1985, Those were the days! They were the carefree days before the business overwhelmed us and demanded all our time. This photo was taken at the VLS facility in the Cross keys business center. It was taken a few minutes after I put the final touches on the original Legacies and the photos were for the Superdiorama book. My God, we were so young. That was in late 1984. Lewis and Verlinden were both only 39 years old and I was 43.
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In January, 1985, The Superdioramas book was released. Both of us were so proud! It went through several printings and, the last I heard, was one of the top selling VP publications ever.
For the next several years, Lewis and I travelled to contests, all over America and Europe. We became very close friends as well as working together at VLS. The Superdioramas book sold very well and Lewis became very well known to modelers around the world as a result.
Finally, it got to the point where we would walk into a local competition or even regionals and as we did, there were modelers who would actually pull their entries out of competition. That made the light bulbs begin going off in my head. Shortly after the Atlanta IPMS national in 1984, I told Lewis I was going to drop out of competition. To me, as well as my business partner, Verlinden, it simply made no sense to compete against my customers and potential customers anymore. I had to start thinking like a businessman, focus on marketing and promotional building. There were other reasons as well. I had made personal enemies as had Lewis and it simply wasn't worth the hassle to me. Besides, I had walls full of trophies and nothing more to prove. That fantastic excitement I once felt had left the building for me.
Lewis, on the other hand, loved competition as I once did and, he wasn't in the model business, he simply worked at VLS. His competing continued all the way up until 2011 at the IPMS convention in Omaha. More about that story later.
Later on, I switched him to building dioramas for VLS customers by creating a division we called VLS Creative Services. Customers would tell us what they wanted and how they wanted it to look, Lewis and I would quote them a price, they'd pay up front as the work would not be refunded for obvious reasons, and, Lewis would build them. We sold a lot of those as I remember and Lewis loved doing it. Later, it would become his livelihood, and remains so to this very day!
Simultaneously Lewis, in his free time, continued building his masterpieces. My modeling slowed somewhat due to dealing with the pressures of a very rapidly growing VLS. By 1988, we were nearing 25 employees at the St. Louis location and similarly at the Lier, Belgium facility. Around that time, I began building dioramas using the new Verlinden releases to showcase the products. The dioramas remained in the Superdioramas category because I simply liked large dioramas as did Lewis. They were featured in the VP books and magazines as I turned them out and we also published Lewis' dioramas as well. The concept of the three of us using primarily VP products in our dioramas was Verlinden's brainchild. Lewis had his pick of any of the products he wanted free gratis, then was paid for the subsequent magazine articles as well. It was all a win-win proposition, Very soon, he learned that his dioramas were being sough out by collectors and began making serious money selling them.
Then here are some, at least all the ones I have photos of, Lewis' continuing dioramas. He has a passion for Rail guns and U-boats, always has and still does. Of course, that didn't mean that was all he built as you'll see. This is a French railroad gun commandeered and used by the Germans. Apologies for the size. The only photo I had of this one was a thumbnail!
And another. This one was 1/16th scale. All scratch built. It had two concrete housing shields with quad flak turrets. When he built it, I had never heard of such a contraption, but they were actually made and used by the Germans!
Sorry for the size and quality of a few of these. They are the only images I have. This is another 1/15th scale, Russian front diorama, with a VP Tiger I towing a VP Stug out of the frozen lake surrounded by broken ice. This was a big favorite when we had the Miniature World Museum in St. Charles.
Here is Lewis' monster 1/32nd scale B-52, all scratch built! He carved the body from a wood 4 X 4, then took it to a professional vacuum form company and had it formed into two halves of hollow plastic fuselage. Then went on to build the rest, all from scratch. It has been in the SAC museum in Omaha for about 30 years now!
This is a section of our Miniature World Museum in St. Charles from 1985 to 2002. The first case on the right contains Lewis' 1/35th scale Railroad gun, "Dora". entirely scratch built in 1983. That museum was a modeler's dream. 12,000 square feet of thousands of models and dioramas from the greats from all around the world. It did extremely well every summer, but, once school started, would not support itself. Had it been in a tourist town such as Vegas or New Orleans, I believe it would still exist. In it's 15 years, it had visitors from most countries on the planet!
