It started with an idea. Build an Eduard P-51 Mustang. There was a bit of a pony fad going on over in SMCG at the time, and with all the discussion around the kit, I just had to see what it was like for myself. Then it grew into something else. What if, in addition…

Blame it on Desert Storm. Blame it on Flight of the Intruder. Blame it on my own predilection toward ungainly and ugly and fearsomely effective aircraft. Whatever the case, the A-6 Intruder is one of my favorite aircraft, period. And almost certainly my favorite carrier-based aircraft. I knew from the moment Trumpeter announced their 1/32…

At the very end of 2019, I set out on a return to 1/48 scale, in the form of both an HK Models B-17G (that…didn’t fare so well) and Tamiya’s venerable P-47. Specifically the P-47M. And more specifically, “Fire Ball”, a 63rd Fighter Squadron M that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And…I…

Our brains are weird. Or at least mine is. Let’s explore a weird quirk where different genres seem to play by different rules. This morning I had an epiphany. I think it’s been building for some time, but it just broke over me all at once. The “rules” that I apply when researching, planning, and…

Over the past few weeks, the idea of Mustangs has been coalescing over at SMCG. I’ve been focused mainly on the Intruder, with a bit of increasingly halfhearted dabbling in figures, but the Mustang worm has slowly wriggled its way into my brain. My initial plan was to tackle Eduard’s new VLR Mustang, but the…

As a modeler, I primarily stick to military vehicles, with the occasional detour into ridiculously OP city maintenance mechs. For 2020, I’m looking to branch way outside of my comfort zone and tackle something completely different. Figures. Why? In large part because my interest in history extends well beyond 20th and 21st century military vehicles….

I tend to go on at great length about engineering and fit of different model kits. Now, a lot of people tend to bundle these together. But I view them as two separate things. Think of it a bit like the difference between a story and acting in a movie. Engineering is all about the…

By day, I spend my time writing about various aspects of the cloud. And as something of an aficionado of tortured metaphors, for the past month or so I’ve been drawing various connections between what’s going on in modeling and the way that cloud is reshaping how businesses and people do the things they do….

I spend most of today down in San Antonio at the annual ModelFiesta show/contest, and drove home with a whole bunch of thoughts banging around in my head. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post about a contest, but I feel like this year’s calls for it for one big reason. This year I…

Modeling is a hobby. And for me, it’s primarily a form of decompression. Years ago, I came across the idea of “western meditation”. Whereas eastern meditation is all about clearing the mind through intense focus on something internal, like breathing, western meditation uses intense focus on a task. When I’m “meditating” at the bench, focused…