A6M3-3A Zero Fighter, Maj. Saburo Shindo

[KennyX]

One of the most sincere pleasures of reading every post you make is your level of transparency with your descriptions and your feelings toward your methodology. Let me tell you—thank you sincerely for both. It takes real stones to detail a work flow. Sometimes I just wanna drop the hefty level of description I generate because I am too tired or just too lazy or kinda crosswise with the whole method of posting online. But I truly know how much your work flow descriptions mean to me. Everything. It’s positive actuations of techniques mixed with an artist’s point of view. You bring the gold, Ken. Thanks ever so much.

Yea I know what you mean — I chuckled when I read that note about “not seeing the seam” and I agree with you for your approach. I am always gonna make a mental note of the seam because for me I feel a need to eradicate seams—especially ones in areas where I will paint and blend a color coat. I guess I get this from my Dad—he would fabricate parts and these were just so pretty in their own right that I would paint them really well. Again, I hope I have never focused on a seam as you are building—but I probably did and I ask you to forgive me. I totally get it.

Good morning, Bruce! It’s 4:46 AM here, and I’m in the parking lot at the Jiu Jitsu school, waiting for Coach to get here and open the place up. We’re the early morning crew. A rag tag bunch of guys who like training Jiu Jitsu at 5 AM for reasons we don’t talk about (or understand).

Thank you for your thoughts and the kind words. I appreciate it.

I guess what all this comes down to is the fact that the amount of patience I have is finite. I was thinking about that a while back when Inwas attempting to hollow out the barrels of the guns that are mounted on the fuselage aft of the cowling. If I’m going to continue enjoying this hobby, certain things have to be let go because as I said, who cares?

If the seam won’t be visible, I’m not going to bother filing it. But I also have to mention it to avoid a big discussion about it later because such things as that infuriates me.

It’s like with the openings in the exhaust tips that John spotted and pointed out. I scraped inside them with a sharp Exacto blade for want of a better tool, and ran into some challenges. The irregular shape gave me difficulties. So I did what I could and then turned off my critical eye, and said who cares? I did what I could with it with the skills and tools I had available.

It’s interesting, the change I’ve undergone. I’m enjoying it.

Okay. It’s time to roll. I’ll spray clear on those parts later on during my lunch break probably.

[Stikpusher]

Kenny, it’s certainly a case of looking at the forest as opposed to the trees. If something is going to be visually obscured in the final result, why use that time when it could be better spent elsewhere that will be visible. Not to mention keeping the project moving forward.
Anyways, just saying that I understand where you’re coming from and agree wholeheartedly with your point of doing the best you can with what you have on hand at that time.

[jkim]

I hear ya and sorry if I brought up a sore point with the comment about exhaust openings. Modeling CAN be such an exacting and infinitely trivial exercise in trying to achieve non-achievable perfection. But all of us have limits and feel strongly about certain things and less strong about others. I totally get that.

[KennyX]

Thank you, John and Carlos. I’m still navigating what I do and how in some respects. Like, take this build for example. Instead of buying an AM IP, I used the kit part and the decal and lots of Solvaset. And it came out great. I used the kit’s harness decal instead of buying one. And my thought for each was the same “It’s 1:48 scale! Who cares.” What I mean is, at this scale, a decal IP over a well-molded part can be done just fine. I’m happy with the result. Same with the harness, and to a large degree, the work I’ve done on the engine- the harness isn’t exactly what the Nakajima harness looked like. I couldn’t represent it as exactly as I wanted with what I had, but I could *approximate* it, and at this scale, that’s just fine for me.

1:32 would for me be completely different in certain respects. Like, I respect modelers who wire-up cockpits. It looks lovely. But I refuse to consider wiring a 1:48 scale aircraft cockpit. The effort/benefit analysis just doesn’t balance out for me. But that’s just me. It is indeed worthwhile and cool for anybody who thinks it is and does it.

It’s kinda like that.

Anyhow, I accelerated my plan a little because I want to go fishing after work tomorrow, and we’re getting crawfish for dinner tonight after the kids go to bed.

So I put a nice Raw Umber oil wash on the Sakae 21:


And I painted, and summarily chipped, the cowling and flaps. This was the same paint I used yesterday. Four thin coats of Aqua Net. Chipped with a wooden kebab skewer:







None of this is actually attached. Just dry fit. I’m happy with how that came out.

