News From The iHobby Show

IHobby, a huge trade show for hobby companies, is held every October in Chicago.  I attended three of the four days (two of them helping with the make-n-take along with other members of the Techmages club).  There was a bunch of neat stuff to be seen – and thanks to Robb ‘kylwell’ Merrill, I saw most of it.

The first thing we saw were a new line of 35th scale diorama accessories from GC Laser.  These are wooden crates, pallets/skids and cable spools laser cut ftom birch plywood.  They have a bunch of painstakingly researched ammo, vehicle and food crates (mostly WW2 era) as well as some generic boxes and spools.  These impressed me so much I signed up Starship Modeler as a retailer, so look for these things in the Store soon.

Lindberg/Hawk had the big surprise of the show:  two new WW2 Japanese ‘mother subs’ with their ‘offspring’.  The first is the I-20, a C-1 class boat, which will have a HA-20 midget sub to lash to the deck.   The other is the very similar I-53, a C-3 boat, which will have 4 Kaiten kamikaze torpedos on deck.   The models looked pretty impressive (though the painting/weathering was way overdone); even the anti-aircraft guns looked nicely tooled and not over- or under- scale.  The HA-20 and Kaiten looked very close in detail to the ones Fine Molds has out now – and who knows, maybe that’s what they used to have something to display.  Anyway, I’m excited – now I’ll have something to go with my Revell Gato and U-Boat.  Release is scheduled for the third quarter of 2008.

Also on display was the box for Lindberg’s upcoming 1/245 Los Angeles ZR-3 airship.  Obviously it’s a variation on their nicely done Graf Zepplin (released this year).  It looks like the kit will include an itty-bitty Sparrohawk parasite fighter plane.  And coming in the last quarter of this year is a reissue of their very cool 1/48 scale Snark guided missile with ground crew and launch rail.

Revell (USA)’s Battlestar Galactica re-pops are slated for November/December of this year.  Starting in January (and continuing through May) of 2008, they will also be re-issuing the pre-painted, snap-tite Star Wars kits  in Revell Germany’s  first two series.  Retail prices are not terribly lower than what the imports were costing:  the Jedi Starfighters (for instance) are slated for $16.95 (vice $25 for imports).  There was no word on whether the third series kits (AT-AT, Y-Wing, Slave 1, TIE) would be imported as well. I presume that Revell will make that decision based on sales of these other kits.   The models will be sold through big-box retailers such as Wal-mart and Toys-R-Us because they are pre-painted snaps, and so akin to the die-casts those chains already carry.

 Moebius Models had a video of their upcoming Seaview kit running (it’s still on track for release later this year; the Voyager from Fantastic Voyage should be out soon), with the Diving Bell , Flying Sub, and Mini Sub that will come with the kit on display.  Mockups of their forthcoming (200  Space Pod and Chariot (which will include a Robot figure) from the original Lost in Space were also on view.  These were pretty big – 1/24scale? Also planned for next year are a Conan the Barbarian figure, based on the cover of the  first issue of Marvel’s comic;  The Invisible Man, from a design by noted illustrator Chris White, and; the Aurora Monster Scenes Giant Insect  kit.

 Monarch Models showed a resin pattern for their forthcoming (200 Ghost of Castle Mare kit, as well as a large poster depicting their upcoming Moon Suit kit (which looks for all the world like one of the old Major Matt Mason toys). They plan to produce a new kit of The Fly as well.

Delta of Sweden was on hand with some very interesting play sand that has a lot of potential for diorama use.  The stuff is an inert, non-toxic polymer that looks like very fine-grained beach sand.  But press it together and you can sculpt it; heat that (by baking at low temp, using a heat gun or torch) and it becomes hard and retains its shape.  Coat that with a sealer and it can be painted with any paint.  If you use their proprietary sealer (which is some sort of latex-based material) you can peel it off later.  Heat/bake again, then rap with a hammer, and it crumbles back into ‘sand’.  Press the sand together and it will hold water (or, I presume, liquid resin).  I’m definitely going to have to get some to experiment with.

Mercury Adhesives  was showing off their line of CA glues, accelerator and debonder specifically designed for hobby use.  They have a rubber-toughened flexible CA that seems to be equivalent of the wave MX stuff that we all know and love.  I’ll be getting some of this to try out as well.

Finally, on the way out, we ran across BC Imports from San Francisco.  They carry  a HUGE line of Japanese ‘gashapon’/ trading kits.  Their Star Trek stuff looked very good, for what it is (cube/desk decoration, essentially), as did the various mecha, monsters and planes.  Of particular note were some 54mm-ish (1/32) Samurai figures, which had fantastic detail  and great, dynamic poses, as well as several cutaway naval ships.  The detail all around on those was spectacular.

So ….. all-in-all a good show.  And Sparky even built a model (thus endangered his standing in the club by actually finishing something!)