First Impressions of the Magazine...

[noname]

The thing that really stands out for me about the magazine is the meaty content. WOW! I was trying to show my wife,"Look!, article ,article, article, advertisement,...article, article article, advertisement...". You just don't find this in other magazines. In a sense this is like two magazines in one so is more worth the money than any other similar priced magazine.

I have been in hobby shops several times before, picked up a magazine and then putting it back down cause I couldn't justify spending X amount of dollars for what appeared to be two or three articles and the rest chalk full of ads. Not so with SMA. Very impressive, hope you guys can keep finding ways to keep the healthy content flowing.

 

[unttld]

Love it. I don't have much to compare to other than AK's Weathering Magazine (which I've come to hate, and feel like each issue is the instructional manual for their products — I mean, a whole issue on how to chip? How many ways can you do tutorials for salt chipping or Worn Effects? 1, but they've got ~80 pages of it). Generally I've found that most any tutorial is always better on YouTube (as you get to see the modeller doing it) and for this reason I don't buy these types of mags.

However, SMA Mag is superbly done. The print quality is great, the tutorials are very thorough and helpful, and more importantly the content is interesting and diverse. And more importantly, I'll be signing up for a subscription once the shop has subscription starting with issue 2.

Also thanks for not including daft photos of half naked girls waving machine guns around. It's nice to see less BroDudeâ„¢ and can be inclusive to members of both sexes.

Cheers,
Derek.

Again, great magazine!

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

... And more importantly, I'll be signing up for a subscription once the shop has subscription starting with issue 2..

I don't know if that's going to be an option anytime soon, Scott would have to address that.

What we have been doing for now, is simply having the person who bought issue one and are now interested in a subscription, simply placing a note; "begin with issue two" on their order form and we simply make the adjustment then.

Entirely up to you, and thanks for the comments. 8)

 

[unttld]

... And more importantly, I'll be signing up for a subscription once the shop has subscription starting with issue 2..

I don't know if that's going to be an option anytime soon, Scott would have to address that.

What we have been doing for now, is simply having the person who bought issue one and are now interested in a subscription, simply placing a note; "begin with issue two" on their order form and we simply make the adjustment then.

Entirely up to you, and thanks for the comments. 8)

Ah, rad, I'll just do that!

 

[Dagger6actual]

Chris I thought it was interesting that father seeing your awesome Dauntless in the first issue that Fine Scale Modeling has one in thier new issue!?! Different but VERY similar...you sir have folks playing catch up!!!

 

[Chris S]

Thanks Dagger ,at least we got there first eh ! ;D ;D

Chris.

 

[Ravhin]

Right, finally finished reading my issue ;D Great stuff.

Just a couple of nibbles :

As some other people pointed out some pages have blurry text, besides the ones mentioned here there are a couple more, mainly when you have that dark background. The images look fine and it's still readable but it does strain your eyes a bit

There are also a few English mistakes here and there. None of them would be caught by an automatic corrector so the articles need to be reviewed with more attention so that foam doesn't get replaced with phone (in From the Ground up article) for example .

Besides that, every article is pretty much amazing, I just had a really hard time following the one on rust. Maybe because of my inexperience in these matters ? I don't know, but I feel there is just too much going on and very few images relative to what is written.

Regardless of a couple of nitpicks the magazine is awesome. Keep up the good work.

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

None of them would be caught by an automatic corrector so the articles need to be reviewed with more attention so that foam doesn't get replaced with phone (in From the Ground up article) for example .

Ha! That's funny right there, nice catch. ;D but of course the articles were read completely through and not simply just pasted to a spell checker dood! ;D There is far more work involved than that. I restructured/completed/deleted more sentences and such than anyone reading the final product would ever imagine. Some of our authors (only one in issue one) don't speak English as their first language, others have cultural colloquialisms that aren't always clear to understand, IE: is that a grammar mistake, or his native slang for humor purposes?

...but in all honesty after reading thousands of lines of text, multiple times under looming deadlines, it tends to get rather convoluted and all begins to blend together. With articles getting passed around like a cold at a daycare, it quickly became rather easy for any one of us working on the magazine to miss a few things. ...and I'm not being defensive or making excuses, as the magazines editor I will gladly own these mistakes and strive to catch them in issue two.

Also, after having a couple of perspective authors fail to come through with their columns by the deadline, I had to scramble to fill those slots. Hence, Ground Up was born. I built and photographed that entire piece in one day, and wrote that text the next.

