In this episode, your hosts have a fascinating chat with British native, now San Diego-based painter and modeler Gary Baker. In addition to being big fans of his work, and agreeing that he’s one of the finest gents we’ve met in the hobby in recent years, we were eager to hear Gary’s thoughts about sculpting and painting hair—he’s a professional stylist and the creative director at UNITE Hair—and he made us think even more about how much character hair adds to a figure, as well as paying attentio...
Jul 20, 2023•1 hr 59 min•Season 3Ep. 37
Barry and Jim had a splendid chat with Mike Hilleary, the Connecticut-based modeler they consider one of the best painters in America today. The boys also used the opportunity of a question left on the show’s voice mail to discuss that recent editorial in the IPMS Journal by the group’s president David Lockhart, which effectively claimed that there would be no modeling shows in the U.S. without the group, and that people who come to and exhibit at its shows without being active members of the cl...
Jun 22, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Season 2Ep. 36
On May 5 and 6, your hosts once again traveled to the outskirts of Philadelphia for the 80th Annual Show sponsored by the Miniature Figure Collectors of America , one of the premier exhibitions of miniature arts in the U.S. In this episode, Barry and Jim offer some thoughts on the show recorded after the fact, as well as some live recordings amidst all of the fun on Saturday morning—an audio vérité first for Small Subjects! You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode a...
May 25, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Joe has been an active modeler since his teens in the early 1970s, and he is one of the most acclaimed artists and well-loved friend-to-all in the miniatures hobby. A retired art teacher, he’s a man with a million stories (and a rather famous alter ego , at least among baseball fans). We enjoyed every minute of talking with him, and feel like we’ve only scratched the surface, so we may well have to consider a recurring segment. (We do love the idea he floated of “Travels with Shep.”) You can fin...
Apr 20, 2023•2 hr 32 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Your hosts have been big fans of Ingvild Eiring’s box dioramas since she first made us aware of them by emailing this Web site and asking if we thought it would make sense to add a gallery for her . Heck yes!, we said, and what’s more, we thought we could learn a lot by chatting with this extraordinary artist, since she straddles the worlds of our pursuit, the dollhouse hobby, and fine art. (She has had several gallery exhibitions, and her work is much sought-after by collectors.) You can find p...
Mar 16, 2023•2 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 33
On this episode, we talk with one of Barry’s fellow modelers from Utah, Travis Haussener, who, despite the shared passion for miniatures and modeling, differs from him and co-host Jim in two pretty significant ways: Athleticism (you won’t find either of us getting buried in an avalanche, mainly because you’d never find either of us on skis), and, um, he holds a PhD in organic chemistry. We thought we could glean some insights into a lot of stuff we use on the workbench all the time without havin...
Feb 16, 2023•1 hr 58 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Tools (And Other Stuff) We Hate (according to Jim), or Tools (And Other Stuff) That Just Haven’t Worked for Him (according to Barry, who is overall a kinder person). You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com We want to hear from you! CLICK HERE to leave us a message about anything in any of our episodes, or to pose a question you’d like to hear us address, and we’...
Jan 12, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Season 2Ep. 31
One of our favorite and most outspoken voices in the hobby, we thought it was long overdue for us to chat with Will Pattison, especially since Jim needed some advice on chipping, and Will is the master! Will frequently posts to the Scale Modelers Critique Group on Facebook, shares his knowledge on his YouTube Channel, and talks modeling and other things with co-hosts Tracy Hancock and Chris Meddings on the Sprue Cutters Union podcast, and he’s written for several hobby magazines. He is also no s...
Dec 15, 2022•1 hr 38 min•Season 2Ep. 30
The name of California-based miniature sculptor Mike Good should be familiar to many in our hobby. We talk with him about his work, his interests, and his methodology. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com We want to hear from you! CLICK HERE to leave us a message about anything in any of our episodes, or to pose a question you’d like to hear us address, and w...
Nov 17, 2022•1 hr 50 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Barry and Jim talk with Chicago-area modeler Greg Cihlar, a consistently gold-medal maker of striking dioramas and vignettes in the historical world (World War II a specialty) who’s also branched out to do some stunning work in the fantasy realm. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com We want to hear from you! CLICK HERE to leave us a message about anything in ...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 28
In this episode, Barry and Jim wax rhapsodic about tools and other stuff they can’t live without on their workbenches—and they have A LOT of fun doing it! We want to hear from you! CLICK HERE to leave us a message about anything in any of our episodes, or to pose a question you’d like to hear us address, and we’ll air it in an upcoming episode. Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com
Sep 22, 2022•1 hr 53 min•Season 2Ep. 27
http://www.boxdioramas.com/smallsubjects/2022/8/19/episode-26-actor-playwright-and-modeler-pat-mcgrathhttp://www.boxdioramas.com/smallsubjects/2022/8/19/episode-26-actor-playwright-and-modeler-pat-mcgrath Based in Dublin, armor modeler and orc sculptor Pat McGrath is a talented miniaturist, as well as a fine artist, an actor and a playwright; he performed a brilliant one-man show about our hobby, Small Plastic Wars ( which we urge you to listen to here ), that stands, as far as your hosts Barry ...
Aug 18, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Jim and Barry chat with John Bonanni about the 2022 International Plastic Modelers' Society USA national convention (the "Nats",) which they attended in Omaha, Nebraska in July. John is the second vice president of IPMS/USA and happens to share some of our views on how IPMS contests might be improved. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com We want to hear from ...
