During the month of November you can leave a comment here with the TIME and DATE you think I will get my 5000th subscriber. Any date from now until sometime in 2022- hopefully! Whoever gets the closest will win a branded Gross Models Hoodie!
Entries will close at the end of November and I will post the person who guessed the closest after I achieve the magic 5k!
If you neglect to put a time I will consider it to be 12 noon of the date given. All times must be in GMT.
So come on, have a go!
This time I am doing things a little differently. Feel free to change your answer up until the end of the month!
The lovely people over at Fanhome.com have sent me the first pack in the new StarWars Encyclopedia!
Some things work better in a post rather than a video, so here it is!
The collection features books covering all of the classic and new films, and even some of the new shows!
It is divided into sections on the Galaxy, Droids, Ships, Weapons, Characters and the Stories. They all build up into an impressive shelf of interesting material and reference.
The first 2 volumes feature Darth Vader and the Millennium Falcon, with loads of photos and diagrams.
I will be making videos for each delivery, but they will be shorter than my usual content, if you want to see all the pages you’ll just have to subscribe at Fanhome.com !
As I’m doing 2 car partworks at the moment, and they are both 1:8 scale, and they have supplied parts in a similar order, I thought it would be interesting to compare them!
I am currently building the Fast & Furious Dodge Charger from Fanhome, and the Ecto-1 from Hero Collector.
The Ecto-1 is at issue 10, and the Dodge is issue 22.
There is a difference in the size, but the Ecto-1 is a big car!
They are both coming along nicely and I cannot wait to see them both complete!
With me currently doing 6 different partworks, I got thinking about the previous ones I have done. I didn’t realise I had been doing them for so long or had done so many.
This is just a quick look at some partworks I still have. There are a few others I remember doing but don’t have around anymore.
The oldest I still have is like many, just a magazine that builds up into a collection. Nothing to build, just a set of binders to keep them in. This one is unusual in that the magazines are stored in order. Most of the time they would be broken apart into different sections, as you will see in some of the upcoming titles.
The Unexplained consists of dozens of articles of , well, the unexplained. Everything from Bigfoot, aliens, spontaneous human combustion, you name it and it’s probably in there somewhere. It is about 40 years old now, and many of the things may have been explained to at least some degree, but it’s still a fun read.
Sticking with the mystical theme, we also bought the Charmed tv show DVD partwork. As well as a small magazine about the episodes and some behind the scenes info you got a dvd disk each week with a couple of episodes on it, building up to the complete series.
Another older one, the Star Wars figurine collection. This features over 50 small figures, cast in a heavy metal with some great painting in many. And some bad faces on others. It featured characters from the original and the prequel trilogies, and then branched out to some of the vehicles.
The magazine featured some info on how they crafted and painted the figures.
The Lord of the Rings chess set had all the main characters from the films, and the board has some nice map work engraved into it.
The Star Trek factfiles, like the Star Wars ones, have some very detailed info but are obviously missing the series/ films that were made after publication.
Another one that is still going on is the DC comics collection. Reprints of many classic stories from the DC universe, with Batman, the Flash, Superman, the Green Lantern and many others. I have no idea when or even if it will actually finish!
These wooden puzzles are great. Each issue came with a different puzzle (although some are very similar) and some info on puzzles and of course the solution for the supplied puzzle.
Quest was a strange one. It had many sections to the magazine, with interesting articles, and I remember each one coming with some type of card-craft to cut out and glue. Sadly these are all lost to the great bin-lorry in the sky.
I even collected “Car care” which provides loads of info about car mechanics, repairs and maintenance. None of which I have ever been able to do. Except changing light bulbs and tyres, which I could do before. 🙂
Now what is probably the most impressive “old” partwork: Real Robots.
Meet Cybot. Built up over 96 issues, he can self navigate using IR sensors, follow a drawn line, even play football. Or be controlled directly with a remote, even voice controlled with a headset. Sometimes it even worked!
I even built him a friend, and a goal for the football that kicks the ball back out.
The collection also came with a toolkit including a soldering iron.
There were also a series of cd tins containing programming software and games.
I remember there being a vhs tape with an early issue showing off what you were going to build, but although I am fairly sure I still have it, I can’t find it at the moment.
I hope you have enjoyed this look back on partworks, I know I did several others but they seem to have been lost to the past. I do remember building a complete skeleton with internal organs at one point, which may well have been about 1:2 scale, but that has been gone for many years.
Leave a comment if you remember any of these, or have done any yourself! I hope you can jog my memory about a few more!
As I spend more time than ever at the bench/ computer, I thought I’d treat myself to a new chair.
After looking around at some different choices and reading some reviews I decided to go with a SecretLabs chair. Using their site I entered my height and weight to let them choose the best model for my needs.
I ordered on Friday evening, and on Tuesday morning this arrived:
The packaging is great. On opening the box you get this:
The guide has a QR code to show a video of the assembly, as well as easy to follow pictures.
Also included is a small toolkit with everything you need.
After around 15 minutes, I ended up with what so far seems a very comfortable chair.
So far, so good. Hopefully I have a good few years of comfort ahead! #Secretlab
It’s been a busy few days here at Gross Models Incorporated. Just finished this months delivery of the Enterprise:
When 2 boxes appear from Fanhome!
A day of building and filming later, and I have lots of footage to edit and upload!
4 issues of R2 and 4 more of Ironman built, and started editing.
They should all be ready to fit into my daily release schedule at 8:30 every morning, ready for you to view at your convenience throughout the day!
I also have the other 3 partworks I am building all out for delivery in the next couple of weeks, so I should be able to keep the releases coming for a while!
I am due a few deliveries over the coming days, as ever starting a new build is both exciting and nerve wracking.
First up is the new one from Hero Collector, the Enterprise D from Star Trek The Next Generation. This is going to be a big one!
The is the R2 build from Fanhome. Although I have already built the DeAgostini one which is the same build, having been approached by Fanhome to build it for free is a massive thing for me, and I am really looking forward to getting into it again. Also I didn’t film the first third of the other droid so it will be nice to get a full series done!
Big thanks must go to Sal for doing the thumbnail art for all my ongoing partworks. Hopefully they will create some interest in the builds!
I expect you are aware of my continuing series of diorama based on the Star Wars series of films. So far I have completed 4 and have 1 in progress and another in theory. That means there are still several films I would like to cover!
A lot on my trouble is the lack of kits in 1:144 scale. I would rather not re-use kits again, but it look like I will have to. (Slave one and the Falcon do have slightly different variants….)
Anyway, if you have ideas for a scene from any of the series, please let me know! If you know of a kit that is available and can think of an iconic scene that it fits into, leave a comment and I’ll look into it!
You may have noticed I don’t do “screen accurate” as much as “inspired by” so feel free to re-work what actually happened to fit your inspiration!
Obviously I can’t commit to making all (or any!) suggestions, but it would really help me out to have some input!
