3SF 3D
An exhibition of Science Fact, Science Fiction and Science Fantasy Models
and Art Work

PART ONE – THE WRITTEN WORD TO SCIENCE FACT

You will have to forgive my lack of journalistic acumen but this is the first time I have ever 
written a magazine article.

Where to start.  The beginning always seems to be good point.  So here goes.

It was in January 1999 that my friend and fellow exhibitor on 3SF 3D Roy Hughes asked me 
if I would be interested in getting together with him to organise an exhibition of models based 
around our own collections of completed kits.

Roy went on to explain that the local museum in Rotherham, South Yorkshire had an 
initiative whereby local people with small or large collections of items could exhibit them for 
free for seven weeks at a time.

I must confess that at first the idea did not appeal to me very much mainly because my models 
are always on permanent display at my own home, and the thought of breakage’s caused by 
having to transport them any distance at all was one that filled me with dread.  But I decided 
to check the facilities the museum had to offer and them come back and think about it some 
more.

I was mildly surprised at the amount of space available for use by the general public at the 
museum.  Over two long rooms there were.  Six large pedestal cabinets.  One very large wall 
unit/cabinet and lots and lots of wall space for pictures and posters.

As I came back from the museum the idea started to come to me that if this exhibition could 
be planned correctly, then there was the chance that we could do something really good with 
the space that was available.

I worked on a few ideas and then got together once again with Roy and explained my ideas to 
him.  Instead of just applying to use one or two of the available cabinets.  Why not apply to 
use both the available rooms with everything they had to offer.  I felt that our combined 
collections should easily be able to fill both rooms and by extending into other areas such as 
Science Fact models and Box Art, we could put on something really special that would be of 
benefit to everyone concerned.  

Roy had always given me the impression that he would like to work in the areas of model and 
prop building as a full time profession, so this would give him the chance to show people 
what he could do.  

For myself,  I have worked in marketing with a particular emphasis on the publicity side of 
things for the last few years but always on a part-time basis and always in a support capacity, 
never with the responsibility for planning an entire event.  My idea was to ask the museum if 
they would have any objection to me marketing the exhibition for them instead of them using 
their normal procedure.  This I felt would give me the chance to use the training and 
qualifications I had gained over the past few years to obtain some practical experience.


The first thing to do was write a letter of application to the museum requesting the use of the 
entire public area as the two rooms are commonly known, and to send a few photographs of 
some of our completed kits.  I also requested a date for the exhibition that would fall during 
the July to September 2000, schools summer holidays, as I felt that this would give local 
young people with the time of their hands that the holidays usually affords the chance to visit 
the exhibition.

I wrote the letter.  Requested the dates and also requested that I be allowed to do the event 
marketing.  A few weeks later we got a reply stating that all our requests had been granted.

I know from experience that planning something like this is not something you can just sit 
about and wait to see what happens.  Within hours of the request letter been sent I had already 
started working on a marketing strategy involving posters, press releases, distribution routes 
and layouts for the models etc, etc, etc.

It was at this point that I started to think of a focus for the exhibition.  Science fiction is great 
for those who have interest in it, but like train spotting its something that those who do not 
have an interest in it always scoff at.  So the idea was to make it more appealing but still keep 
it on the focus of model building.  

The idea came to me that if we could introduce a Science Fact element into the exhibition 
then this would allow a natural progression into Science Fiction and Science Fantasy being as 
the three will always be interlinked, Today’s Science Fiction and Fantasy will tomorrow 
become Science Fact.  This would also give me a focus for the poster.  3SF for the Science 
Fact, Science Fiction and Science Fantasy aspect and 3D for the three dimensional aspect of 
the models – 3SF 3D.

So we have a focus for the exhibition.  The next problem was could the Science Fact section 
be completed is such a way as to tell a story of the development of un-manned and manned 
space flight in such a way as to A) make sense and B) allow a progression back to Science 
Fiction and Science Fantasy.  

I looked at the kits I had available, both made and unmade and came up short. I then looked at 
the kits that were available both from my local model shops and from the internet firm that 
now supplies me with most of my kits these days (hell why not – its between 25 to 50% 
cheaper).  Taking all these factors into account I felt that really good story could be told in kit 
form starting from the early days of World War II and leading up to the year 2000.

The next thing was how to introduce people to the exhibition. 

Again the question was where had space related Science Fact had its origins.  The answer was 
in the early writings of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy authors.  Who were the most 
famous of these authors?  All sorts of names sprang to mind but the four who were the most 
prominent to me were Arthur C Clark, Jules Verne, H G Well and Isaac Asimov.  







So now I had a progression from the written words of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy 
through to the existence of Science Fact.  I had a list of the kits I would need to build a 
Science Fact section for the exhibition.  This came to thirty-five, and whilst looking at the kits 
that were available I had also come up with a way to merge the Science Fact section back into 
Science Fiction and Science Fantasy and to tie this back in with the work of the early authors.  

The last three sub-sections of the Science Fact section would be Space Stations (MIR), Stealth 
(F-117 and B-2) and Robotics (Honda P-2 Humanoid Robot).

