Pin-up photography with ’40s model, Miss Amanda Lee

Ever since I was a little tyke I was a fan of the 40’s,50’s and my generation the early 60’s ( the Sci-Fi/ Aviation/ NASA part of the 60’s to be sure)  I loved the music, the WWII stories, the jets & the Atomic age, and I was especially fond of the pin up models and the awesome nose art displayed on our Military aircraft. To me when I saw a pin up painting on the side of a plane I would cheer for those all American boys flying off to battle Taking their girls with them into battle, and hoping to get back home and to be with their real sweethearts. I still love the nostalgia of these long gone eras, and have tried to bring back that look and style in both my art and photography. Looking for models that had that look and the same passion for the 40’s and 50’s as I did, I came across Miss Amanda Lee who is also from my home town of Phoenix Arizona. Her portfolio and web page  were awesome and she so captures the style and look so very beautifully and effortlessly. I gave her a call to compliment her work and before you knew it we had set up a shoot. I Had to go to Phx to set up some chrome Enterprise models for the Star Trek tour and we coordinated the shoot in between the model set up. Amanda brought her Mom along as the prep and hair stylist & wardrobe coordinator, and  we met in an awesome park in Scottsdale around lunch time. The sun was high and bright and when it hit her blond hair or fair skin she would simply and literally  glow. She fell into character from picture one on and really had some great ideas thrown into the mix of my wish list angles and poses. We shot with both digital and 35mm and both have captured some very gorgeous images. Here are some of the pictures from that shoot and I’ll pass on the links to her pages so you can visit and see all her wonderful work. We are in the process of retouching the pics so I’ll keep a posting as they get finished. Also here are some pin up images drawn for “ST Deep Space 9” from the episode “Far Beyond the Stars” these were the drawings used in the editors office that were handed out to the writers to inspire their creativity and write story’s from. One of the drawings went on to be the cover of my own fanciful Sci-Fi mag,  lots of fun for sure!!!

http://www.jitterbugdoll.com

http://www.modelmayhem.com/132424

 

that glow is real!! No photoshop enhancing here!

at the park

 

as a calendar page

and as a fall themed image

 

the DS9 sketch

 

the Mike Okuda poster

 

the color

 

and the B&W

Desert crossing, and the Torothan Cruisers

I found these odd little ship drawings yesterday and thought I would throw them up just for the heck of it today. They come from an Episode of Enterprise called desert Crossing #24, and as I recall I was asked to draw a cruiser and a fighter. Here are both vessels and also the little desert hideaway sketch of the alien encampment.

 

the camp

 

and the vessels

 

a CU of the mudpie architecture

 

here are some little alien BG vessels

It’s April Welles, better known by her fans as KITBASH GIRL!!!

Wonderfest is chalk full of talent, and the Garage kit world revolves around Louisville Kentucky!! one of the great highlights and biggest challenges is to be one one of the model judges for the great model contest. Steve Iverson (the Cultman) as well as Terry Web, Nelson Broskey, and a host of other incredible folks all come together to go thru all the entries and pull out the top guns in each category. We all get  a table to judge and I remember two years ago when I was teaming up with Broskey to judge our table and looking over at the one next to ours, there were these awesome kit-bashed Trek models. later found out that they were all created by the infamous Kitbash girl. Before the show ended I got to meet the one and only and it was a real treat to chat with her for a few minutes…. From that day on I was a big fan of her hers. 2009 Wonderfest was a couple of weeks ago  and April had a flurry of new creations to see including the hillbilly/red neck lightsaber which was constructed from a paper towel tube wrapped in foil and had a ring of matches glued around the outer rim,,,  Once ignighted you and your Billy-Bob opponent could battle Star Wars style in the swamp for a couple of minutes until the entire saber catches fire! Totally hilarious piece,,  The Bluesman (Justin Miller) and Kitbash girl, AKA (April Welles) are buds and we had a good time chatting, as well as I got my picture with The mighty KBG,  WOOO-WEEEE  the fan boy  got an awesome new picture for my office wall!!! HAAA!  As usual she won some Major Awards for her sleek Trekkie-esc concoctions. Aprils’s got the gift of laying down some mean Bondo and putty fillers and can really throw some cool design’s together from just about anything!!! April was born in Fargo ND, in 1968, (which is the registry # of one of her kits), and as a young girl was hit with the old parental block of “Girls shouldn’t make models”,,,,,,, So glad she didn’t listen,,, She was Always on the move for most of her life until a few years back. She now calls Portland Oregon home and creates her model magic in her studio there at the house. April wrote an awfully fine Bio about herself for me and I’ll share her story in segments with all you blog readers in the posts to follow!  Her tale is one of great inspiration I have to say. with that said here are some of April’s Creations!!! If any of you have tried to make any of the Star trek models kits you know the nightmare and pain it takes to put one together, especially with those impossible to line up window sections that go along the saucer rims!!! Oh the Pain,,The PAIN!!! I Gotta hand it to you KBG you made all that torture pay off!!  

