SPA Modeler

ARMS AND THE MAN

Armless, rather!

Cake frosting — Milliput — holding him together:



All kinds of polishing sanding “stuff” arrived today! I am high on Novus fumes! I also “trapped” the legs and top half of the Sixties Driver figure inside the tray with Milliput to hide the gaps. The figure is a bit out of proportion, Frankenstein monster, but not too-too bad, I think. I am just happy there are legs and he no longer looks sawed in half. Objective reasoning vanished with the Novus fumes. I opened windows and doors, too, to air out my apartment.

Better photos tomorrow.

Hi Bruce,
Wow! That was a superb bit of craft work getting that new screen to the correct shape and looking as good as it does.
I’m still in the
process of catching up with all the goings on at SPAM, so I’ve only just read this thread for the first time. Wow – what an interesting build. Is there a particular reason why you’re building this car, and why you're using an old slot car kit?

Regards

Stuart

That windshield right there is da "beez kneez" dude!! Fantastic work!!!!!!!!!!

Stuart and Joe,

Thank you both so much. I am grateful for your support, checking in, and for the benefit of your experiences as modelers. There are so many ways to keep ourselves as humans going, but I truly believe kindness is a key element. Life is “hot” enough, my friends. The holidays are stressful; the new year is stressful; the daily grind is stressful. Modeling is more than history meets art meets science and technology (and design). It’s about us humans going into a cave with a hairy stick and knife carving and painting in those caves waaaay back in time, too. Telling stories. Celebrating our triumphs, tragedies and relieving the pressures of daily BS.

My goals are to improve building and painting techniques. Mistakes and “casualties” with kits will happen. Personally the aircraft subjects were causing me stress and I remembered that Mustang was building customized cars and trucks with passion. Why? He was refining his skills (sorry to write about you in third person, Joe) with surfaces. All surfaces. I read one of his later aircraft builds again. This convinced me I could rest one project and pick up another not with the stigmata of failing to complete a build, but with the righteous knowledge that when I pivot from subject to subject I do so to improve my experience. I want to refine thinking on shelves of doom, Stuart. “Doom” is, I know, tongue in cheek, but I want to move aside from the feeling of failure the word implies and instead celebrate all of the builds on shelves or in the boxes or in the Rubberneck buckets.

I was going to post my unfinished builds of 2017 because gosh dang it I learned and those builds matter. I was gonna do this and still might do it because it’s not always the finish that matters. At least, not to me. And not to this fella, either:

"If I was in it for my health, I'd be preaching or something, I'd be singing in the choir. Shit, everybody wants to live a long time, but it's HOW we live, y'know? Damn, you're going to have people kick your ass every day of your life. I don't wanna live like that."

- Levon Helm

I will definitely post an answer to why I chose this subject and kit in a bit. To be continued!

Don't worry about finishing anything Bruce. Do what makes you happy. If another subject grabs your attention, go for it. This is, after all, a hobby that we engage in for our own personal pleasure. I've stopped on a project before. I just wasn't having any fun with it. I wrapped up the built portion in a plastic bag (it was too far along to put back in the box) and then moved on. I eventually returned to it but by then, I WANTED to work on it again.

The work you've done on the Porsche is wonderful. I have no idea how to form a clear piece around a sculpted hunk of Milliput and I'm amazed that you pulled it off and you did it well. The driver is also evolving. It's cool to see the progression. I'm definitely about the process and not the end product. Finishing a build is actually anti-climactic for me. It's the daily challenges and hurdles that drive me and keep me excited to spend time at the workbench.

jkim wrote:It's cool to see the progression. I'm definitely about the process and not the end product. Finishing a build is actually anti-climactic for me. It's the daily challenges and hurdles that drive me and keep me excited to spend time at the workbench.

John,

Thank you for this—the part about the final flourish with a build—you articulated what I have been circling around and around in my head again and again and again. Thank you for all of this. Likewise I am all about process. You just brilliantly expressed something I have been wanting to write about for a long time. I also wish I could articulate how grateful I am about something you did when you sent me a belly tank for the P-47D. The finish you gave the freshly cut plastic. I mean it was also hard to express this in words, but there is much more to cutting a part free of its sprue. There is also the preparation for gluing... and it is in that preparation that I need to address certain ideas, and to wrap this paragraph around to the Porsche, I have used more of a sanding paper/film/polishing arsenal than I ever expected—and now that arsenal is available for the planes, so I am very excited about this current status and look forward to assimilate these tools and methods back into planes—Also, I have been thinking that everything is an investigation. For me, viewing your work is very much about you finding a through line that takes you from area to area on your builds... wow, I just was looking for your builds today online to be honest.

Cheers,

jkim wrote: I'm definitely about the process and not the end product. Finishing a build is actually anti-climactic for me. It's the daily challenges and hurdles that drive me and keep me excited to spend time at the workbench.

That's probably the best articulated statement I've heard in regards to model building. At least for me anyways. Well put John.

Bruce: Man ............................................this just keeps snowballing and getting better and better. You're gonna love that Novus polish. It's da bomb!!!

Well, I finally found and read through this whole Thread. There's some brilliant work and outstanding execution of ideas going on in here. As for setting something aside, I do it all the time. As you said; you learn new techniques that can apply to different models, but it also "cleanses the pallet" so to speak, making the item set aside more fresh when you return to it. That is one reason I build so many models at a time. That and I'm too impatient to walk away and wait for something to dry! LOL!

Keep going Bruce! That is one magnificent car man.

Duke Maddog wrote:As for setting something aside, I do it all the time. As you said; you learn new techniques that can apply to different models, but it also "cleanses the pallet" so to speak, making the item set aside more fresh when you return to it. That is one reason I build so many models at a time. That and I'm too impatient to walk away and wait for something to dry! LOL!

Duke,

I keep going to your 2017 year in review for inspiration, then something happens—usually it's work-related distraction—and I scurry off with the promise to write you the single best appreciation/fan mail I possibly am able to write ever—and I should simply just put the clapping fella in your thread like so:



I have learned more about the proper attitude—or what I consider proper—from watching your work go in stages. I think there is something about taking the time to create on multiple projects that I still need to learn. I don't quite know who to put that into words, but I feel that I still need a way to disconnect for a bit without feeling a sense of abandonment or failure. I keep my unfinished for the moment Trimaster Dora on display as if it was finished. In fact, I was going to research out a proper display box and keep it on my desk. To me, the Dora holds the first critical steps into the world of modeling. Before that I was getting by (and not really getting by) on chutzpah. So I want to thank you and John and Carlos and Torben and Borg and Marius and Stuart and BlackSheep and Scruffy (man I hope I have his handle right) for always being around with a word and more so, and it is "more so" that sustains me the most.

Keep up the fire Bruce! Your enthusiasm is contagious!