a change of pace from ill-fitting MPCs and picky airplanes, I thought the Airfix Bond Bug seemed like a great choice for my next build. While it’s far from perfect, it’s certainly very much unlike anything else I have, and I have multiple Japanese 3-wheelers, so that’s saying something! I’ve managed to get the chassis all together and ready for installation, so I thought I’d share it with everyone. This part of the kit is actually quite good, with only minor modifications needed! Enjoy! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/bond-bug-update-1-its-whats-underneath-that-counts/

Okay, that's fair. We could always use more, though! I'd love to see some of the weirder stuff, or body styles we don't see, like the RX-3 wagons, Skyline wagons and other four-door versions of what we often see as 2-door kits. Mind you, that same sentiment goes for kits of North American cars, too...