Here are April’s own words from her bio describing some of her work:

I have many favorite builds. One of them is a 1/72 NuBSG Cylon Raider. 
He was built up according to the instructions. However, I created a backstory that he had defected to the Colonials. I painted him up with a Light Gray body and Colonial Red stripes, as well as Cylon kill markings. His name is ‘David’.

Another favorite is the kitbash of the 1/1000 Baton Rouge-class resin kit using Polar Lights 1/1000 nacelles and calling it the USSRepublic.

Another is the kitbash of the old Monogram Battlestar kit, making it into the destroyer Hawkwind for my own Battlestar Fleet (part of a fan fiction I’m working on).
And, of course, my TOS BSG Viper with Napoleonic Violet stripes. Done up for my character Captain Ishtar ‘Lady Killer’ Dolyn.

My first kitbash (after not building for 15 years) was the ST ship USS B’Tain, built using the old 1/1600 3-ship set. It was built using the Saucer and nacelles of the Enterprise, and the Secondary Hull of the Klingon ship.
I built that ship again for a friend using the Polar Lights 1/1000 scale kits. This time lit and called the USS Scorpion. 

I think one build I am pretty proud of is my 1/1400 Enterprise-E. I didn’t kitbash that particular one, however, I tried to add the missing weaponry from the original kit. That model won 1st Place and Best in Category at a IPMS show a few years ago.

I think one of the most special kitbashes I have built was the FSS Athena (Yes. FSS. The Federated Empire of Matriarchs starship. A parallel universe I created).
I built it in memory of my deceased girlfriend. She meant a very great deal to me, and that was the only way I could release a lot of my pain.
It also was featured in the Starship Modeler Calendar in 2006. A great honor for me. The first time a build of mine ended up in print.

I have also built a number of models on commission for people over the years. The vast majority of them Star Trek. Though I have built a few others including the resin WoTW diorama kit from Monsters in Motion.

I currently build from my studio in my home. So not too much travel occurs.

Namaste.

Also a big thanks goes to the Bluesman for getting me all the info and images!! you rock DUDE!!!

 

she's a retro cool new wave model make-n, banshee who pack's some pretty heavy heat!!!!

the scorpion

scorpion top

 

the independence

the Republic

republic profile

Enterprise

 

bismark

Pike's Enterprise

 

the Victory

and the McCashin

Martin Bower — A gentleman with class

I just got a note from Martin who so kindly gave credit to all of the team members from the model shop. Even though this is a tribute page  it is always good to mention everyone. I so agree,,,Thanks Martin, and here is a copy of his kind email. Also over in my blog role section is  the link to Martins webpage.

 

a note

the sona attack fighter

This was a very fun little ship from ST Insurrection, It’s shape is lightly based on it’s DS9 predecessor the Jem Hedar battle cruiser. This was a quick and dirty little design that wound up being my fav from the movie,, It had sleek look in the flying sequences designed by the boys over at Santa Barbara studios and the folks at Blue Sky made a great model to use as CG reference. I’ll post those model images next week!

the 3/4 view

 

from Bernd Schneiders, Ex Astris Scientia page, thanks "B"

 

final version with filled in details

orthos

A day with Martin Bower

When I was a kid there were very few things that would drag me into the house when there was so much exploring and playing to do outside. My dad was an Arizona Highway Patrolman and we lived in little HP homes and trailers all across the state. A little place called Black Canyon City was my favorite of all the towns we lived in.  This was my home from age 5 to 8 and an awful lot of incredible things happened there, and mostly my love for space and sci-fi. The first moon landing by Apollo 11 took place while there and I didn’t leave the TV for two weeks!!!! when we weren’t landing on the moon we would race home after school to watch a local show called Wallace and Ladmo, then Star Trek, and one of my big favorites “Stingray” I was so enthralled with the models in that show that i tried to make a stingray sub out of a block of wood and some old soda bottles,,,,, well with how it turned out I would have never gotten a job anywhere as a modeler.!!!  A few years went by and a new show called Space 1999 was on. It aired every Saturday at 6:00 in the afternoon,,, the worst time to stop what you were doing outside to come in for an hour but I would without fail for the life of the show!!! Again the model and VFX stuff was my focus of the show,, A few years later,,, Alien hit the screen and finally there were names in the credits to who built these incredible models,,, Martin Bower was the one I saw and as time went on more of the subject matter got printed into books and Mags.  Before “Star Wars” came out the only Sci Fi source available to me was Starlog magazine, and after “SW” the sci-fi info floodgates were open!!! I found out more about  through these mags and especially the books on Alien. I found out that Martin was responsible for all the models I was a fan of from those early years of kid-dom!!!! It was incredible to discovery the  awesome career this man has had and it is clear by what you see on the screen that every model is a masterpiece of incredible skill and talent. His work covers so many genres and styles, from TV and puppet shows to the hard core heavy movie miniatures!!  Simply incredible, how fun to get paid to do what you so love to do. As we all know  by the mid 90’s CG was killing off the practical model shops and this incredible art form was passing on into obscurity. Models are still used to this day in films but not as regularly as it once was. Many of the miniature giants have gone on to open shops to create models for collectors. Martin Bower has carried his passion and incredible talents to doing just this. Some of my favorite creations that Mr. Bower has created are the stingray, the modified Brian Johnson Eagles, the Hawk,  and all the alien craft from Space 1999, the good ship Ajax from  Flash Gordon,,,( What Flash Gordon Alivvveeee-ah, Dispatch the good ship Alex to bring back his  Boowdeee!!! ), the Nostromo from Alien, the shuttle from Outland, and his awesome models from his take on War of the Worlds. I owe a lot to Martin and to Greg Jein. If it wasn’t for these guys I probably would still be a produce clerk in a grocery store in Arizona, HAAA!!! Thanks guys and to everyone visiting the blog today there are a lot of photo’s and a link to Martins page, If you get the bug to see more head on over to his page and get ready to spend a good part of the day!!! Like  the on going Cobb and Goldsmith posts I’ll keep putting up Martins work as I find it. Tomorrow is the day of Kitbasher girl, get ready to meet a very cool young modeler!!

