Model Kits Review is a site founded in Minnesota by George Collazo, photographer by profession native from Puerto Rico and Model builder and toy collector as a hobby. George Has been in the plastic modeling kits hobby since the early 80’s.
Originally I started model kit building as an escape from reality when my father contracted cancer. My interest initially was armor an aircraft, but living in Puerto Rico is not easy for modelers. No dedicated hobby shops and I was at the mercy of a few military colors in the old square Testors Enamel bottles from just a handful of toy stores and local pharmacies. With no internet, local stores and no mail order available, at the time, eventually my frustration lead me to abandon such a wonderful hobby.
Fast Forward to the early 90’s I gave the hobby another change but that time instead I started to work with Car plastic Model Kits. Color were not a problem, sports cars are usually, Yellow, Red and Blue, colors readily available in Testors enamel spray at most pharmacies and K-Marts;Â when I wanted something different, my local hardware store came to the rescue.
Favorite Airbrush:
My favorite airbrushes are Testors A470, Badger Velocity and Passche Talon although for the most part I tend to grab the Testors A470 Metal body. It is awesome to clean and switch colors and patterns by just changing nozzles.
Favorite Paint:
Give me Testors Model Master Acryl, Tamiya and or Hobby Color any time. It cleans easily, dry fast and make precious modeling time more productive. Today’s acrylic paints for model kits are well formulated and do a very nice job compared to my old enamel paints. Acrylic paints are usually underrated by older modelers who have yet to give them a real chance and play with the new acrylics. 48 hours curing time is not my idea of model kit building any more. To each his/her own, but Acrylic paints rule, feel free to see my builds, they speak by themselves ;o)
Favorite Subjects:
I consider myself as an ”utility” modeler, I can build from a 1:24 scale car to a 1:32 scale modern jet plane and anything in between including sci-fi models. Life and modeling time is too short to keep building model after model of the same subject in different variations and or markings. Even with my ultra soft spot for F-16 Falcons, I don’t have every variant on my shelves. A subject might grab my attention for a certain battle role and I will build it as faithful as possible but no early to late and everything in between variants for me.
I like to build 1/72 scale every now and then as a relief from longer more complicated model kits. But my scale of choice is 1/48th followed by 1/32. Within these scales you’ll find in my showcases, Cold War, Modern Jets and WWII aircraft. 1 out of 5 builds are WWII aircraft and some armor in 1/48 and 1/35 is also built.
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Jeannette Valle.
Lovely wife and strong supporter of this entire endeavor since day 1. Mother of 3 and grandmother of 1. Jeannette is in charge of photographing and processing of the model kit packaging and sprue pictures.
She also post the new and upcoming model kit releases. If you have news, pictures or rumors of new model kits, click on the menu SUBMIT NEWS above. She’ll be the one taking care of them in a timely fashion.
Hi George,
Excellent article on the Merkava IV styrene tracks. As I am fairly new in this hobby, useful info like that would definitely saved me a lot of unnecessary blood, sweat and bitter tears….
Thanks for stopping by José, I came back to the hobby after a long hiatus. If you decide to get back, you’ll be stranger to many things. This hobby has changed a lot since the 80’s when I first started. The internet can serve as an invaluable resource and I promise that you’ll be back on track in no time. The amount of details on new model kits is outstanding.
The amount of information and model kit tutorials you’ll find on the web will be very helpful on any subject you might think of building. A technique that you could have probably found out perhaps in a model show or a magazine back in the day, is now pictorially available at your finger tips. Cheers!
Hello George,
I really like your site. It presents modeling in a very positive, well thought out way. The project pictures are great. As you know I used to build scale models back in the late seventies when I was stationed in England. I stopped when I left England (around 1980)and your work makes me want to get back into this hobby.
Much has changed within scale modeling. Airbrushes were not part of my experience. Yet my models were free of brush strokes and many who viewed them questioned how I attained such a smooth look. It was a lot of fun that is for sure.
I need to start researching models and supplies and see what it will take to get back into this hobby. Thanks for sharing this information. All the best my friend.
José
Howdy Shay, is so nice to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by!!
Hola primito, felicidades en tu website. Dios bendiga el arte que llevas en esas manos. Un beso y abrazo grande a todos por alla.
Hello Gordon, thanks for stopping by and taking the time for leaving your suggestions. They are greatly appreciated and I will work on them within the next few days. The site was founded little over 2 years ago. But it was under a different name and ran on a PHPBB3 platform which is more appropriate (IMO) for community forums.
Hi George,
Congratulations for the new (for me!) website about this great hobby! I must say that your profession as a photographer is showing in the quality of the photos published. May I suggest that the reviews will be indexed according to type/scale/full build etc. so that visitors can easily search through the previous published articles. Please take my comments as positive critisms! Keep it up.
Regards,
Gordon.