Commentary, News & Events
(R)Evolution
Posted on July 17, 2023
It’s the middle of summer in the Costa Brava. 16 July. It’s proper hot. Always is this time of the year. This summer has been especially brutal for Europe. Loads of countries throughout the Continent are seeing temperatures like they’ve never yet witnessed. Although it’s a: ‘Hold my Budweiser’ moment for anyone who has spent a July in either Florida or Michigan, it’s sweltering for those living without air-con in regions known for more temperate conditions. Oddly enough, our little corner of the Costa Brava in Espana has not seen abnormally hot conditions. Mostly it’s thanks to being on the coast. We’re a six minute walk from our beach and we benefit from more gentle summer temperatures and Mediterranean breezes.
Having said that, I’ve still been suffering from the humidity. This morning when I got up for my usual 4am swim to start my day I was well surprised — pleasantly so — by the fresh breeze greeting me when I opened the door from the kitchen to the garden terrace. It’s abnormally fresh and lovely this morning. So much so that after my swim I had a little shiver as I was toweling off. Dressing, I fetched a coffee and sat down in our al fresco lounge to watch the days prior Wimbledon matches on BBC Red Button.
As I sit here watching the men’s final, I caught up on the latest modeling news via social media. My fellow miniature modellers will by this time know of the imminent loss of not one but two familiar names to the modeling world. The owners of Fruilmodel from Hungary and Resicast from Belgium have announced closure of their companies.
This is saddening. But understandable. Both are cornerstones of the hobby and for many decades. I’ve been buying white metal track links from Fruil since the mid-1990’s when I was living in little bungalow in Studio City, California and Resicast was to be the first trader I purchased from on my initial visit to Euro Militaire in 2003. I have more than a few of their accessories in my stash.
In a graying hobby it is a sad reality where not just the modellers, but owners of companies supplying kits and aftermarket detail sets to them, realize they have fewer years left than the years that got behind them. These shutterings are inevitable.
And not the first.
Sixteen years ago, in 2007, VLS, the irreplaceable hobby distributor and manufacturer in the United States was sold off, much to my great sadness. Next, the popular American modeling magazine MMiR and its editor Pat Stansell vanished from the modeling scene in 2014. Perhaps unsurprisingly Cromwell Models, another regular at Euro Militaire, closed its doors around the same time. My long favourite Barcelona hobby shop Jordi Rubio, — yes that Jordi Rubio — who was selling turned aluminum barrels before almost everyone and whom’s shop I first visited in 2005 with Adam Wilder and MIG was for modelers as much a tourist attraction as the Sagardia Familia, retired and closed his retail location. Although it continues online. Not too long ago Roger Saunders of renowned Hornet packed it in. Hornet were the best aftermarket resin headsets available for decades. But with 3D printing, well, there is a new sheriff in town.
They won’t be the last. It’s attrition.
All this got me thinking. As it does. Is this really the beginning of the end? Or is it merely the end of one modelling epoch and the beginning of the next. I used to think of the 2002-2008 era as the Golden Age of Modelling. In those days Royal Model was pumping out resin detail sets and figurines at a frenetic pace and all the while Dragon was releasing a “New Slide Mold Technology” AFV on almost a monthly basis. With Ron Volstad’s box art, of course.
I was talking about the impending loss of not one but two stalwarts of the modelling realm with Javier Soler, a incredibly gifted Madrid modeller. The topic was the explosion of 3D modelling. Spain is full of gifted modelers who have bought 3D printers and by virtue of practice-makes-perfect, began printing figurines, accessories and even entire small scale vehicles with shocking detail. It’s not just Spain. With 3D printing available to all, there are industrious modellers and small companies cropping up all over the world printing the most extraordinary models off their 3D printers.
Javier’s thoughts got me thinking about revolution. And how it oft leads to evolution. It’s been a truism repeated innumerable times throughout the history of our civilization. It’s playing out this very moment at Wimbledon. Djokovic is last man standing in a trifecta from a previous epoch. Federer is skiing in Switzerland and our beloved Rafa is perilously close to retirement with endless injuries. This crew ruled the slams for twenty years. But it’s a new day. A new epoch. Carlos Alcaraz is number one and at this moment looking like he will take his first Wimbledon title after the “Big Three” owning it for twenty years. I’ll temper my tennis comparison only by stating Djokovic went pro in 2003 and at this moment is looking and playing better than at any moment in the history of his career.
So how does the current state of men’s tennis relate to the military modeling realm? Perhaps here too, the previous Golden Age I witnessed was of one epoch that closed, and at this very moment we are witnessing the dawn of a new one. A new Golden Age. One look around World Expo in June of 2022 was enough to convince me that we may be on the cusp of even a Gilded Age. ARTO 3D printed figurines from Asia and RT-DIORAMA from Germany just two that come to mind. I ought add AFV Modeller to that list with the upping of their game with their latest release — a` 1/16th scale MG42 utilizing the latest in 3D tech and printed in one piece. Detail like this was unimaginable just ten years ago.
Scale Model Challenge (SMC) in Veldhoven, Holland is just round the corner in October. Fruil and Resicast will be there a final time. So stock up. But also the Young Turks of 3D will be hawking their wares in force. Undoubtedly not for the last time.
Revolution — it seems — indeed does lead to evolution.
All for now. The journey is everything.