Why aren't all model kits awesome?

[sjordan2]

To me, an awesome kit would be one with crisply detailed, separate chrome parts that require little or no BMF or Alclad for parts like window surrounds and other body trim. If you didn't like the chrome, you could adjust it yourself, but you'd still have the separate parts. Except for Pocher, the only one I can think of is the 1/16 Italeri/Minicraft Mercedes Gullwing and Roadster. The absence of that on most 1/8 Revell kits is ridiculous (along with lack of opening doors). Even the 1/8 XK-E requires doing your own body chrome.

[niteowl7710]

That might work on large scale, but I highly doubt it's feasible at 1/25. Simply look at he divots that had to be carved into the '55 Chevy to have the separate trim be molded thick enough that it didn't break when you breathed on it, and all looks right in scale. Plus chrome has the inherent ability to be attached to the runners in the worst possible orientation leaving large unchromed areas at the attachment points as well as mold lines in mirrors, door handles, etc

Edited March 10, 2013 by niteowl7710

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Y'know, I post a thing which just about MULCHES the "real builders will fix it" angle - AND the "no such thing as a perfect kit" AND the "YOU produce better kits" misdirections too - and then points out that no matter how many times these approaches are eviscerated for their absence of logic, people just can't seem to resist trying to reanimate their tattered useless corpses. And WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS VERY DISCUSSION even after I've pointed out that blog which anticipates it all? Like freakin' clockwork.

I know I can't say this without sounding snarky, but there's a psychology here, an emotional motivation, a certain extreme to rationalizing kit manufacturer shortfalls that I really wish somebody could fashion into some kind of sense, because so far I fail to see the first thing reasonable at the root of any of it.

Alright, first, let's just quit pretending the accuracy slope inevitably slips and careens down to deviations that amount to 1/100 of an inch after they're scaled -

it. just. doesn't. If you've got minute variations between representative prototypes, chances are that getting precise measurements of one will very likely suffice for the others. Or if you really wanna go nuts, you could scan them all and then take the mean measurements between them, but nobody is arguing for that extreme! Let's just keep it mostly to Bill's "gross" context here.

And then we come back to the traditional scaling methods, with eloquent and thorough discourses on how photographs are taken to help develop models that diverge noticeably from their 1:1 subjects in photographs. I'm reluctant to contradict what looks like a comprehensive body of knowledge on this, but 3D scanning from the prototype has a proof of concept:

That's right. We have PROOF here that a 3D scan can help produce a model that looks just like the 1:1. Pity the strobe doesn't have the correct number of apertures (and please ignore my scatty paint detailing of same), but that's not what we're talking about; we're talking about gross proportions here, and this model is as good or better than anything we've seen in the last fifty-odd years for proportional correctness (from scans some seven years old no less). Might it also be why a nicely finished AMT 2010 Camaro doesn't give its miniaturization quite so quickly away as Revell's does in photographs? You can certainly compare Moebius's vintage subjects with their presumably CAD-referenced International rigs and see a bit of an accuracy gap there.

The trick with defending traditional methods is that while the defense deals in eminently credible premises, none of them is particularly easy to prove. You can lay out some convincing arguments about binocular effect and scale perception, but where are the photos to demonstrate those principles as concretely as what we see above?

Yeah, there'll be disagreements from one modeler to the next on where the threshold of acceptable deviation lands, but tellya what - get that '56 Chrysler body as correct as another manufacturer has already gotten the '66 Batmobile, and there'll be much less of a deviation to disagree on in the first place.

[sjordan2]

Y'know, I post a thing which just about MULCHES the "real builders will fix it" angle - AND the "no such thing as a perfect kit" AND the "YOU produce better kits" misdirections too - and then points out that no matter how many times these approaches are eviscerated for their absence of logic, people just can't seem to resist trying to reanimate their tattered useless corpses. And WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS VERY DISCUSSION even after I've pointed out that blog which anticipates it all? Like freakin' clockwork.

I know I can't say this without sounding snarky, but there's a psychology here, an emotional motivation, a certain extreme to rationalizing kit manufacturer shortfalls that I really wish somebody could fashion into some kind of sense, because so far I fail to see the first thing reasonable at the root of any of it.

Alright, first, let's just quit pretending the accuracy slope inevitably slips and careens down to deviations that amount to 1/100 of an inch after they're scaled -

it. just. doesn't. If you've got minute variations between representative prototypes, chances are that getting precise measurements of one will very likely suffice for the others. Or if you really wanna go nuts, you could scan them all and then take the mean measurements between them, but nobody is arguing for that extreme! Let's just keep it mostly to Bill's "gross" context here.

And then we come back to the traditional scaling methods, with eloquent and thorough discourses on how photographs are taken to help develop models that diverge noticeably from their 1:1 subjects in photographs. I'm reluctant to contradict what looks like a comprehensive body of knowledge on this, but 3D scanning from the prototype has a proof of concept:

That's right. We have PROOF here that a 3D scan can help produce a model that looks just like the 1:1. Pity the strobe doesn't have the correct number of apertures (and please ignore my scatty paint detailing of same), but that's not what we're talking about; we're talking about gross proportions here, and this model is as good or better than anything we've seen in the last fifty-odd years for proportional correctness (from scans some seven years old no less). Might it also be why a nicely finished AMT 2010 Camaro doesn't give its miniaturization quite so quickly away as Revell's does in photographs? You can certainly compare Moebius's vintage subjects with their presumably CAD-referenced International rigs and see a bit of an accuracy gap there.

The trick with defending traditional methods is that while the defense deals in eminently credible premises, none of them is particularly easy to prove. You can lay out some convincing arguments about binocular effect and scale perception, but where are the photos to demonstrate those principles as concretely as what we see above?

Yeah, there'll be disagreements from one modeler to the next on where the threshold of acceptable deviation lands, but tellya what - get that '56 Chrysler body as correct as another manufacturer has already gotten the '66 Batmobile, and there'll be much less of a deviation to disagree on in the first place.

From the author of the best-selling business book, "The 7 habits of Highly Effective People":

Edited March 12, 2013 by sjordan2

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Well lemme just make a general deal with everybody then:

If anybody wants to hazard a suggestion or two as to why we can't discuss kit problems frankly without an inevitable contingent getting all uptight about it, I'll do my level best to listen with an intent to understand. I've only been asking how long, anyway.

Maybe do it over at the blog so we stay on the rails here.

[sjordan2]

Chuck, in case I was too obscure, my last post was in support of your point of view.

[Chuck Kourouklis]

I actually halfway figgered, but it seemed only fair to make the offer since the subject came up.

(Thanks, btw, Skip)

[High octane]

Great photo Greg. LOL!