The annual Austin IPMS contest was today. Despite falling on the same weekend as ACL and the TX/OU game, turnout was actually pretty good. There were a lot of entries, hopping vendor tables, and blah blah. Contest-wise, I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. My Bf 109G-10 and Leopard C2 won their categories, which…
Category: Rants
Down with Attaboy Culture
Recently, a certain modeler shared his latest build on a certain forum. A very nice build, with some really excellent touches that I think a lot of modelers often miss. The thread predictably filled up with comments like “WOW that looks superb – great finish” and “that’s a beautiful build! I love everything about it…”…
The Problem with Panel Line Shading
So this is the post where I get to shit all over other people’s builds! Not really. Or at least, that is not my intent. My intent is to talk about shading panel lines (mainly pre-shading, but also post-shading), and why – if you’re pursuing a realistic or verisimilitudinous finish, it’s a terrible technique that should…
Out with the Old
Labor Day weekend. The family out of town. The house to myself. The heat of summer starting to (kind of) relinquish its grip. The perfect time, in other words, to give the bench a good, deep cleaning. Because over the past few months, it’s become an absolute mess. In the process of my cleaning, in…
A Rocky Year…
Man. Somehow, it’s already late August. 2015 is just about two-thirds of the way done. And what do I have to show for it so far? Two completed builds. Just two. And one of them was mostly done in 2014… Granted. I’m rather happy with both..but still…two stinkin’ completions is pretty weak. WTF Happened? So….
Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That
The Combat Workshop asks an interesting question this month: do you bother with details that won’t necessarily be seen on the finished model? The short answer? No. The longer answer? Usually not. It really depends on what “won’t necessarily be seen” means. Will it be completely and totally invisible even with one of those colonoscopy…
Lighten Up, Francis
Recently, I committed the apparently way over-the-line act of teasing someone who really, really cared quite a bit about the accuracy of a certain upcoming kit. By posting this… Well, it kicked off a good old internet argument with lots of huffing and puffing and butthurt. Then, I went and committed an even bigger transgression….
By Grabthar’s Hammer
By pretty much any measure, running a popular Facebook page is pretty damn awesome. I get to post things and people like and comment on and share them! I get to share techniques and works in progress and great reference pics and the amazing work of modelers all over the world. I occasionally get responses…
Tonal Crush
I’ve touched on the idea of tonal crush in a few posts here and there, but it occurs to me that I’ve never stopped to fully explain the concept – or its implications for modeling. Time to fix that! A Brief Explanation Tonal crush is, at its most basic, the apparent loss of tonal variation…
Just Buy a Damn Airbrush, Already
Spend time around any kind of modeling community anywhere on the internet, and sooner or later you’ll run into a variation of these: “Help! I need some tips for German mottle camoflage!” “How do you shade panel lines?” “Tips for painting white?” Some questions seem to crop up more often than others, but whatever, right?…