wow my two hero's Greg Jein and Martin Bower!!!

http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.com/

here he is Martin and the yellow version of the Nostromo.

this thing is so huge!!! I had no idea how much so until you see these pics.

incredible,, wish they would have kept this color,, Love it!

awesome!

it's not a miniature it's practically full size, HAAA!

What an awesome image Thanks Ron Cobb, Martin Bower and the model crew and to Simon Deering for this one

this is brilliant,

Martins work on display at Wonderfest two weeks ago

well it's called a miniature, but it's a huge one!!!

so cool!!!

ezri dax and her transporter firearm

Nicole DeBoer, WOW!!! was she ever a hoot to work with!!! She was very funny and always very nice!!! After getting to know her a bit you just couldn’t help but to be a little smitten every once in a while.
So DS9 episode #563 titled “Field of Fire” called for this wild rifle with a transporter device attached to the barrel accompanied with a special headset sighting goggle. The script read that Ezri was going to be fashioned with all of this gear so I jumped at the chance to draw a portrait style image of her to put the device sketches on to.
This was great fun and got a kiss on the cheek from Nicole when she saw the drawing …AHHHHH what a great day that was!!! HMMMMM…. OK back to the gun, we used one of the Breen rifles as the basic body and detailed and added all the extras to convert the piece into a new and deadlier weapon the prototype TR-116 rifle. We suggested that they put the transporter device on the end of a bow gun and a sling shot for the kids but the ideas didn’t fly!!!   Say la-vee! (C’est la vie) [thanks Deg!!!] HAAA! Ok enjoy the Ezri pics and imagine getting one of those big cheek kisses!! That is except for you Deanne, you can just ask for a hand shake!!!

Ezri (Nicole DeBoer)

 

with the sighting device

the mean and nasty Breen refitted firearm

picture of the fitted gear

 

wow here it is as an action figure, I just found this online, I have to get one!!!

klingon cloaking device

If you were ever wondering what a cloaking device looked like, well here it is… I am still at a loss why the ships of Starfleet didn’t have one of these installed and enhanced in every ship. We stole them, we hijacked enemy ships that had them on board, we knew how they worked, but no cloak for the Federation!!! funny thought!!! Oh Well… so here is the device stolen from the Klingons in DS9 episode 562, “The Emperor’s New Cloak”. You get to see the device both in the inoperative and active state. We presented these two drawings in the production meeting and it got a big laugh. We showed the cloaked version first and Ira said hey where’s the drawing??? and we said that’s what it looks like cloaked!!! HAAAA!!!! good times.

 

uncloaked!

and operative

The F-117 and the ship from silent enemy

WOW I forgot about this ship till I saw the cg ship on Drex’s page last week…  here is the pencil and the colored piece to accompany Doug’s post! speaking of inspiration the mighty F-117 was the cornerstone for where this idea came from,, All have been retired and scraped which I find so hard to believe only a few remain in air-parks so in a way this one pays an even deeper homage to an incredible fighter!

 

what a black beauty!!!

 

 

 

sketch

colored piece

hey there!! I am back!!!

Well it was a fun memorial day and we still have no internet at the house,,, that should be remedied today, hopefully!!!!! sure enjoyed all the millions of comments and all the new features that Matt has set up on the ol blog page!!! THANKS MATT!!!!. It is already a buzy morn so I hope to get a comment or two back at the ones left over the weekend and will hopefully get some more fun posts up today,,, This week will be,,, if there is time, Martin Bower week and a special Kitbash girl extravaganza.

 

Ok thanks again for coming over and catch up with everything soon.