Model Forum / General / Models / September 2008

Val Kraut said the following on 30/09/2008 01:21:

Have the picture in miniature framed beside it and get some miniature
ground crew in the exact same position as the picture.

nodnodnod

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
just look like bad workmanship.

Quite a number of 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."

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, again working from a photo, but the result looked so
dreadful that I pulled the cab apart and rebuilt it using a set-square!