You may have noticed that I’ve been having lots of fun with my video camera lately. I just embedded a new video about volume 08 of The Missing Conversation on the TMC page.

Doing these is something I enjoy as another outlet for my creativity. I deeply enjoy putting words and images together and seeing how they can complement each for a greater impact than either would have alone.

I plan to do more videos in the future, both for fun and more “book trailers” for past and future works. Eventually I’ll gather them together onto a Videos page, so you don’t have to go wandering all over the site to find one.

As you may already know, TMC 08 is up in the store and it looks at how things weather out in the real world. There are lots of large photos for inspiration on how wood, metal and masonry weather to help you represent these materials accurately in your modeling.

There’s also a great interview with Dave Schroedle (HummerDave to some of you). Dave is one of the moderators of the ProtoModeler Forums and knows more about weathering railroad models than I’ll ever learn. We usually see each other at the Collinsville, IL RPM meet near St. Louis every August. Like all the other RPM meets, it’s a great couple of days to catch up with friends and see some stellar modeling and clinics. If you get the chance to attend one do so. You’ll be happy you did.

There are other projects taking shape in the wings. I really am working on the long promised landscape modeling book. Now that another edition of TMC is done, I can devote some more time to that project. I also have another book underway, but I’m not the author of this one. I’m working with one of the best modern diesel modelers in the hobby and he’s writing a book of the scratchbuilding techniques he uses on his diesels. More on that in due course.

I hope wherever you might be that Spring and/or warmer weather has arrived or at least is on the way.

Regards,
Mike