[speedgraflex]

Looks great, Ken. I appreciate your replies and the sentiments behind them. What I do think is important is to understand each modeler’s approach and be as respectful as possible for their intentions. One aspect of this forum that is more or less a critical difference between us and the other online spots is the degree of respect shown to everyone’s work. You are right to point out that finishing the unseen areas is not necessary. I know I justify some of this as artistic behavior. Others would call this neurotic; I must volunteer that. Everyone approaches modeling with different ideas, but a common goal—creation.

Level of detail in scale is an area where I find myself personally drawn to achievements in 1/72 and 1/144. Ditto 1/48. Quarter scale is amazing. I have a feeling that growing up I was pushed by my Dad to scratchbuild, and there are amazing scratchbuilding opportunities born of necessity in the smaller scales. However I completely respect your points made about your choices for your projects. That’s entirely proper as well as personal.

Actually one of the biggest surprises for me was learning how important choosing a scale is to the modeler. I guess this comes from my building spacecraft which are usually a mix of scales. I now understand that a modeler with historical accuracy will want consistency of scale in order to understand the subject better in a contextual sense. I dig odd scales small or large. I just dig all kinds of subjects. That is my approach.

I am wrestling with what happened to a friend who moved out of state and took his work to the local hobby shop critique. He was really treated poorly because of his subject choice of science fiction. Each builder was given a few minutes to talk about their work. He was shut off almost immediately. I write “wrestling” because I see the opposite approach on our forum. I find it hard to believe science fiction subjects are still treated as less interesting or worthy of modeling approach. I also wrestle with this anecdote as I know the fella in question has a temper and that temper has come back to bite his rear quite a few times. The other point I really do not understand is this fella is basically a retired Hollywood model builder. His last job was building weapons for Marvel’s Agents of Shield. Before that he was building Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit interiors. So the fella is not only a model builder but a paid one. Kind of a big deal.

My brown bag lunch is almost over! From my glamorous front seat view of the studio parking lot, I remain your most humble servant, fellow modeler and friend.

[Stikpusher]

I find it ironic that a hobby shop talk session would shut down a sci fi modeler. In all honesty, I suspect that is what gets most “new blood” into the hobby nowadays. Sure us who never left the hobby, and those who did but came back do the usual planes, tanks, and cars, as well as figures, sci fi, and everything else... but I’ll bet what ropes in the majority of any new builders nowadays is either movies or anime shows. Sure there are some gamers who play world of tanks or some flight games, but I don’t think that their numbers compare.

[speedgraflex]

I hope so, Carlos. I hesitated bringing this up here. In retrospect, I should have left the sleeping dogs or green eyed monsters rest quietly. I know many of the modelers here—yourself, Ken, John, Clint, Mark, Borg to name but a few—actively build science fiction subjects, so I felt that it was alright to do so. I was a bit shocked by the post itself, by its content and by the remarks which were seconded by the fella’s wife who was also in attendance, and frankly, building a science fiction model from scratch on the highest levels of fabrication possible just makes rude behavior unacceptable. Apologies for shifting emphasis, Ken. I truly appreciate your work and look forward to where you go next.

[jkim]

There is the work. And then there is the acknowledgement of the work by others. I think all of us, to a certain degree, need both. The non-acknowledgement of a work is one thing but rude dismissal is really uncalled for.

[KennyX]

I don’t care what other people build or how they build it. It sucks that guy got his chops busted for his interest in science-fiction-related subjects. So much of this is a very personal thing. Obviously the guy digs sci-fi and he’s putting in the time to make his art, same as everybody else.

[Floki]

Kenny your Zero is coming along beautifully, I haven't been here very long bit but I'm guessing you build in mostly 1/32 scale? I can relate to what your saying like wiring up a instrument panel I build in mostly 1/48 and that's what I try to do on any build that it would be seen (same if I were to build 1/32) but 1/72 I wouldn't even bother with something like that. Yet a friend of mine he only builds in 1/72 and does add things like that in such a small scale. One of his last builds was a scratch build Japanese sea plane tender in 1/72 it's massive and the amount of detail and so much going on is crazy. Carlos is right a lot of new people into the hobby is in the Gundum/Mech kits I know nothing about them but they are cool to look at and I've even learned some things talking to the the guys who build them, like how to paint heated metal. Just because it's sci fi doesn't mean that techniques are completely different and can't be used in other modeling areas