About me

The majority of the models you'll see here, I built in the 80's when I was in my late teens and twenties. They are hand built, hand painted scale models that began as a bunch of white plastic parts in a colorful box. It was a hobby I really enjoyed as a kid. I still build the odd kit now and then, perhaps once a year. Now with a focus on photography, I can better share some of my favorite work. - Kelly Oltean. Thanks for Visiting. Enjoy!

About my hobby(s)

This website project is about scale models, but also about photography. Bringing them together now, you could say is my new hobby. The photos you see here are taken in my home studio. They are lightly color balanced to achieve a more realistic lighting effect. Sometimes I will clean up a spec or two on the background in Photoshop. I apply a slight sharpen filter and generally that's it. In some cases (very few) I have a really great shot but there's one maybe two minor little specs on the paint, I might fix those up in Photoshop but it's rare. I prefer to get a really good clean photo to start with. In general, I will spend anywhere from about 30 to 90 minutes taking photos (excluding any travel), then I usually download, review, pick my favs, color balance them, resize, and post to the website all within about another hour.

About scale

So just a refresher about scale with some examples.

Most of the models I build fall into several scale categories. These are popular, but not exclusive scales for the type of model subject. In some of the photos I have added a small common object to provide a size reference, often the last photo in the set.

Car models 1:24, 1:25 scale

Standard: At 1:24 scale, A 6 foot person is 3 inches tall, and a 17.25 ft. El Camino is 8.63 inches long.
Metric: At 1:24 scale, A 182cm person is 7.58cm tall, and a 5.25m El Camino is 21.88 cm long.

Aircraft 1:72, 1:144 scale

Standard: At 1:72 scale, A 6 foot person is 1 inch tall, and a 49.3 ft. F16 fighter jet is 7.32 inches long. At 1:144 scale those numbers are half.
Metric: At 1:72 scale, A 182cm person is 2.53cm tall, and a 15.02m F16 fighter jet is 20.86cm long. At 1:144 scale those numbers are half.  

Armor, Military Diorama 1:35 scale

Standard: At 1:35 scale, a 6 foot person is 2.06 inches tall, and a 17.7 ft. Panzer IV tank is 6.7 inches long.
Metric: At 1:35 scale, a 182cm person is 2.06 inches tall, and a 5.39m Panzer IV tank is 15.4cm long.