Another section of the museum featured Lewis' Gateway Drag strip in 1/24th scale. Today, it is in the lobby of the Gateway International raceway in Illinois across the river from St. Louis. It was built by Lewis in 1990. The more than a hundred spectators in the stands and elsewhere were sculpted from scratch by Lewis as there were none in that scale available.
There is this great story connected to this one that I have told over and over many times since. Lewis entered it in a national convention in St. Louis in 1991. It was a huge show that I attended. It was entered in civilian vehicles dioramas category. There was no competition in that category whatsoever, the very few entries appeared to be made by novice modelers. The drag strip didn't place.
Lewis stewed on it for a couple of months. He discussed it with me several times. I advised him to let it go as I believed he would come to regret inquiring about it. Well, he went to the national board and asked who the judge was. He got the name, address and phone number. Lewis called him and asked why his entry never placed. First, the judge replied that there was no smoke coming off the tires. Lewis replied using cotton as smoke was not realistic at all. Then he asked for another reason. The judge replied because the wind was blowing the banners above the stands in one direction and the one over the starting line was in another direction. Lewis replied to that because the power of the two dragsters coming off the line always blew the one over the track towards the rear, which didn't effect the one over the stands. Then the judge said, well, this is going nowhere. Lewis said, "So far, you haven't given me any reason whatsoever". Then the judge replied that there were no license plates on the cars parked behind the building. Lewis told him they were entered in competition, fully marked as race cars and would not have had license plates. The judge hung up on him.
Well, Lewis being Lewis, he went to his bench, sculpted two figures. One resembling himself standing, and another of a man on his knees with the name "Judge" on the back of his shirt. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. He then mailed it to the judge! The judge contacted the Postal inspectors and demanded they arrest Lewis for sending illicit material through the US mail. After they stopped laughing, they apologized and told the judge it could not be prosecuted. The organization banned Lewis from competition indefinitely. More about that later! I still crack up laughing whenever I remember that. Lewis is one of those people who will actually do things that most of us only wish we had.
To be continued in Part three
In January, 1985, The Superdioramas book was released. Both of us were so proud! It went through several printings and, the last I heard, was one of the top selling VP publications ever.
For the next several years, Lewis and I travelled to contests, all over America and Europe. We became very close friends as well as working together at VLS. The Superdioramas book sold very well and Lewis became very well known to modelers around the world as a result.
Finally, it got to the point where we would walk into a local competition or even regionals and as we did, there were modelers who would actually pull their entries out of competition. That made the light bulbs begin going off in my head. Shortly after the Atlanta IPMS national in 1984, I told Lewis I was going to drop out of competition. To me, as well as my business partner, Verlinden, it simply made no sense to compete against my customers and potential customers anymore. I had to start thinking like a businessman, focus on marketing and promotional building. There were other reasons as well. I had made personal enemies as had Lewis and it simply wasn't worth the hassle to me. Besides, I had walls full of trophies and nothing more to prove. That fantastic excitement I once felt had left the building for me.
Lewis, on the other hand, loved competition as I once did and, he wasn't in the model business, he simply worked at VLS. His competing continued all the way up until 2011 at the IPMS convention in Omaha. More about that story later.
Later on, I switched him to building dioramas for VLS customers by creating a division we called VLS Creative Services. Customers would tell us what they wanted and how they wanted it to look, Lewis and I would quote them a price, they'd pay up front as the work would not be refunded for obvious reasons, and, Lewis would build them. We sold a lot of those as I remember and Lewis loved doing it. Later, it would become his livelihood, and remains so to this very day!
