It has been interesting and instructive to look back on my past ten or so years of modelling, but there’s little point if we can’t learn anything from it. I need to learn something, because at this point I feel like I am just circling, unable to improve. I have successfully reached a stage where I can easily build models to a decent quality, often with a nice finish, but I know that I am a long way from the quality of the guys I really look up to.
While thinking of what I wanted to say for a 2019 roundup, I realised I got back into modelling in 2009. That’s not quite ten years, because of how numbers work, but it still feels like a good point to pause and reflect on how I got here. All I can say is that I hadn’t realised I’d improved that much. The bar was set low…
I neither wanted nor expected to enjoy this kit, but once I got used to it, I found a very pleasant build experience. But don’t get the wrong idea: this kit has plenty of oddities…
Is it a stag? Is it a dragonfly? Is it an owl? Tamiya’s He 219 is a really nice little kit.
After watching the Ukrainian Flanker’s demonstration at RIAT this summer, I wanted to build one. So I did.
A Cold War Reconnaissance group build? What could be a better fit than a big SR-71? Admittedly I didn’t realise how big this kit was going to be, nor how frustrating.
Sometimes, you know a kit will be so much work that you just can’t summon the motivation to get started unless something gives you a prod. In my case, that kit was Aoshima’s 1/350 Kongo, and the prod a pair of group builds: the “whole year build” at Rivet Counters, and the “1944” build at Warts and All. These overlapped nicely: one encouraging modellers to get really stuck in and pull out all the stops, and the other being the year the kit relates to.
It had been a while since I built a tank kit, so when The Group Build Group (it’s a thing, honest) on Facebook ran “WWII” as their next subject, I took the opportunity to dust off Meng’s King Tiger.
Eduard’s 1/48 P-51D has had a lot of hype. It’s a good kit: but it’s “Eduard good,” not “Tamiya good.” Here’s why that matters.
Why do people build so many WWII German subjects? Many possibilities have been raised, and here are three reasons I think we are missing: poor history, subject visibility, and perceived elan.