AMT / Lesney 1/350 U.S.S. Enterprise [Small Box Version 2]

[jkim]

It took me a while to find my way over to this board. Great to see this side of you, Bruce. I get the sense that you feel comfortable in this genre. Your work, especially the removal of panel lines on the saucer, is done with conviction and panache. It looks a helluva lot better too.

[speedgraflex]

Thanks so much, John. Your replies resonate with me on a deeper level. I have been following your progress on the 1/32 Dora and asking myself if I see myself reaching the same level; this is not a question I have answered yet, but I feel it is healthy to have the inner dialogue.

I believe we collectively find expression for our talents through passion for the subject and ability to articulate our choices fluidly and fluently.

My father was a passionate sailor. He used to say he could "sail a coffin with a handkerchief!" That's how I feel about building fictional spaceships. Not to toot my own horn here, but I make a mean spaceship and I can make this happen with the tools at hand, nothing fancy, or special, but a whole lot of confidence, what you call "panache."

I am still figuring out what will happen with aircraft. Ultimately, I feel what could happen is this experience of being amongst passionate souls like you will improve my spaceships, and I will also have an aircraft model or models worth adding to my portfolio in much the same way as your Murakami builds add to your gallery.

[Stuart]

Thanks so much, John. Your replies resonate with me on a deeper level. I have been following your progress on the 1/32 Dora and asking myself if I see myself reaching the same level; this is not a question I have answered yet, but I feel it is healthy to have the inner dialogue.

I believe we collectively find expression for our talents through passion for the subject and ability to articulate our choices fluidly and fluently.

My father was a passionate sailor. He used to say he could "sail a coffin with a handkerchief!" That's how I feel about building fictional spaceships. Not to toot my own horn here, but I make a mean spaceship and I can make this happen with the tools at hand, nothing fancy, or special, but a whole lot of confidence, what you call "panache."

I am still figuring out what will happen with aircraft. Ultimately, I feel what could happen is this experience of being amongst passionate souls like you will improve my spaceships, and I will also have an aircraft model or models worth adding to my portfolio in much the same way as your Murakami builds add to your gallery.

I don’t think that’s a bad way to look at it Bruce – as the saying goes it never hurts to try different things. I certainly think that you’ll build some really superb aircraft models that will be well worth adding to your portfolio, but (and more importantly) any skills and or thought processes you learn from building aircraft will almost certainly have an impact on how you build and think about spaceships in the future.

And I think that’s true of any of us – although we may all have on genre that floats our boat more than others, sometimes breaking out of that rut is a good way to improve our mindset. How many aircraft modellers have improved their weathering techniques by building some armor?

For me personally I’m really looking forward to building that A-wing. I have no real experience in building sci-fi subjects or a great deal of knowledge of the Star Wars universe, but what I do have is a knowledge of history and aircraft in general – especially the RAF. I’m already picturing that A-wing in Battle of Britain era Spitfire camouflage with maybe a PRU blue centre section. I also know enough to be able to improve that basic MPC kit by re-scribing and scratch building more detail were needed (and modifying some nice eduard modern jet PE to fit the cockpit).

And also what you said is true about talking to like-minded people and seeing their knowledge and skills first hand, and taking back some of it to your models. To use my A-Wing example again, I’ve never built any serious Armor models, but I’ve seen some great ones built by fellow modellers – and it’s seeing those builds that makes me think it’s be good to open up a few cargo compartments and add in some stowage etc. to build up the visual interest.

Anyway – Waffle off – Stick with it!

Cheers

Stuart

[speedgraflex]

Stuart,

Thank you for your perceptive reply. I appreciate what you wrote most sincerely, and am grateful for your perspective. I definitely waffled (good word, you use it well) on the very first post for the Horten; especially because Fermis, who builds seriously beautiful models, started his own 1/48 Z-M thread the day I was going to make my Revell post. I asked myself what I was doing here, the board is brimming with major talent, especially amongst the 1/72 scale subjects, what was I going to offer? Well, I actually still ask myself that... I remember my second PM from Thomas was about how to format image files, but when I received the email notification, my first thought was, "The jig is up; you're eighty-sixed!" So yes, thank you for the steadying influence from the first, thank you for painting aircraft with a brush so darn well, and thank you for writing your response.

Re SWGB, I am SO excited.

I want to see old school MPC builds rocking alongside the new Bandai ones; I think that is going to show history, give us a snapshot of old and new, a study in contrasts... and it's not lost on me what you wrote about using armor and aircraft techniques on a sci-fi project. I was brush painting crates for the 2001 Moonbus, the results were not good, so I googled painting crates and lo, Lord Google answered with a thunderous roar, lol, articles and videos on all of the additions strapped onto the tanks in battle, incredible techniques, fantastic step by step guides... so yes, I am a believer in The multidisciplinary approach you describe so well.