Mark C. Glassy

I finally finished this book after having won it as part of the LibraryThing Early Readers offer (actually some time back - it was on my "continuing read pile" until recently). Mark C. Glassy is quite the fan of SF and Horror and his kit-building skills are formidable. He also offers up quite a bit of both the history and back-story of the figure (what movie it came from, etc) that showcases both his love of the genre and the rich research done for each kit. The text is accompanied by many photos, unfortunately most are black and white (while this is near-perfect for figures from early, black and white movies, it does take away much of the impact of the later, filmed in color figures).

I enjoyed the book - more because I saw a kindred spirit, someone who geeks out for all the right reasons, than for the book itself. I think the book would have been better if Mark had given more step-by-step photos and descriptions of some of the more intricate details of the building process. Not that the book lacks for inspiration, I just think that there are many of us who like to either explore new techniques or at minimum verify that those techniques we currently use are the valid.

I'm not quite sure how well received this book would be to someone who doesn't follow the genre, or at minimum is a hobby-est kit builder, but then again I don't believe that was Mark's target market. Kudos for getting this published!… (altro)

In high school I was a very serious model maker, getting up to exhibition standard and even considering it as a career at one point; but life intervened and I haven't done any serious modeling in decades now, yet I still can't resist walking the isles in hobby stores looking at the various kits on offer, and wondering if I should get back to it.

Maybe I was expecting too much from this book - thinking that it might just be the spark to get me back to the hobby, but whatever the reason I found it left me feeling dissatisfied. I felt it was trying to be too many things; a intro to modeling, a history of movie monsters, a coffee table art book, and didn't quite work as any of them.

Personally I would have liked at least one section showing a stage by stage build of one of the kits showing some of teh techniques and tips discussed in the text passages. I also found the detailed discussion of painting techniques accompanied by black & white photos that failed to demonstrate the results a little frustrating.

However the book will remain on the shelves in my office, as it's an enjoyable "flick-through" volume, and who knows when the time is right it might provide that spark of inspiration I need to once more pick up the X-acto knife, silly putty, and glue.… (altro)

I haven't completed a model since middle school, and even those were mostly snap and click car models where the most problems I had was properly getting the decals on straight. Seeing the detailed, intricate models that Mark Glassy has put together and hand painted is pretty amazing. The book focuses on movie monsters from silent films through the 90s, but the focus is on the classic films from Hammer and others in the early days of films. For a non-model maker like me, it is worth flipping though the dozens and dozens of pictures (mostly B&W with 24 pages of color inserts) of these great films. For a non-model maker like me, it brought be back to Saturday afternoons watching these on my local UHF station. For someone who is interested in building their own models, the books should provide lots of inspiration, ideas, and tips.… (altro)

Author Mark Glassy has created a pretty interesting book here. It is a hybrid for model/diorama enthusiasts as well as monster movie fans. I fall into the latter category. He starts the introduction with a brief biography of himself and how he got into scale, then goes into the more technical aspects of the actual creations. After those formalities, the book is a delightful indulgence of image after image of his models of creature features from tons of films, some famous classics, others are cheesy B-flicks. So interesting and covers films roughly from the 1990s all the way back to the silent era. My only complaint is that for a book that mentions the process of painting the figures, less than a fourth of the bountiful photos are in color. The color pictures are vibrant and engaging, while the B&W are nice for movie fans like myself for the film nostalgia, but they may be frustrating for the scale model readers out there because they can't see the paint detail. ALL of the photos should be in color. That caveat aside, it really is fun to see all of these Figures and Dioramas that are out there and it really makes one want to see the movies again!… (altro)