|click image for full size|

In the United States, today is National Make Up Your Mind Day, National Champaign Day & New Year’s Eve! So, maybe to celebrate, you could make up your mind about New Year’s resolutions & enjoy some champaign during New Year’s Eve parties?

Thursday’s Leadoff Drive:
5th behind-the-scenes “set prep”

Scale Model Christmas Cards (set design by OC,SHer TOM G & photography by BILL R) were presented in this theme, 12/21-26/2015. Now in the midst of a few days of info-history of this series, the “keys” of the 6 cards will be revealed 01/04-09/2016. This image is a close-up of 1 of the completed scenes. Can you ID which!? Tom G (previously written for “Old Cars Weekly”) started building scale model scenes in the mid-late 1980s. In early 1990, he met photographer Bill, who encouraged Tom to combine realism, fantasy & a “painterly effect” to create even better scenes. The pair teamed to create the line of 6 Christmas Cards, using car models & Dept 56 Snow Village buildings on a set built in-studio & shot with a large format camera (Bill’s Mamiya RB-67) to capture depth of field. Prints were done on a huge 4-color Heidelberg press & then sold in magazines.