Gorre (But not Daphetid)

[Anonymous]

We all stand on John allen's shoulders....Influence? i imagine he is the biggest.......but comparing modeler's of a different era is tough...kinda like...:who's better Dempsey, Marciano or Ali? And why does it matter? I look at all the modeling i see........mentally saving that which i perceive as good, discarding that which doesn't work, and try to move my modeling ahead... also.....there may be a difference between the most IMPRESSIVE modeling feats, and the BEST modeling. The pioneers were impressive because of their limitations, but how many would argue that Ellison was BETTER modeler than Sellios? The FSM is far more 'realistic' to my eye than the Delta Lines...but Ellison is impressive because of what he had to work with (hand painted flat stonework.....cardboard structures, lack of many detail parts, etc). The next generation will have its standard bearers. BTW, Allen's work is very hard to evaluate honestly at times because if his whimsical bent....perhaps that was his genius..balancing the sometimes absurd with great execution .....now if ya wanta start something...what would the John Allens, Frank Ellisons, Ben Kings and Jack Works do with todays vast array of scale materials.....hmmmmm....the cream ALWAYS rises to the top...yesterdays greats would be among todays greats........so often the genius is a matter of vision more than execution..........

[robengland]

Let's not get too misty-eyed. John Allen's work has undoubtedly been surpassed by peope like Selios

The thing about JA is he broke new ground and created new directions, as others in this thread have said.

Furlow points the way in a new direction. For those who missed it, I read Furlow's recent message as: it is dogma these days that "MR is about replicating the prototype as accurately as you can" and "MR is about operating as much as (more than) modelling". He challenges that. He says "MR is about art, about characature. You can't possibly replicate reality so have fun with it". Maybe many will follow, maybe they won't. Let's check back in a decade and see how much influence he really had.

Another innovator not mentioned here is David Barrow. He is the "punk rock revolution" refered to earlier in this thread. He says: "to heck with elaborate concoctions, strip it back to the bare bones and run trains". Once again we'll see how much influence he's had come ten or twenty years from now.

Maybe JA was the Einstein of MR. Maybe he was a once-in-a-millenium guy and succeeding generations can't match him. I don't think so.