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Visual appeal or historical accuracy


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I don't buy into color debates either. I did note colours will knock an aircraft down in some cases, and not in others, even though judges are not supposed to evaluate accuracy...

 

What always surprised me as an aircraft modeller is the lack of thinning of trailing edges and prop blades: I'll never understand that, as it is I think the first thing anyone who doesn't know anything about models will look at to guess what is it made of: They see the thick trailing edges, and thick props blades, and some of them probably think: Oh, it's probably just wood or plastic...

 

I'll concede on one thing: Getting near the actual scale for trailing edges is exponentially harder the closer you get, because the thinner the edge is, the straighter it has to be: Thinner edges emphasize wobbliness... I liquid glue the leading edge, but you can't liquid glue the cigarette-paper thin plastic trailing edges, so here unforgiving cyano gel glue has to be used in the most fragile place: I glue the leading edges first, and then close the wing "like a book" on the gel cyano trailing edges: This is actually the only way to do this that works, although I now often wedge the gel cyano tube tip into the wing's trailing edges "crack", and apply the glue "in the crack of the book": This seems to reduces the thick gel glue spilling outside...

 

My impression is most modellers assume "in-scale" trailing edges are impossible to achieve (which is false), and so the convention has developped to not even try: It is neither accurate nor does it look good: The worst of both worlds...

 

Gaston

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I'm with Jim & Bob here: It's more art than science. I'm looking for an effect: That of a miniature plane or ship; e.g. the visuals of the real thing as viewed from a distance. The 'science' part is ensuring that seams disappear, symmetric things are symmetric, markings are as accurate as they need to be, fine details look right for the scale...and when to stop. That's where "busy-ness" (I call it 'bogus detail') comes in, as does the artistic license bit. Am just not gonna do the nano-technology it would require to actually start up that 1/72 radial engine.

 

Forgive me if you've heard this one before: I was the ramp safety supervisor one fine day at a SAC base long ago, watching two adjacent, identical bombers start engines. Each was painted in the standard (for the era) SAC Euro-I scheme, with about a year's worth of light-to-moderate weathering. In addition to the typical upper-surface fading & staining effects, I noticed that the colors of one jet were subtly warm-shifted, while the colors on its brother were slightly cool-shifted. Decided at that moment that I would start with the closest Model Master (or whatever) shade and make it look good to me, using various artist/cheater methods; fading to accentuate shadows, slightly discolored panels, blah, blah, blah. Even monochromatic airplanes like the U-2 or the myriad Gunship/AMC Gray & Army Drab birds are not truly monochromatic. Aviation artists like Keith Ferris have this stuff down...to a science!

 

Call it scale effect, weathering, artists' license; call it what you want. The actual factory paint chips are only perfectly accurate under two conditions: A freshly painted vehicle and a precisely mixed batch of paint. Hope the guy who made the chips had these conditions met. :)

 

Just my 2 cents. OK, that was 3 cents worth...of really great excuses.

Edited by VonL
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  • 1 month later...

Depends on what I'm building. Models I like to put into some kind context, figures historical accuracy. As a former Civil War re-enactor (1st PA Reserves, CO K, National Regiment) I have a lot of respect for history and enjoy the research.

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I might have an interesting perspective on this. By trade, I'm a Cartographer which means I make maps. Determining a balance between accuracy and visual appeal is extremely important in my profession. Sometimes, our maps have to be extremely accurate. Other times, it's more about visual appeal to entice a reader. For instance, compare a topographic map versus a map on a brochure.

 

So, when it comes to modeling, I think it depends on audience, the same as map making.

 

If I'm making a ship model that will be shown to other ship modelers, I'll strive for accuracy. If the model will be seen by the general public, I go for visual appeal. With that being said, I would never paint a model some crazy color or add the wrong details.

 

-Jesse

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I think this all boils down to the "why do YOU build?" I am a TreadHead and I know my limitations. I try to improve with every model I build. I just finished a Syrian T-34T. Is it historically accurate??......probably not as there are no photographs of the Syrian T-34Ts being used as anything but hauler vehicles. Mine makes more sense as it is able to conduct certain repairs in a field environment. A fellow Green Dragon was dying to finish it so I let him. He plans on adding a 3 tone camo scheme and there is also no proof of that being applied to T-34Ts. This also means I can't enter it into a competition as it is no longer my own work. Luckily there is always the "display only" section for the coming contest year and I am fine with that. I build for the enjoyment I get out of building.

