Since founding the company in 2000, Jim has served as the creative director and head designer for most all of the projects done to date. His highlights include the re-creations of the 48” Lost in Space Jupiter 2, half studio scale movie Nautilus, and half studio scale Star Trek TOS Enterprise. More recently in developing the “Trek Fleet Project” encompassing many variations of the classic starship Enterprise in different studio scales. Another recent major accomplishment was co-designing both re-creations of the studio scale Battlestar Galactica and Battlestar Atlantia along with fellow modelers Charles Adams and Sean Sides. Future ambitions include a second start up company, Accurate Models, a division of Custom Replicas. Aside from acting as Creative Director, he has also been a contributing writer for modeling magazines such as Modeler’s Resource and Sci-Fi & Fantasy Models. Prior industry experience as a modelmaker on Titanic, Gattica, Alien Resurrection, From the Earth To The Moon, Godzilla, Bicentennial Man, and Shanghai-Noon, as well as many architectural models. And to think this company was going to be his “gig” in between movie model making assignments!

Moving from his own love of modeling within the hobby niche over into the larger scale collector niche, Mark Büchler came to Custom Replicas with a well practiced and diversified background. Among them are his computer skills necessary for miniature design and website creation, as well as design of graphics, to a broad base of precision plastic, resin and vacuum-form construction skill sets. And as journeyman tradition would have it, he got to prove his skills as part of the primary team completing the developing studio scale Battlestar Atlantia. This baptism by fire prepared Mark for lead status for constructing the majority of our recently completed studio scale Battlestar Galactica. Owing much to his intuitive sense of “sequencing”, he was able to keep all of the many modules coming together in a fluid manner, making an otherwise nightmarish project an enjoyable and manageable one. Current responsibilities include revising and revamping the look of the Custom Replicas website to an expected participation on the construction of the 77” large scale Enterprise E.