The Mission

We want to design unique replicas of “awesome stuff” for ourselves and the model-building community using leading-edge desktop technology.

What do we mean by “awesome stuff”? Simple: it’s all the things that we love and would like to build as models but can’t find available in kit form. You might find our tastes to be a bit eclectic, but our special interests are in aviation (modern as well as historic) and sci-fi. Also, we love factual spacecraft, nautical vessels (particularly WWII War in the Pacific) and 1960s era superheroes among many other things. As this endeavor matures you will see many of these subjects represented here.

More than 40 years ago I was given my first Monogram SnapTite model kit. I twisted parts off the runners and clumsily snapped them together; most of the smaller parts didn’t make it onto the completed model. The stickers were placed wherever I wanted them – who cared about instructions?

Later I graduated to using glue with all the predictable gluey fingerprints that come with that stage of model building. The half-life of my models was only a few hours since they were all immediately taken outside to be played with alongside my Matchbox cars and Tonka trucks. Toys had their rightful place in my inventory, but I loved the process of building which the model kits could give to me. (By the way, LEGO bricks were HUGE in my house – and still are!!)

Eventually I started brush painting my models so that I could make them look a bit more like the pictures on the box. Many years later came my first Badger airbrush powered by cans of compressed air. Water-slide decals joined the fray and the models started to have longer lives as I placed them on shelves in my room for display.

Fast-forward to today and I find myself working with all manner of media (styrene, resin, photo etch, acrylic, metal, etc.), scratch-building parts, casting parts in resin, using computer technology to design and print decals and to cut vinyl paint masks. LED light effects and sounds round-out some models. Others also require complex internal armatures and display stands. It’s amazing what that first SnapTite model hath wrought.

Despite living in what I believe to be a Golden Age of modeling, there remain subjects that are not available as kits which I have a strong desire to see realized as a scaled replica. Many of my modeling acquaintances have the same desire, as I’m sure many of you do as well. We have so many computer-based desktop manufacturing tools available to us today that, given some skill and time, we hobbyists should be able to replicate in scale nearly any subject that we desire.

Hence, we arrive at Downen Scaled Replicas. Welcome to the endeavor.