What Makes or Breaks a Scale Model?
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- Опубліковано 26 кві 2021
- What makes a scale #model good?
This is not existential question per se, however it bugs a lot of people nowadays. Reasons for that are many, but the most important one of them all is that new model-producing companies are popping up like mushrooms every other month and that creates confusion and sometimes unnecessary fuss.
This video shares my thoughts and how I pick which model is worth my time and effort and what I think one should look when buying a kit. We live in times that are information-highways so to speak and #scalemodeling is not being passed by. We can find almost anything on the web, from spare parts, through instructions up to full breakdown of the kits we are interested in.
Still, not everybody exhaust their resources in doing the proper #research on what is worthy and what isn't when buying a new kit.
It is important that many reviewers are being awarded with free kits and that makes them somewhat obligated to praise the company that they received them from. That burdens the reviews and makes them unreliable more often than not. Although not always the case, this is very hard to avoid for inexperienced modeler /especially/.
If you want to know what I am thinking about it - have a go with this video.
Thanx for stopping by! - Навчання та стиль
I would suggest there is a fourth group of model builders; those who build for the enjoyment. I know plenty of people who regularly build what your measure would categorise as a bad kit.
That’s not to say you’re wrong with you’re reasoning, it’s a perfectly reasonable set of measures but some just enjoy the process of building models, be it a quantifiably good or bad kit.
And I feel it is worth mentioning because so many people get so focused on sourcing that perfect kit or the upgrades to make it perfect, that they forget to enjoy making it.
Way too many options on the market not to be careful what to pick.
Even more interestingly, out of usually 'crappy' kits some true masterpieces emerged. But that doesn't go for the general public. This is a realm usually reserved for professionals.
I've been building more than 60 years and the hobby has been on the same road as social media has gone, overboard and twisted. Back in the days with tube glue and little bottles of $0.15 cent Testors paint you built your kit the way you wanted it to look like. Right or wrong to others. The hobby now has been overblown with all this B/S on parts count, price, accuracy ,colors, boxing etc..... . I just sit back and watch what people say and do about kits, reviews and building. I can only sit back and laugh at them all. Too many have lost sight what building plastic kits were made for, to be enjoyed by you, not others or their opinions. I feel sorry for all of you who have been sucked into this "Dark Side "of modeling. It's a very sad day to say the least for a past time that was once fun to some of us. Thank you internet for killing it.
I mostly agree with you as a personal Hobby you're going to display in your own home you can paint him whatever color you want you can do whatever you like there is no right or wrong way to build a model kit for your personal taste unless like me you Bill for competition my hobby is I build models to win model building contest I build models for competition level regionals Nationals and my models win Awards also my goal is to become a Master model builder and have my models featured in National museums and one day I would like to actually start producing my own line of scratch building kits so like anything in life it's what you make of it there is nothing wrong with going and buying a model kit some glue some paint and some brushes and assembling the model and then displaying it wherever you like you can paint it any color you like there's nothing wrong with that and anyone who tells you that you're wrong it's none of their business unless you want to build models and have them judged by other builders and then that's a whole different another hobby onto itself I think a lot of these videos and people that you see doing these videos they're probably competition level model Builders like myself in which case the techniques and the information and the research and the accuracy is very important it's the difference between playing catch with your friends in the backyard or playing Major League Baseball same basic game very different effort involved in those two levels
I'll give you a perfect example I'm working on a Model right now that I'm going to enter into ipms Regional contest in November and despite this kid claiming to be a museum-quality and I spent a couple hundred dollars on this kit this cat has a lot of problems one of the biggest problems is that the castings are horribly misaligned I've been working this past week on just the cylinder fins on the rotary engine alone just to get them all properly aligned and clean because the castings are that poor in this kit also most of the castings pieces of the engine and other castings in the cockpit are horrific Lee out of scale way too big and I'm going to wind up scratch building half of the stuff on this kit I'm just tossing to the casting the other kid and I'm just going to scrap build stuff for it because I know how to scratch build and I can scratch build much more accurate detailed pieces the machine guns there cast one piece and they're horribly cast and and the cooling jackets aren't even true and perfectly cylindrical so the only thing I really even need from this kit is that it has the basic frame and components and the instructions at the end of the day though this is going to wind up being a 50% scratch built checked with the kit that I bought but that's okay that's what I love about this Hobby that's my passion and I know that I have the skills and the talent and the ability to make it happen and when I get done with this it's going to win best of show
