Model Forum / General / Models / January 2008

Multiple choice:

A) My girlfriend says it is.            :-)
B) My ex-girlfriend said it was    :-(

...

Seriously, I think there's room for both approaches.  The issue you cite
seems to be sharpening your skills. IMHO, that requires a combination of
repetition and challenge.  Take that Mighty Mo.  You'll get drilled on
repetition by having to complete the multitude of carbon copy gun mounts and
fittings, while you'll get the challenge to your skills in building complex
sub assemblies, and ultimately assembling those into a complex final assemly
where you have to bring everything together and make it work.

Likewise you can break up the two prong attack of practice and perfection
between kits.  That one plodding "master build" if you will, surrounded by
several smaller projects with lesser degrees of difficulty, but by virtue of
their number, providing a good deal of repetition.

The dangers being of course:

1) the more challenging the build or degree of perfection we're pursuing,
the more likely build will progress slowly, often times to the point of
discouragement

and 2) the more kits in the works, the higher the likelihood that the
builder can get overwhelmed by the shear numbers.

We all work differently so the trick is in finding the right mix and
adapting to the changing rhythms.  1 kit, 10 kits. An hour or two here and
there, or go like hell all day when you can and when you feel like it.

WmB

i always have at least a dozen kits going. if i need one to be finished for my
piece of mind, i have a quicky. your one monther. then i have some longer time
builds, some very long builds and at least one that will need me to be almost
immortal.
i work on whichever fits my needs at the moment. i can crank out one of the
previously mentioned lindberg 1/72 kits in a weekend. if i spend a month on
it, it will be hyper detailed. oob takes about 1/2 per kit.
the idea of doing one kit at a time is.....disturbing.

I spent about five years building a plank on frame ship model a few years
back.........talk about building one model to the exclusion of everything
else............jim

]

It's really all up to you and what you want to accomplish...if you're
finishing a kit a month, that better than I've done since I was a teenager.

Me, I like big, complex models.  But that's just me.

As far as the actual size of the finished model, the small ones
certainly are easier to display than the big ones if you have any number
of them.
They are also far easier to transport, and you generally don't have to
go to a psychologist if one gets destroyed somehow.
The large ones seem to be prone to damage more than the small ones.
Of course, it's probably possible to spend six months and several
hundred dollars building a superduperdetailed cutaway Bf-109 in 1/72
scale, and then be charged with cruelty to animals when the dog eats
it...and you decide it's time to do a cutaway version of the dog also. ;-)

Pat

I mix and match. I frequently do a scratch or major conversion
project.  But I take breaks when doing it to build an easier kit as
OOB.  Helps retain my sanity.  There is no reason to go to either
extreme exclusively.