Simultaneously Lewis, in his free time, continued building his masterpieces. My modeling slowed somewhat due to dealing with the pressures of a very rapidly growing VLS. By 1988, we were nearing 25 employees at the St. Louis location and similarly at the Lier, Belgium facility. Around that time, I began building dioramas using the new Verlinden releases to showcase the products. The dioramas remained in the Superdioramas category because I simply liked large dioramas as did Lewis. They were featured in the VP books and magazines as I turned them out and we also published Lewis' dioramas as well. The concept of the three of us using primarily VP products in our dioramas was Verlinden's brainchild. Lewis had his pick of any of the products he wanted free gratis, then was paid for the subsequent magazine articles as well. It was all a win-win proposition, Very soon, he learned that his dioramas were being sough out by collectors and began making serious money selling them.
Then here are some, at least all the ones I have photos of, Lewis' continuing dioramas. He has a passion for Rail guns and U-boats, always has and still does. Of course, that didn't mean that was all he built as you'll see. This is a French railroad gun commandeered and used by the Germans. Apologies for the size. The only photo I had of this one was a thumbnail!
And another. This one was 1/16th scale. All scratch built. It had two concrete housing shields with quad flak turrets. When he built it, I had never heard of such a contraption, but they were actually made and used by the Germans!
Sorry for the size and quality of a few of these. They are the only images I have. This is another 1/15th scale, Russian front diorama, with a VP Tiger I towing a VP Stug out of the frozen lake surrounded by broken ice. This was a big favorite when we had the Miniature World Museum in St. Charles.
Here is Lewis' monster 1/32nd scale B-52, all scratch built! He carved the body from a wood 4 X 4, then took it to a professional vacuum form company and had it formed into two halves of hollow plastic fuselage. Then went on to build the rest, all from scratch. It has been in the SAC museum in Omaha for about 30 years now!
This is a section of our Miniature World Museum in St. Charles from 1985 to 2002. The first case on the right contains Lewis' 1/35th scale Railroad gun, "Dora". entirely scratch built in 1983. That museum was a modeler's dream. 12,000 square feet of thousands of models and dioramas from the greats from all around the world. It did extremely well every summer, but, once school started, would not support itself. Had it been in a tourist town such as Vegas or New Orleans, I believe it would still exist. In it's 15 years, it had visitors from most countries on the planet!
Another section of the museum featured Lewis' Gateway Drag strip in 1/24th scale. Today, it is in the lobby of the Gateway International raceway in Illinois across the river from St. Louis. It was built by Lewis in 1990. The more than a hundred spectators in the stands and elsewhere were sculpted from scratch by Lewis as there were none in that scale available.
There is this great story connected to this one that I have told over and over many times since. Lewis entered it in a national convention in St. Louis in 1991. It was a huge show that I attended. It was entered in civilian vehicles dioramas category. There was no competition in that category whatsoever, the very few entries appeared to be made by novice modelers. The drag strip didn't place.
Lewis stewed on it for a couple of months. He discussed it with me several times. I advised him to let it go as I believed he would come to regret inquiring about it. Well, he went to the national board and asked who the judge was. He got the name, address and phone number. Lewis called him and asked why his entry never placed. First, the judge replied that there was no smoke coming off the tires. Lewis replied using cotton as smoke was not realistic at all. Then he asked for another reason. The judge replied because the wind was blowing the banners above the stands in one direction and the one over the starting line was in another direction. Lewis replied to that because the power of the two dragsters coming off the line always blew the one over the track towards the rear, which didn't effect the one over the stands. Then the judge said, well, this is going nowhere. Lewis said, "So far, you haven't given me any reason whatsoever". Then the judge replied that there were no license plates on the cars parked behind the building. Lewis told him they were entered in competition, fully marked as race cars and would not have had license plates. The judge hung up on him.
Well, Lewis being Lewis, he went to his bench, sculpted two figures. One resembling himself standing, and another of a man on his knees with the name "Judge" on the back of his shirt. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. He then mailed it to the judge! The judge contacted the Postal inspectors and demanded they arrest Lewis for sending illicit material through the US mail. After they stopped laughing, they apologized and told the judge it could not be prosecuted. The organization banned Lewis from competition indefinitely. More about that later! I still crack up laughing whenever I remember that. Lewis is one of those people who will actually do things that most of us only wish we had.
To be continued in Part three
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It's been a great journey, but there is still a lot more to do......press on!