Thirty-five kits in eighteen months.  Could it be done?  Not much choice really.  If the 
exhibition was going to have a proper Science Fact section, which told the story, how I felt it 
should be told.

My normal kit building routine of starting one kit, finishing it and then starting another went 
out of the window.  It was a question of starting one kit.  Doing as much with it as possible 
and then moving on to the same thing with the next, next, next etc, etc, etc.  There have been 
times over the last eighteen months when my home has taken on the appearance of the vehicle 
assembly building at NASA.  One kit here in a box, another kit there in a box and so on and 
so forth.

Not only did the Science Fact section have to be built, but I also had to find time to re-build 
kits that I wanted to put in the exhibition but had suffered with the passage of time.  Add to 
this my on-going building programme for Science Fiction and Science Fantasy kits as well 
and things have been pretty busy over the last eighteen months.  Ah, the joys of model 
building.

Meanwhile the publicity side of things was staring to gear up.  The compilation artwork for 
the poster was completed.  The tailored press releases were composed and the format for the 
Box Art display was discussed and agreed.

One fortunate thing that came out of me doing the concept marketing for the exhibition was 
the fact that the money normally spent on this by the museum could be diverted to other areas.  
So far it’s paid for one special display unit to be built for our mecha kits, one thick perspex 
shelf for the interior of one of the display cabinets and two specially designed corner cabinets.

I have to say at this point that the museum staff we have worked with have been fantastic.  
They came up with ideas that we just would not have thought about.  One was to enlarge the 
series of storyboards I had created to cover the Science Fact section up to A3 size,so that 
people with sight difficulties could see them better.

PART TWO – STAR TREK, STAR WARS AND DARTH MAUL

One of the biggest fears I had with doing the exhibition was the fear of breakage.  When you 
have worked for hours, days and sometimes weeks or in the case of the Borg Cube two years 
on a project the last thing you want to do is see it damaged.  Once again the museum came 
through magnificently.  If we wanted to put the models in the cabinets it was quite all right 
with them.  If we needed any help just ask.

The thought of someone else even touching my models was enough to bring me out in a 
sweat, but they assured me that if we wanted to put the kits in the display cabinets it was 
completely alright by them.

The next problem was how to spread word of the exhibition over as great an area as possible.  

I wanted to try and get into the local secondary schools with posters if possible, but I wanted 
to do it in such a way that the head teachers would not only want to display our publicity 
material, but would see this as opportunity for their pupils to get a learning experience from 
attending the exhibition.

I found out the names of the local education directors for the four areas we hoped to cover and 
wrote to them in person asking for their help.  When composing a request letter I feel its 
always important to state what’s in it for person you are asking the help of.  What can they get 
out of helping you and why should they help you.

I came at this from two angles.  The first was conveying the historical aspect of our Science 
Fact section.  How the history of manned space flight until the present day was an important 
part of mankind’s history over the last sixty years.  This would also include a mention of the 
technological and engineering aspect involved with space flight.

The second angle I have to say was not my own, but had always been something that Roy and 
I had talked about in the past but were not really in a position to do anything about until now.  
A few months ago I had read the excellent editorial by Mike Reccci on the closing of his local 
model shop and the decline of model building in general in favour of less creative pastimes.

The editorial also went on to cover the advantages one could get from building models and 
the skills which could be developed for use in later life.  Here was the focus I was looking for, 
for the remainder of my appeal letter to local head teachers.  I emailed Mike.  Told him about 
the exhibition and what its aims were and asked him if he would have any objection to my 
using parts of his editorial for the letter.  Mike got back to me a few days letter stating that he 
had no objections what so ever.

For those of you who are starting to get bored at this point, this is after all a model magazine 
and not a marketing/publicity one, I ask you to bear with me.  For those of you who are 
considering doing your own exhibitions in the future there may be a few ideas here that you 
might want to use.  

Its okay to put your models and artwork on display, but if no one knows there, there 
then what’s the point?  One poster in one shop may be seen by only a few people who 
are interested in attending the event.  Two or three hundred people will see one poster in 
a secondary school.  If that brings you only fifty people to your exhibitions then in my 
opinion its time well spent to get it there in the first place. 

The main places to try and get your posters into are buildings with a high flow through of the 
general public (that’s marketing speak).  Schools should be your main aim.  After this 
libraries, swimming pools, leisure centres, doctors surgeries, call centres, etc etc.

Anyway enough of publicity.  Back to the models.  After Science Fact (Cabinets 1 and 2) 
came the Science Fiction and Science Fantasy. 

We used our third cabinet to cover Star Wars.  It had been originally planned to use this for 
Star Trek but as things worked out we had to reorganise this.

I had managed to get exhibition flyers in the newsletter of the local business club.  Seemed 
like a good idea at the time, as there are over five hundred business in it.  One of these turned 
out to be the local cancer research hospital (Weston Park – Sheffield).  They contacted me 
after seeing the flyer and told me that they had been donated a very special figure for auction 
and could we help them by displaying it for them as part of the exhibition.

It turned out that the figure in question was a six feet, three-dimensional figure of the Star 
Wars Episode 1 bad guy, Darth Maul.  The figure was equipped with its own double bladed 
light sabre and came on its own specially designed base.

