Model Forum / General / Models / November 2007

Indeed, this again resurfaces the issues with weathering, darkening
seams and panel lines, etc.  There are two schools of modeling- one
that we model as if the manufacturers of prototypes could have
produced perfect specimans to their original prints, and the model
depicts the day it left the factory.

The other school wants to model prototypes that are in field service,
with all the chips, dents, poor fitting panels, dirt, exhaust and oil
stains, etc.

I admire the armour builders for their hand decorated markings, and
would like to try that sometimes, but don't have the guts to do it on
model, but don't have a printer that can make white decals (no, I am
not going to search for and purchase one that does).

There's a very fine line that modellers walk sometimes. We know that
temporary markings like these were less than perfect, but just how far do we
go to portray them accurately?  In many cases, an accurate portrayal will
jsut look like slapdash modelling.

Quite a few years ago, I built a Heller Messerchmitt Bf-109K. I had found an
interesting colour scheme in Scale Models magazine which showed an aircraft
with a very sparse mottle on the fuselage sides and a hand-painted code
number of 206 aft of the fuselage Balkenkreuze.  I faithfully replicated the
crooked hand-painted numbering style and was very pleased with the result.
Unfortunately, when I displayed it at the next meeting of my modelling club,
it caused some raised eyebrows. I was taken to one side by the club guru
(the club was on an RAF station, so the guru was *always* right simply
because he was a squadron leader) who asked me in a very patronising manner
"Couldn't you have found some suitable decals?  That's really not the
standard we aim for here."  LOL

Railway modellers have similar problems. Have a look at photographs of some
steam locomotives.  Sometimes you will see them with cabs that are so
out-of-true that they look like ricketty garden sheds!  I once tried
replicating this, once again working from a photo, but the result looked so
dreadful that I pulled the cab apart and rebuilt it using a set-square!

...they pretty-up a lot of nose art, too.  Particularly the more modern
stuff.

I went to a show a few years ago that had aircraft on display that looked
like a half-blind drunken monkey painted them.  I knew of the guy that
built them, and was fairly sure of his level of talent, so I knew
something was up.  When the judges came by and just gave them the
wide-eyed stare and shook their heads and turned to move on, a teenager
walked over and laid some pictures on the table next to the planes.  The
judges looked at the pics then the planes and then at one another.  For
the four planes, there were three golds and a silver award handed out.
When queried about the silver, the judge said the builder had forgotten a
couple dents.  The point would be that no matter how you build something,
if it has odd features of whatever type, have documentation to cover it.