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Miniature Masterpieces

Visiting Valley Con with the Pasadena Modeler’s Club

Most kids have, at one point or another, tried to assemble a model kit. Maybe it was a warplane or a hot rod, or a sailing ship but for most of us the end result was the same: glued together fingers and a pile of plastic parts that only vaguely resembled the picture on the box. For some people though, specifically those with boatloads of patience and impeccable attention to detail, those model kits became an obsession (and we don’t mean in the Ramones-esque teenage glue sniffing kind of obsession). For these folks, the act of recreating the real in miniature down to the very last bullet hole or blade of grass is heaven. We went to Valley Con, an annual event put on by the Pasadena Modeler’s Club and hosted at the Petersen Automotive Museum, to meet some of these people and hear their stories.

We spoke to George Creed, founder of Valley Con and head of the Pasadena Modeler’s Club, who has been modeling since he was a kid about what makes Valley Con so special and why scale modeling as a hobby is far from dying out. We also spoke to Penny Meyer who specializes in figure painting about what makes painting the human face so exciting for her and to Ray Juncal, a professional modelmaker who has built models for Hollywood films like Titanic and K-19 the Widowmaker. Lastly we talked to Leticia Porché, a graphic designer for the Petersen who got into the hobby through her father-in-law, about her role in bringing Valley Con to the Petersen and what she sees as the future of the hobby.

Check out our video from Valley Con and then spend the rest of the day trying to NOT buy every awesome vintage race car model kit on eBay or maxing out your credit cards at the local hobby shop. We’ll be doing the same.

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