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EDITORIAL

Dear Friends,

the initial release last month of the

new Löök line brough with it that age-old question ‚where is this all headed?‘

Well, it’s headed to a good place. Fortunately, we are still in the midst of

a certain number of modellers, those

hard core boys who need that daily fix

of putty, seatbelts as thin as cigarette

paper lovingly threaded through functional buckles and an instrument panel

that is a composition of laminated instruments incased in ClearFix amongst

the silent majority that have a certain

tendency towards a higher level of

comfort. These are trends that we are

keeping pretty close tabs on. As a result,

we are sympathetic to those modellers

who strive for an improvement in their

kits through the development of our

products of which the Löök line is the

latest of such innovations. Of course,

this is not the end of development of

such products in our firm, but merely

a continuation of it. For example, we

over the month of June, have fine-tuned our printing capabilities to squeeze out a little finer and sharper detail

which will allow us to push the Löök line

into 1:48th scale. The first quarter scale

Lööks will hit the market in September,

but the results will be visible also in the

colour photoetched items that will be

released before then. If I return to the

question as to weather or not replacing

a stock part with one that is preassembled and prepainted to the levels that

these items are, is, in fact, modelling,

my answer is a resounding yes, it is.

Our form of modelling has always been

about the assembly of prefabricated

components in one form or another,

so in that regard, this is nothing really

new. The main difference is that today‘s concepts of prefabricated assembly

components is vastly more advanced

than in years past. On the other hand,

this by no means suggests that there

is no further room for improvement.

It is always possible to improve on something, and if you are not spending

time on the above mentioned traditional exercises, to which can be added

puttying and sanding, you end up with

more time to devote to more modern

modelling endeavours, weather it’s the

addition of details or dedicating time

to the final look of the finished pro4

eduard

duct through things like weathering and

preshading and washing, regardless of

weather it is from the Spanish or Czech

school of thought. I basically understand that our approach to these innovations is for the mostpart quite rare

and that, as a result, there can be certain doubts that can creep in on the part

of the general modelling public. In my

opinion, that’s quite alright and I don’t

mind. Those that follow the traditional

methods have enough to do, but a breath of fresh air never killed anyone. The

idea even applies to things like this on-line newsletter or our Facebook page.

From time to time, someone chastises

us for having political opinions and for

dealing in history, that we should just

make our kits, concern ourselves with

the retail process, and shut up about

the rest. History is an integral part of

this hobby, and there’s no room to argue on that point, I think, but striving

for a more thorough knowledge of

these things makes no sense. The historical stuff does, and so we will continue

to study, monitor and comment on it.

This will naturally lead to some periodic

controversy, and historical conversations are often controversial in nature to

begin with. Don’t tell me that weather

it’s at a club meeting or in a bar, that a

historical (or political) debate doesn’t

often lead to controversy! The two are

umbilicly connected and that’s a fact.

Political events today are tomorrow’s

historical notes and weather they are

judged positively or negatively will be

revealed then, but a certain amount of

skepticism is never a bad thing. So the

next time someone jumps all over us

for the comment or expression of a historical or political concept, they should

maybe just step back and look at what

we are really trying to say. This is all in

reference to a recent Facebook posting

on our page regarding the meeting between Trump and Kim, suggesting that

trusting a dictator may not always pay

off in the end. Incredibly, some have

taken that as an attack against President Trump, which I found odd because

it was really intended to poke fun at his

esteemed colleague, Comrade Kim. We

hoped that, with an application of a bit

of intellectual contemplation, this point

would’ve been clear. We also found it

odd that no one from North Korea wrote us and criticised us, but then again,

modelling is not a popular pastime there. I suspect they have other things to

occupy their minds.

While on the subject of threats and

boycotts, today is the day we are beginning our Sticker Game, previously

known as the Beer Game. As an incentive, we feature a picture of a young

miss in a bikini and on the nose of

a MiG-21. In an effort to avoid a firestorm of controversy that was brought

forth by the faint of heart and really,

really high morals in the past, this ad requires a consent to view it and you must

consciously click on a window to go on.

I must point out that we will not be taking into account any objections to the

ad whatsoever, people go to and view of

their own free will, and I apologise to all

others for the inconvenience. Why we

jump through these hoops is clear to all

that view this advertisement, I suspect.

I would also point out that have really

nothing against attractive women in bikinis. In the spirit of ‘takes one to know

one‘, I suspect that we guys are much

the same in that regard. It is interesting

to note that all previous five protests

against women in bikinis came from the

nation that painted the most women in

bikinis on the noses of aircraft and that

gave the world the idea of noseart. The

world is full of paradoxes.