Aug 04, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 25
In addition to being a fine armor modeler, Pat is a helluva funny guy, who wrote to your hosts saying he’d be eager to chat with us, after we mentioned our enduring fondness for the late, lamented magazine he edited, Military Miniatures in Review. Eager to get the story behind the sad demise of that fine mag, as well as to hear what Pat is currently up to in Delray Beach, Florida (his new publishing company can be found here ), we had quite a few laughs, and thoroughly enjoyed our chat. We hope ...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 44 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Calvin Tan has been recognized as one of the most talented sculptors and figure painters in the world, especially among those working with WWII subjects. A graduate of RMIT University who is now the Department Chair at DigiPen Institute of Technology, he’s one of the most eloquent artists we’ve interviewed on this podcast in terms of drawing connections between what we do in miniature (his favored scales: 1/35 and 1/16) and what some of the grand masters did in the realm of fine art; as he point...
Jul 07, 2022•1 hr 34 min•Season 2Ep. 23
You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com And, in the wake of MFCA 2022 and a continued period of busy modeling by people stuck inside avoiding COVID, we've added a ton of new updates to boxdioramas.com , all of which are charted on the News page , though it's also a lot of fun to just click around." Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Jun 23, 2022•1 hr 50 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Taesung Harmms is the driving force, artistic director, and primary sculptor behind Alpine Miniatures , one of the highest-quality producers of resin figures in the hobby’s marketplace today. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com And, in the wake of MFCA 2022 and a continued period of busy modeling by people stuck inside avoiding COVID, we've added a ton of new updates to boxdioramas.com , all of which are charted on the New...
Jun 09, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Painter Marion and sculptor Alan, happily married since 2003, are one of the most dynamic duos in the world of military miniatures. This episode features a chat with them, along with our recap of the 2022 MFCA Show outside Philadelphia in mid-May. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
May 26, 2022•1 hr 57 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Marijn Van Gils has been high atop our list of guests who we were most eager to talk to ever since we launched this podcast, some 18 episodes ago now. We’re both big fans of the sculpting, painting, and composition of his dioramas and vignettes, which almost always offer unique views of their subjects and a sly sense of humor. Please visit Chris Meddings' Inside the Armour Publications and order Models for Ukraine , all profits from which will go to humanitarian aid to Ukraine. You can find phot...
May 12, 2022•2 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 19
In this episode, as we gear up for the Miniature Figure Collectors of America Show just outside Philadelphia on May 13 and 14, 2022, we chat with one of the event’s organizers and a veteran member of the long-running club, Pennsylvania modeler Jack Lynch. We talked about the club and the upcoming exhibit, as well as about the many roles Jack has played in the hobby, as a dedicated sculptor and painter, a professional model-maker, and a retailer, working with toys, model railroads, and his own mi...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Bristol, England-based Chris Meddings is a master modeler whose scratchbuilding skills are especially stunning; the co-host (with Will Pattison and Tracy Hancock) of the Sprue Cutters’ Union podcast ; the owner of Inside the Armour Publications , and a budding figure sculptor and painter. We talked with Chris about all of this and more, and followed up on a few questions you, our listeners, have posed. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on ...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Jim and Barry talk to Joe Berton and Pat Vess about the Military Miniature Society of Illinois. They also discuss Pat's recent switch from painting in oils to acrylics. Jim and Barry talk about the benefits of belonging to a modeling club. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Feb 24, 2022•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Dennis Levy has been a huge inspiration to the two of us for years, and he was high atop our list for interview subjects from the day we started this podcast. We had a blast talking with Dennis about boxes and more. Jim and Barry also chat about abandoned projects and discuss some unreasonable actions by Barry which almost caused an international incident. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great mode...
Feb 10, 2022•1 hr 59 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Bill Horan needs no introduction, at least in our small world. Barry and Jim talk to the master painter and sculptor, and, as always, discuss some of their favorite pieces from his extensive and impressive canon. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Jan 13, 2022•2 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In this episode, Barry and Jim talk with veteran East Coast painter, sculptor, educator, and miniatures enthusiast Bill Merklein, a thoughtful artist and great raconteur. A towering figure in the world of G.I. Joe collectors, he brings a truly unique perspective to the world we cover in Small Subjects. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smalls...
Dec 16, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 13
On this episode, Barry and Jim discuss some of their personal “Game-Changers,” pieces they saw that blew their minds, inspired them, and got them thinking in different ways about the possibilities for miniatures. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Check out some other great modeling podcasts on modelpodcasts.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Dec 02, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Nick has earned an international reputation for his boxes—many of which touch on his other passion for film—and his was one of the first artists galleries we added to boxdioramas.com! We also offer some useful tips when sculpting or converting for scaling your work. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Nov 18, 2021•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Michael Kontraros is one of the top sculptors in the world in the fantasy realm. For years, he won gold medals and wide renown for his one-off sculpts, which are painted by some of the top artists in Greece, and which are greatly sought-after by collectors. He now runs his own company, Michael Kontraros Collectibles , where he produces stunning figure kits. We also talk about the 2021 MMSI Chicago Show and give a couple of wet palette suggestions you might want to try out. You can find photos an...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 59 min•Season 1Ep. 10
We talk to Joel Glass, a collector of miniatures and a supporter of the MFCA show in Philadelphia as well as World Expo. We also share our thoughts about the world of collecting miniatures. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Oct 21, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 9
This episode features an interview with Greg DiFranco, a master painter renowned for his use of shadows, light, and color, as well as a damn fine sculptor and a champion of flats who has raised that aspect of our hobby to new heights. You can find photos and links to information discussed in each episode at our podcast blog on boxdioramas.com Contact us at smallsubjectspodcast@gmail.com...
Oct 07, 2021•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 8
