Re: Opinion: Most Common Modeling Mistakes

Rushing things. Definately causes problems, no matter when - rush a cockpit and it might not fit properly. Rush the paint and you might find yourself stripping it to do over.

Not dry fitting seems to be kind of a biggie, though (for me) that falls under "rushing things" too...

Impatience gets my vote as well. As modelers, we often look for instant gratification in our creations. Unfortunately, in my quest for instant gratification, I have often found instant disaster! Oh well, maybe someday I'll learn.

Mike

Ones I usually make-

1. Lack of patience, which usually spells:

*Not following though on those last fiddly details (e.g., bombing up).

*Resorting to brute force and filler when I might take more time refining the fit and securing better alignment. My next hobby purchase will include Berna clamps.

Ones I try to avoid but sometimes see-

*Careless finishing, including:

-Hasty, poorly proportioned freehand camo pattern with overspray not representative of subject.

-Unconvincing bare metal wear effects.

-Unconvincing countershading and washes.

-Grungy topside weathering contrasted with artful IPMS 'house style' countershading and washed panel lines on the undersurface, without including airflow streaks, oil leaks etc. representative of prototype.

-Lovely uniform 'faded OD' (the right shade of OD, mind you) paintjobs sealed with a uniform coat of matte varnish.

Scott G. Welch

In article , SkyCop02 writes

In my case, opening the box... :(

Cheers,

FTRTFI..."Failure to read the freaking instructions..."

This is really the second stage of impatience, stage one is ripping off the cellophane before getting home with the kit.

Oxmoron1 MFE

Impatience has my vote! Most of my flubs are directly attributed to impatience.

-- Sean

------------ The biggest critics of the police are those who have never worn a badge and worked the streets.

Let me fill in all the rest:

o Building any kit in 1/24 / 1/32 / 1/35 / 1/48 / 1/72 / 1/144 scale. o Building any armor/airplane/ship/train/figure/diorama. o Using airbrush X, where X is any airbrush. o Not using airbrush X, where X is any airbrush. o IPMS contest judging. o Weathering. o Not weathering. o Buying any kit by X, where X is any manufacturer. O Painting model with color X of brand Y, where X is any color and Y is any manufacturer.

Now, if you concentrate real hard, you can imagine all the flamewars relating to the listed topics. You can stop imagining now and we'll all get back to our hobby. Thank you for participating.

What, and deprive us of the flamewars (which are more fun than actually building something anyway)? OMDB, and you suck!

;-)

taking the hobby too seriously...

I don't know, I keep thinking of building (say) an F-15, painting it gloss white (or black) and doing the panel lines in blue... 3d blueprint.

Well, I think it might look interesting.

Forget it. I got tired of waiting for your answer. :)

In article , EGMcCann writes

My Dad's got a 1/72 Spitfire and Hurricane in pewter and they look quite good. I recently knocked together a Hurricane and painted the whole thing (including the canopy) silver to get a similar effect.

Having read the previous articles in this thread, it looks like I might be in the minority on this ng. I just enjoy building them and giving them interesting 'pseudo' paint jobs. Complex camo and similar paint schemes just look real bad when I attempt them, so I keep things simple, brush painting Humbrol enamel.

In article , John Halliwell writes

Nothing wrong with that, it's a great excuse for building a kit straight out of the box, inaccuracies not withstanding, and claiming in an alternate universe the real thing was built the way the kit manufacturers depicted it... I was thinking of using this excuse to do the (Sh)Italeri F18E out-of- the-box in Light Gull Grey over white and Hi-Vis markings, but even then it looked like too much of a task just for a joke.

My last few aircraft (it's been a while since I did any) looked for predominantly light grey or white, as I could then use (mainly Humbrol) acrylics over Halfords rattle can primer grey or white. I never bothered much about the actual shade of light grey, and I won't if I get round to any modern warships either.

Regards,

Spending all my time in the Internet in rec.models.scale and the myriad of modelling websites instead of actually building models and improving my skills on the basic techniques.

Mikko

The most common modeling mistake - telling the wife how much you paid far a model !!

Oh Hell! This will re-start the thread about how to smuggle the latest kit into the house past "SWMBO". :-)

Bill Shuey

(LOL) I concur with Mikko, but starting a modeling society runs a close second!

On the other hand, your first mistake could be opening the box...

Cookie Sewell AMPS

Robert flatly stated:

That is NOT a mistake, that is a FATAL ERROR! Much worse than a mistake.

Oxmoron1 "Oh that kit, got in a trade" Just don't complete the part about trading cash for it.

Here is a different take on modeling mistakes. Letting your interest in models dictate a choice of careers. In my case, going off to become an aeronautical engineer. You would not believe how many modelers I ran across working at Lockheed. Pretty much the entire aerodynamics department.

Well, there is nothing really wrong with that, except my fellow engineering classmate at university was Mike Bloomberg, now His Honor, the Mayor of NYC, and one of the top couple of dozen richest men in the world. Same professors, same courses, same meat grinder of an engineering program of study (while others partied ... we were in the library).

Did he play with models? No way. He was Pres. of the Interfraturnity Council and a BMOC. He went off to Harvard for an MBA, and went to Wall Street and got into mergers and acquisitions, and the rest is history.

Moral of story? Liking models does not help you to get rich ..... LOL

Vess Irvine Estes Park, Colorado