I'll tell you something else Joe I think UA-cam and social media is probably one of the best things that ever happened to this Hobby in fact I think it's the only thing that's going to save this hobby myself when I was a teenager I was heavily involved in model building I went to contest I won awards I loved it but I abandoned the hobby for you no other Pursuits in my twenties and thirties and I didn't touch model for almost twenty years now that I'm old and in my 40s I've rediscovered the Hobby and I rediscovered the love of this hobby basically from UA-cam I started just watching model building videos and I started watching these videos of these really skilled model Craftsman and the things that they were able to build and realized also that a lot had advanced in the hobby since I was building kit back in the 90s and that there were things available and possible to do now that I could only dream about doing when I was a teenager I didn't have the tools to skills or the access to the aftermarket parts that we have now thanks largely to the internet so (I'm very grateful for the internet I just received the special vacuum form canopy that I needed for this kit that I'm building and I ordered it from eBay from a guy who makes them who lives in England I live in the Southwest that would have been possible when I was a teenager I wouldn't have known where to go who to talk to or even how to find something like that and thanks to the internet you can literally buy parts from almost anywhere in the world that you need aftermarket parts) (something else that's great about the internet is I can select the subject that interests me when I was a teenager and in this hobby my choices were pretty much whatever the local hobby store had available so whatever the guy who owned the hobby store light is pretty much what I had to buy & build but now with eBay and the internet and the global Marketplace that we live in if someone in America doesn't make the kit for the plane you like if you do enough research I guarantee that you will find somewhere someone some company somewhere even if it's in Ukraine I literally last year built a 1/700 scale Battleship that was made in the Ukraine special ordered it from Ukraine but this little company you can find it on the internet I can almost guarantee you so the internet really opens up this whole new world of possible subjects for you to explore that your local hobby store just no way in hell could ever provide you not that I'm against local hobby stores I always support my local hobby store as much as I can and I try to always buy from them first!!!) it really reignited that Fire and Desire inside of me and brought me to the Hobby and I love watching these videos and back often times when I'm working on my models or building something I'll have these model building videos running in the background more or less just as background noise you know, I mean let's be honest model-building is a one-person Hobbies a very lonely Hobby and I can tell you that I have learned immensely from the videos and websites and social media techniques and ways of solving engineering problems that I might have never come up with on my own ratchet this video is a long-winded and preachy but most of them are not like this one LOL
Unfortunately, the bitter truth. It is good to strive for perfection, but that killed the hobby to some extent.
That goes for myself as well, I have no excuses.
@@nathanbond8165 Everyone and everything is different. What ever makes your boat float go for it. Good luck in your next contest.
Dear Mitko , what a wonderfully thought provoking topic you have woven , and done so with excellent aplomb . You have traveled to the heart of the genre and in doing so have revealed your innermost soul with perfect examples .
I totally agree !
Recently I watched a u- tube from a gentleman who describes Tamiya as "is that it " " is that all there is" - " it's like fast food versus a sit down meal " !
I do admire the work of Panzer and Adam Mann who love modelling and indeed you and your partner's excellent work Mitko.
In my life , I was fortunate to look after veteran's , Army Navy and Aircrew of not just Ww2 but some from the Great war and even some from the Vietnam conflict.
My wife and I have visited many battlefields and acknowledged the sacrifices other generations have endured.
Some time ago we were fortunate to visit Isandlewhana where the Arrogant Lord Chelmsford met his Waterloo against King Cetshwayo's Zulu Impi under the shadow of the mountain of the Sphinx .
This may explain in my retirement my interest in Armour modelling.
In Ireland we have only one modelling outlet which sells mainly Tamiya but also some Mini Art
My ? for you is for a novice like myself - how big a leap to go to their T34/85 standard not interior on his 10 the model.
Best wishes to you and your partner and Keep safe.
Edward
Thanx!
Same question Mitko , for a novice modeller , how big is the jump from Tamiya to Mini Art ?
Edward.
Gotta love the guitar analogy at the end.keep thinking if I want to get a 7-8 string guitar then stop myself when I realise there's only a small handful of songs I like played on them haha
So you made it to the end? Thanx for your patience!
@@DNModels Yes indeed! A very interesting discussion,hope there will be more videos like it later on.
Vary interesting and thought provoking. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
Thanx man!
Ps !
I also play a six stringed guitar 😉
Edward.
All of us mortals do :)
The one inch larger intake diameter on the Eduard Mig-21 kit is not at the forward lip, where it would be very visible (the opening edge panel line is maybe moved slightly back I think?), but further back in the "body" of the intake, causing a slight extra curvature of the nose swell, which is potentially replicable with a smear of putty. Admittedly not easy to hide all around the whole diameter, especially under a metallic finish... I pointed to much greater errors than this, and still they were totally ignored by the modelling public. Most prominent among those are the 1/48 Hasegawa Me-109s, which were always poor kits, being TWO inches wider at the canopy base width level, both in 1/48 and in 1/32 (14 mm instead of the correct 13 in 1/48th: Two inches). These terrible kits, with many far better successors, are still widely built today (as are the awful Hasegawa 1/32 Me-109Gs). This also reveals we had no accurate Me-109F/Gs, in any scale, until the Zvezda`s kit of 2010. I agree with your assesment prominent fighter subjects should all have perfect kits first, which is not what happened for decades.
