Bench Maneuvers
Benchtime is usually pretty sedentary, right? We sit. We maybe raise or lower our seat to get a better angle on certain tasks (I frequently lower my chair as far…
“It’s the modeler at his bench…”
Topics tend to come back around in the modeling community. And for the past month or so, it seems like the crosshairs have landed on airbrushes. Please allow me to contain…
Slow Down, Speed Racer
Want to step up your modeling game? Here's an idea - slow the fuck down. What's brought this about? Over the past few weeks, I've seen a spate of builds…
Review: 1/48 Kinetic F/A-18C Hornet
Welcome to the second entry in the Contributor-Funded Kit Review series! This time out, the subject is Kinetic's new-tool 1/48 F/A-18C Hornet. Curious about contributor-funded thing, or want to see…
Quick Review: 1/32 Special Hobby Hawker Tempest V
Around the time Alaric was leading his Visigoths toward Rome, Special Hobby began work on their 1/32 Hawker Tempest. Okay, maybe not that long ago. But this kit has been…
1/32 Trumpeter SBD-5 Dauntless – Part 1
When The Weathering Magazine’s aircraft-focused spinoff, Weathering Aircraft, reached out to me about doing a build for an upcoming publication, the request was pretty wide open. World War II, with a focus on painting a camoflage scheme.
After a few false starts, I decided to tackle a late-war SBD-5 Dauntless. The Douglas SBD Dauntless is one of the unsung workhorses of the war. Slated for replacement before the first bombs even fell at Pearl Harbor, it proved instrumental in turning the tide in the Pacific, and was ultimately responsible for sinking more Japanese ships than any other aircraft.
The SBD-3, which distinguished itself at Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal, gets the lion’s share of the attention, but the -5 was the most produced variant, and did a lot of the dirty work later in the war. It also wore the tricolor camoflage that I personally find more interesting than the bluegray over light gray of the early war dive bombers.
It’s been nearly six years since I built my last Dauntless – Accurate Miniatures’ SBD-3 (my second build after coming back to the hobby). My memories of that kit have dimmed, but I clearly recall the frustration with the cockpit, which built up in a sort of top/bottom sandwich with the cockpit floor loading up and into the fuselage. This made test-fitting next to impossible and ultimately caused some issues getting everything installed, with some elements hanging down trying to occupy the same space as those loading up.
The wingroots, too, were a challenge on that kit. But it was my second kit back to the hobby, so just as likely my own incompetence.
Trumpeter’s side-load approach to the cockpit clears away the problems the AccuMini kit ran into, though the initial test-fit shows that the wingroots are still an issue.
More on that later. (more…)
Building Kinetic’s 1/48 F-5B Freedom Fighter
It’s been a while since I’ve done any kind of build log on here, so I decided it might be worth revisiting a few past builds to walk through the process and various encounters along the way.
In 2015, I was asked to build Kinetic’s F-5B Freedom Fighter for Model Aircraft magazine. I know Kinetic can be a bit…inconsistent…but the F-5B is one of those aircraft that just bristles with interesting schemes, so I decided what the hell?
As for schemes…I considered a few, but let’s be honest. It was always going to be a dirty Hellenic Air Force ship wearing the ghost scheme.
The kit itself is a mix of good and…less good. And proved a good workout for those “basic modeling skillz” everyone goes on about. (more…)
On Conflation
In wrapping up my review of the Fly Hurricane, I touched on the idea of modeling preferences falling on a spectrum (or really, multiple spectrums).
There was a reason for this.
This hobby, perhaps more than any other I’ve been a part of, is given to rampant conflation. That is to say, taking two separate ideas and combining them into one. It’s lazy, it’s reductive, and I’m convinced it’s responsible for probably about 80% of the internet bitchfights that break out on forums and social media.
What do I mean by conflation?
Simple.
If you call a kit out for shoddy mold planning and engineering – as I did with Kitty Hawk’s Kingfisher – you can expect plenty of responses that you just need to “use your modeling skills”. The implication, of course, being that you lack said modeling skills.
This is conflation.
Can the Kingfisher be built? Yes. Will I build it at some point? Almost certainly yes – if only to shove it in the teeth of internet conflationsists because whether or not it can be built and whether or not I can build it is beside the fucking point.
The point is that the kit is poorly thought out and executed – especially at the $90 pricepoint that Kitty Hawk placed on it.
If you went out and bought a $50,000 car and it turned out that the passenger door wouldn’t latch, the transmission was constantly hunting for the wrong gear, and the sunroof leaked, nobody would respond with “you just have to use your driving skills”.
If you bought a new tablet, and the wi-fi antenna was shit and the battery couldn’t make it past four hours, who would suggest “you’re just using it wrong”? Or “I got by fine on a Palm Pilot, just be grateful that you even have a color screen”?
It’s entirely possible for things to suck – or to be good – completely independent of a person’s skill, preference or experience. (more…)
Review: 1/32 Fly Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc
Not too long ago, I had a thought. And that thought quickly turned into an effort.
Contributor-funded, contributor-selected kit reviews.
How’s it work? Simple. Contributors donate into the Review Fund and select the kits to be reviewed. Then I review them, with an exhaustive focus on how – and how well – they build.
These are full, naked builds. No aftermarket. No filler. No paint. Nothing for the plastic to hide behind.
Want to know more? Check out the Reviews page, FAQ and Manifesto!
The first kit selected? Fly’s 1/32 Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc.
Haters Gonna Hate
When I started this blog as a side project/sandbox/way to give back nearly six years ago (holy shit does time fly!), I could not have guessed that it would reach the heights it has. What started as a place for me to ramble mostly to myself has grown into a blog that racks up around 55,000 views a month. My Facebook page crossed the 11,000 follower mark a few weeks back.
It’s been awesome and unexpected and highly educational and, for the most part, extremely rewarding. It’s fun to help people get a handle on a technique, or walk them through the trials and tribulations of a build, or get them to shake up their own thinking a bit.
But when you happen to have a relatively large presence, and the temerity to have opinions about things, you inevitably attract haters. It just goes with the territory. I’ve seen it happen with modelers far more prominent and prolific than I. I’ve seen it happen with the Scale Modelers Critique Group that I help admin. It just…is. (more…)