Again, I'm not offended or making excuses, everyone has brought up some valid points. Most of these things brought to our attention have already been discussed at great length, many of them we knew existed after viewing the proofs but decided to run with it vs. putting off the print date and missing our planned pre-Christmas release.

It could have been the biggest half arsed blunder in publication since Snookies book but it wasn't and it will only get better from here on out.

8)

 

[Ravhin]

Oh I had no intention of implying that you guys did just copy pasting, I know that assuring the quality of all this text is not easy. Though I don't write for magazines I do write a ton of reports for clients, some of them much bigger than I would like with multiple contributors. I can certainly understand the work behind these things.

It's probably due to this that my brain is geared to catching these sorts of mistakes ;D even though English is not my native language.

It's a fantastic magazine I would never fault it just because there are some minor mistakes. Even though this was just issue 1 you guys deserve high praise for it.

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

No worries, I was just sayin'

...and seriously, thanks for the comments. Good bad or indifferent they mean a lot to us, they really do.



It means you bought one. ;D

 

[Steve Ski]

Chris I thought it was interesting that father seeing your awesome Dauntless in the first issue that Fine Scale Modeling has one in thier new issue!?! Different but VERY similar...you sir have folks playing catch up!!!

Got to agree with this one Chris, great Bird and I like the fact that you are one of the few multi-tasking modelers in the arena, figures to birds and all in betwixt. Now that is pretty dang cool in my book!

Cheers, Ski.

 

[Chris S]

Thanks Steve . you're no slouch at modelling yourself

I have always said ,its good to model different genre ,not only does it help prevent the hobby going a bit stale and samey ,but you need to learn new skills for each different area ,some skills do cross over very well ,but learning figures as you know can be quite demanding .
Anyhoo ....Thanks again for the kind words

Chris.

 

[Drewid]

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive in the mail. :-[
So where is it?
Jim Drew

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

Jim, can I assume it arrived by now?

You only posted this, and the same to facebook but I've never had a response. I'd really like to know so that if it didn't make it, we can send another.

 

[Big-John]

My Impression of the first issue.

First of all, I was impressed with the heavy cardboard envelope it was delivered in, (more on this later). I’m not one to buy many magazines as I find that I can find a lot more information on the web. But, I wanted a subscription to this one because it’s packed full of content from people that I consider friends and wanted to support them in their endeavors. Upon opening it up, I was greatly impressed with the layout and content. I really like the fact that there is no advertising in the middle of the articles. It can really get disappointing to buy a magazine and find that it has more advertising than articles.

I was fortunate enough to see the “Burden of Sorrow” and meet Rick at the AMPS nationals and love the opportunity the read an in depth build of this master piece.

I also find that there is something to learn from each and every article in the mag. Its packed full of interesting stuff and it will keep you reading it for days!

Back to the heavy envelop. My wife had ordered the subscription for me for my birthday on Dec 13th. Four weeks later I still hadn’t seen the Magazine in the mail. I contacted Ken and Scott and they promptly sent me another copy. Well, Today (7 Weeks later) the original mag she ordered showed up in the mail. The cardboard enveloped was rubbed and water logged so bad that the postage and return address were worn off, but the magazine was perfect inside.

You know, It wasn’t Ken and Scott’s fault that it got lost in the mail, but they went out of their way to send me a replacement and I’m grateful for that!

 

[Steve Ski]

You know, It wasn’t Ken and Scott’s fault that it got lost in the mail, but they went out of their way to send me a replacement and I’m grateful for that!

If I may quote Forest Gump, " That's all I got to say about that."
Well said Big-John, well said.

 

[fblanton]

Next issue

Enjoying the magazine! When is the next issue due to mail out?

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

Re: Next issue

Enjoying the magazine! When is the next issue due to mail out?

Issue one was the January issue, we just wanted to get it out before Christmas so it went out early.

Issue two is the March issue and should be in the mail by mid March.

 

[Ian]

Awesome!

 

[ModelismoChannel]

Hi Guys!

I thoroughly enjoyed my first issue of my 6 issue subscription.

The quality of the magazine is outstanding and I do back-up all the positive feedback that the magazine unsurprisingly has created.

It is a great platform to get to know new artists, new skills, new techniques, new products and new tendencies.

I congratulate all the SMA team for making this possible. May your success carry on for future generations! ;D

P.S. Corny, I know... but true

Ramón