Between exhibition rooms one and two there is a double alcove.  We put the Darth Maul 
figure in one of these and the museum staff rigged a perspex screen to keep the figure safe 
from harm. I arranged the admin side of auctioning the figure off.  We now had all the Star 
Wars material in close proximity to each other.

Cabinet five in Room two was devoted to our Star Trek models.  To increase the amount of 
display space available I came up with the idea of installing a perspex shelf in the cabinet half 
way up.  By using perspex for the shelf it allowed light to pass through the gaps to illuminate 
the models below.

PART THREE – ANIME, BOXART, ALIENS AND HODGEPODGE

For the last ten to twelve years one of my main interests in the model making area has been 
building kits from the various Japanese animation shows which are produced.  To say my 
interest boarders on the fanatical is something of an understatement.  I have around seven or 
eight hundred kits that still need building (one day) with about two hundred completed at the 
present time.

Whilst Roy’s not as fanatical about anime as I am he is still something of a fan in this area.  
Were we going to include our anime kits in the exhibition?  You can bet your boots that the 
answer was YES.  After discussing the layout of the anime section, we also decided to also 
branch out into box art, as this is an area I feel is much taken for granted by many model 
builders.  In Japan box art seems to have become an art form in its own right with many of the 
model company’s openly competing to have the best artists in this field working for them.  
Some of the artists even go on to extend their original work into an entire series of pictures 
based on the same subject and produce these in book form.

Exhibition room two had a large wall unit/cabinet in it, which would be perfect to kick-off our 
box art display.  The shelves in the cabinet would also allow us to display the models from the 
box art.  The cabinet turned out to have so much extra space in it that we were even able to 
feature and entire section on Space Cruiser Yamato and Captain Harlock, two classics in the 
Japanese animation world.

We extended the box art display outward from the large cabinet to all the available wall space 
in room two.  The museum were able to supply us with about twenty five very large photo 
frames and these allowed us to feature nearly every piece of box art we had available.  We 
also had quite a few advertisement posters from various Japanese anime shows and we used 
these in the spaces between the photo frames.

We knew from our pre-planning sessions for the exhibition that we would have a lot more 
models available for display than the museum had space for at the time and I had managed to 
persuade them to build two additional cabinets for the far end of room two.  Into these we put 
our hotchpotch sections.  These were kits which were few in series number but large in 
variation.  One of the cabinets held our Gerry Anderson section featuring models from 
Thunderbirds, Space 1999, UFO, Captain Scarlet and Terrahawks.  This cabinet also held our 
Doctor Who and Warhammer 40,000 exhibits.

The second cabinet held our displays for Batman, Robocop, Nightmare on Elm Street and 
Predator.

That left us with one large pedestal cabinet left at the far end of room two.  This was devoted 
to models from the films Alien and Aliens.

It took us three days to set the exhibition up.  I can honestly say it was most enjoyable and 
exhausting three days I have ever spent.  That was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, July 
10th to 12th July.  The museum had organised a special preview night (14th July) for the day 
before the exhibition was due to officially open, so Roy and I got to give talks to the guests 
and make a couple of speeches as well. 

Has the exhibition gone well you ask?

It was my hope that we might get attendance figures for the exhibitions seven week run in the 
region of about six or seven hundred.  By week six we had, had eight and half thousand.  

The museum contacted me on week five and said that as it was going so well would we be 
interested in extending it until Christmas if they could re-shuffle all their other planned 
exhibitions for the rest of the year.  As it turned out they were only able to re-shuffle until the 
end of October, but an eight week extension is better than nothing at all I suppose.

Final attendance figures for 3SF 3D have now been in the region of nineteen and half 
thousand.  Not bad I suppose for two local Yorkshire lads and two hundred and forty 
something exhibits.

Feedback from the exhibition was also very positive with 95% of people saying that they not 
only thought the exhibition was excellent but that they would also like to see it repeated again 
in the following year.  This would mean that they would have to nearly the same layout again 
with for the most part the same models and artwork but this did not seem to matter. 

And finally

It seemed a shame to have to break up the exhibition, but that’s what we had to do.  Roy took 
his kits home and they now reside on shelves in various rooms in his home.

For me I decided to do something little bit different with my kits from the exhibition.  

I have two rooms under my house which have stood virtually empty for the last few years and 
were only used for occasional storage.  Whilst the exhibition was running I had decided to do 
out the larger of these two rooms as a special display area for the kits from the Science Fact 
section of the exhibition.  The walls and floor of the room have been repainted with special 
paint to keep out the damp (Made sure of this by painting them twice).  Special “decked” 
display shelving and display lighting has now been installed and the Science Fact section of 
3SF 3D now has a new home, beneath my home in Yorkshire.  As it turned out, I have put up 
so much shelving in the room that it now also houses my Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman and 
Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds kits with enough room to house quite a few of my Japanese 
animation kits as I run out of space upstairs.

The second room I plan to work on during the summer 2001 months and it will be mainly 
used the house the two models I have of the International Space Station when they are 
completed.