Good video.. thank you for your opinions
Thanks for watching.
I feel quite similar. With all technology available(and research on said subject) its unacceptable to me when a model company comes out with something that isn't as accurate as it should be and fit leaves something much more to be desired. Like instructions and assembly seemingly being done by a computer instead of an actual modeler, or maybe it was done by a model building octopus. At end of day, make it accurate, and fitting...if I want resin or photoetch I'll add it, it isn't important to me, unless the company blew the model so bad I actually need aftermarket to fix it. Also a huge ZM fan too.
It couldn't be more simple than that. If you want to overcomplicate things, you can do it on your own time.
I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything you said, but I also think you missed something. No matter what a good kit should present, at the very least, the potential for the model builder to have fun. Another great video 👍🏻
True that. And some find the joy into many parts, which makes some of my statements incorrect. But you are right. Why else would one loose so much time otherwise? Joy comes first.
I love Tamiya kits.
However, I think they're dropping the ball on a few kits in the way they're manufactured.
Take their Opel Blitz or the GMC 2.5 ton truck. They take the time to have some fine wood grain on some of the parts, and then ruin it by having ejector pin marks splattered all over these parts. And not on hidden surfaces, but surfaces that will be on display on the finished model. This makes clean up difficult to say the least; fill the pin mark, sand it all down and not remove the wood grain detail on the rest of the part.
If you then take a look at Zvezda's Kamaz K-5350 there's not a single ejector pin mark in the whole of the wooden grained parts on surfaces that are visible when the kit is complete. Same with most Dragon - they could do this way back when, and if Dragon and Zvezda can do it, then why can't Tamiya? Tamiya make great kits, don't get me wrong, but I think they've rested on their laurels for a good number of years, and the competition have raised their game considerably.
But what makes a good kit to me are these questions: does the finished kit look like what it's supposed to be? did I have fun building it, and would I buy/build another one? If I can answer 'yes' to these questions, then that's a good kit to me.
Their biggest disappointment up to date for me is their T-34 in 1/25 which is not even theirs.
But they rarely miss.
Loved this video. It felt a bit long but honestly it hit every major point of what makes a great kit. The examples were excellent along with your pragmatic arguments.
It was even longer to make it!
Thank you!
As with all art it's in the eye of the beholder but I'll just say this let me Russell up some feathers right now if you purchase a plastic model kit you are a model kit assembler!!! or a model kit Builder!!! now I build plastic model kits myself, but I mostly build for competition and not personal and so I really have to pay attention to what judges are looking for and the things that I know are going to really please the crowd, but if you're building for your own personal collection build a model anyway you want. Competition level or for it to be displayed in museums it needs to be accurate (by the way I'm going to throw this out here until you scratch build your first model from beginning to end-you just assemble model kits... ) the true Masters, Master Craftsman are the scratch Builders the stuff that you see in museums that's the next level in this art there's nothing wrong with buying a plastic model kit and assembling it and painting it and certainly I also do a lot of kitbashing myself. My latest interest because I really gotten bored with just regular model kits is that I build cutaway models or skinless I'm fact for a competition coming up I'm working on a skinless nieuport 28 1/16 scale kit right now and my next big project is I'm going to attempt to build a skinless Douglas World Cruiser for the 100 anniversary of that flight that I hope to get exhibited in a museum. If you really want to see what the next level of this hobby looks like then you need UA-cam search the channel for "Rojas Bazan" he is a professional model maker that scratch builds 1/16 scale World War II aircraft models entirely from sheet aluminum!!! it is amazing to see this man's work he is what I want to be when I grow up in this hobby, this man has devoted his life time (in fact even his father was a professional model maker in many of his models are actually in museum exhibits in South America) this is man's work is amazing down to every little detail even, including wiring and everything in it it's amazing just check out his videos but I'm not telling you that you have to go to that level of insanity or insane building to enjoy this hobby but he's a professional model maker he actually earns his living creating these Masterworks so there's a wide range in this hobby that you can go all the way from someone who just buys model kit and glues it together and slap some paint on it calls it a day!!! all the way to creating museum-quality working masterpieces!!! that you literally the manufacturer could use his models as a reference to the actual aircraft that's how detailed these models are I don't know if I'll ever get to that level one day that's what I'm shooting for; this hobby is evolving because its participants have evolved, being this hobby used to be for kids and teenagers and so plastic bottle kits were the easiest most affordable way to get this hobby into the hands of the masses of young boys and teens however if you go into a hobby shop you look at the stuff that's being offered nowadays it's not cheap and it's not for kids it's well beyond