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I see that these points of view are well represented by a team of great modelers. I try to achieve a balance of artistic license and as much accuracy as possible without going overboard. I'm at an age where I have a lot of great memories of a wonderful family, friends, and the model building also helps me relax, and recall some of the great aviation stories I have heard most of my life. I have had the honor to have known test pilots, aeronautical engineers, fighter pilots and technicians whose legacies have made my era of interest come alive every time I work on an aircraft project, or go over to my local airport's airshow to see our North American PBJ-1H "Devil Dog", P-51D Mustang, or an occasional B-17G pass through the neighborhood. The local car club has an authentic 1944 Willys Jeep replete with a demilitarized .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the middle between the two front seats, and among the antique cars, an authentically restored 1941 Ford convertible, Garnet Maroon with white sidewall tires, and a "B" gasoline ration card mounted on the starboard side of the windshield. As the late Bob Hope's theme music used to play, "Thanks for the Memories". It has been a great ride! Best,

 

Mark

Edited by aAzZ09
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I feel in the end, the model has to please one person - me. When I add some detail that I found in a book, but not the kit, I am pleased with myself. On the other hand, I can be just as pleased with an OOB kit if it looks right to me. Paint is another area also. Over the life of an aircraft, the paint color can look to be many shades different due to wer, lighting etc. So who except one person cares that in 1943, a ship had a different color. Build for enjoyment and you will be a lot happier.

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There are at least ' 50 shades of grey.' ( Sorry- I coudn't resist.) No good IPMS judge would ever consider dinging a model because the grey was slightly off. It is not just a question of how well a particular device or publication replicates a colour, but, more importantly, the inherent uncertainty of what the colour was supposed to be now almost 70 years ago. I will not even get into vagaries of Japanese paint production's faithfulness to specs, weathering or aerial perspective in looking at an object that is a scale hundreds of yards away! No, unless it is the difference between a " Whiter Shade of Pale" and "Black is Black," a good ship judge is going to look at the entrant's technical skills. Nick Filippone, Senior National Judge

Edited by Nick Filippone
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  • 2 weeks later...

Generally, I'm about 70% accuracy. I've talked to professional aircraft painters who have proven to me that 2 samples out of the same can 15 minutes apart will be slightly different. So I don't care about shades of a color when I judge, but if an aircraft is usually grey and you paint it yellow, I'll start looking for your documentation to back it up....

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OK, so serious moment.

 

I built a 1/700 IJN Nagato with all the bells and whistles. I had one guy confront me and tell me that in 1944, she was painted a slightly different shade of grey, with the paint chips pulled up on his phone.

 

Mind you, I'm NOT a small guy. I was downright stunned that this dude would come up and NITPICK to me, in my face, on something that, frankly, would be unnoticeable to 99% of the population. Still, seeing as the judges were standing near by, I was pretty pissed.

 

 

 

I shut a guy down one time who started busting my chops on something like that. In 1997 I was entering my very first contest with a diorama of a mobile communications jamming system I was on during Desert Storm called a "TacJam". I built the system around the old AFV Club M548 ammo carrier chassis. The antenna array was entire scratchbuilt from memory and a couple unclassified reference pics. It wasn't on the table 10 minutes and this yahoo from another club started ripping it apart saying, "...the antenna array is all wrong, it's painted the wrong shade of Sand...blah, blah, blah" I looked at the guy and asked, "Wow! you sound pretty knowledgeable about these! You ever work on one?". His response was "Welll, uhhhh no!" Not knowing this guy from Adam I said, "Well, I'd suggest that until you DO, you might wanna shut the Hell up! The array is right! I should know...I worked on it for two years!"

 

I still see him at contests around the region and to this day he won't talk to me. Incidently, I took 2nd place in the diorama category that year. Not bad for my first contest.

 

Don't let the rivet-counters get to ya! If you're happy with it then that's all that matters.

 

Then again, that's just MY opinion. I may be wrong! :)

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Way to go Richard! I've done something similar by asking a guy where his model is so I can see how it is supposed to be done right. Of course, he stammers out that he hasn't built one. Then I say, "Okay, please build one the way it is supposed to look so I can fix mine." So far, I have yet to see the model.. or ANY model from this guy yet. He don't talk to me either, especially when I come up to him and ask him if he's done with his model yet so I can fix mine. He just glares at me and walks away. LOL! :smiley2: :D

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  • 1 month later...

I am a extremly seriuos about detail and historical accuracy i ussualy build military model but every model i get before i build reasearch for two or three days to figure out what colo to paint it and how to weather it and what decals and markings to use

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