the advanced level and I see the hobby even advancing even more and becoming more sophisticated because this isn't a child's hobby anymore it's not for teenagers (teenagers are playing video games and writing code) this is an old man's hobby; Baby Boomers and aging gen-xers are rediscovering his Hobby and we're not satisfied with the offerings that were in our youth the monogram Revell horribly missed match Parts, with flash and Horrible gaps it's just not acceptable anymore!!! but it's not uncommon nowadays to pay a minimum of a hundred bucks for a kit and sometimes even a couple hundred bucks if you want something decent and then after you get through with all the photo etch and resin extra detail Parts year into one model for sometimes a couple hundred bucks if you want to do it right clearly this hobby has evolved I look at the stuff at the international I PMS shows and I look at the stuff even at my local IPMS chapter contests and the competition is pretty Fierce these days!!! because these are Professional Engineers and machinist and Craftsman now that are in this Hobby and you definitely have to step your game up if you want to move to competition level because this is not for kids anymore; also side note it's another reason why kit manufacturers are scaling up instead of down for many decades there was a trend of this hobby to create small scale kits something small enough that a kid could when it was done could put it on the dresser 1/72, 1/48, you might notice now that a lot of kid manufacturers are issuing large-scale kit 1/32 1/24, ships in 1:200 scale mainly because they know that their customers a have the money now to buy a $200 model kit and be we're getting older and smaller stuff is harder to work with and so you have to issue things larger scale plus you're not going to just play it on your countertop or dresser drawer in your bedroom you own your own home now and you can probably just play it in your living room or your man cave in your home and so you can devote more room to the models so I've noticed that the new stuff that is being issued now is in larger scales which is perfectly fine by me...
You mentioned that the captured thyphoon are missing its swastikas, this is common now amongst most kits as the swastika sign has been banned. this is why, we need to get aftermarket swastika decals or mask and paint. a good example is Revell kits, no Swastikas included, instead some will give you parts of swastikas and you got to assemble the symbol yourself. some give your a diamond, so you've got to cut accordingly to get the swastika symbol
True, but to some extent. The swastika isn't banned everywhere. However some companies prefer to stay on the safe side of the argument.
@@DNModels yes, i think so too, because these company need to reach the hobby enthusiast globally. so they probably took the neutral stand on not including the swastika or putting in a decal that you would need to assemble intentionally
I build old Airfix 1/72 scale planes. Every kit lets me try new techniques since we all know the quality of the old kits was a bit hit or miss. I don't mind sanding off rivets, straightening warped fuselages, sanding, filling, making new parts, etc because, whatever else their faults, Airfix generally got the dimensions of the plane spot on. These kits suit my modelling level at this time and by having to do so much extra work to get a decent representation of the plane I should have mastered all the modelling techniques necessary to build those 50 euro plus kits later on without worrying about ruining them.
That was truly vital back then. Now we have youtube and many written articles and how-tos. Times are different and jumping straight into deep water is not a problem anymore
Minimal are 1- perfect canopy, 2- good fuselage cross-section and 3- good cowling compound shapes (since compound curves are hard to fix the same equally all around). A lot of the rest can be fixed, but the wing airfoil probably should be close to perfect as well...
There is Tamiya and then there is everyone else, period.... There are great kit makers, but tamiya engineering is just amazing.. IMO of course, but I prefer an old tamiya over a new revell any day of the week. Now I will say that fitting, filling, and sanding is the definition of model building. If I built nothing but tamiya, i would become extremely spoiled and judge every other kit on tamiya standards. If I built the perfect kit every time without sanding and fitting here and there, then my skills would become dull, or just non existent. When i get a tamiya, i know what im getting, the same with a revell kit, I know there is going to be work involved.. Great conversation piece, good video.
I think that less time fighting with model's flaws means more built models in the end, otherwise you are right.
They barely test your skills.
Revell must be the worst for boxing.
I used to think so, no I don't especially after I've seen what Chinese makers are capable of.
@@DNModels ,Kittyhawk.....every kit I have of theirs I can never re-package to get it to fit in the "thin walled, barely protective box, that you can't put any weight on for fear of damaging the parts."🥴
@@Jpriest13 Two days ago I got to work on some ZM Hs-129. Take a look at the boxing there.
This is how it should be done.
@@DNModels , Oh yeah, That is the only ZM kit I haven't gotten yet. A friend did though. The Ki-45 kit and all the rest are really something else in packaging.
40 minutes of boring drivel. A great kit is a kit I want to build. If it needs detail, I’ll add it. If it has fit issues, I’ll fix them. If the wing span is 2mm short, I don’t care. MFH is a prime example. Lots of fit issues, vague instructions, not great packaging, but a well researched and make fantastic models. Go back to enjoying your builds.
Feel free to leave anytime.