Chuck Kourouklis

You want a white-knuckle experience, try working an EM Countach body shell over the finished chassis according to the instruction sequence. That it all came together without anything shattering or splitting in half was all the proof of a benevolent God I needed. I'd agree with Sonny that the Tamiya's 200+ piece Enzo came pretty close and their Carrera GT and LFA kits aren't too far off the mark. Fujimi's own 250GTO has parts that number in the 190s, and if the engine were a little sharper, it would have been a perfect latter-day EM kit.

I actually halfway figgered, but it seemed only fair to make the offer since the subject came up. (Thanks, btw, Skip)

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.

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.

That could very well be, Skip. There are CAD files for current cars, but if kit manufacturers want to do away with the most obvious "tells" that usually come with traditional mastering methods on vintage subjects, they're pretty much getting narrowed down to one recourse. Fortunately, it's the best one ever devised and it's coming down in price. And better yet, Revell is finally indicating it's not going to wait for an incentive from its consumer base to adopt it.

And what's more, if you take those $20 - $30 "Weekend Edition" 1/72 - 1/48 Eduard aircraft kits kits that cluster all around domestic car kits in rough size, price point, and parts count, you're going to see a level of crispness and precision that simply isn't there in the cars. But let's just put that entirely aside for the moment. How about getting off the thumb with current mastering techniques (which, btw, Revell seems to be acknowledging publicly they're going to do). As it happens, the '57 Ford falls on one side of the accuracy equation for me while the '50 Olds lands just on the other. Revell's Ford is the runaway winner far as I'm concerned; what marginal deviations there are, you gotta pore over reference photos practically side by side to catch. But Revell had to do some damage control on the whole whitewall issue with the Olds, and the Panamerica sedan graphics for a coupe body was a bit of a boondoggle, I don't care how anybody wants to spin it. And then there are all the little proportioning gremlins that creep forth when you compare the body with an ERTL '49 and the 1:1. Is it a bad kit? Not at all. That 303 is one of the greatest plastic captures of an engine ever, and I was delighted to see Revell bring a fully separate frame back to a new design for the first time in 11 years. Is it everything it could be, even for the price? That's debatable, but clearly it's enough to satisfy and even delight most car modelers. Will it stand up to the same kind of scrutiny against the 1:1 that, say, a $29 Eduard FW190 will against its prototype? No, it won't, and there's no satisfaction for me in pointing that out.

I'm not quite seeing the counter to Harry's claim. What he said was perfectly in line with that observation; his only embellishment is a somewhat cynical (and I believe entirely correct) assessment of what car modelers generally find - and indeed dictate - to be an "acceptable level of quality".

Nice, MDJ...

I'd guess 1/20 F1 builders and the hardcore NASCAR guys might also lean toward that historically accurate mentality.

I can only give you a single perspective on that on Bill: I was born some two and a half decades after the peak of WWII and I find the aircraft kits of the era fascinating. I'll probably snatch up whatever new examples they mold as long as I'm able. But this is coming from somebody who loves plastic model kits for their own sake nearly as much as he loves cars. Perhaps another factor to add to Harry's list is that car modelers tend to be car guys first, and the hobby's simply a branch of that primary interest. Military and aircraft guys usually can't keep an Abrams or a Phantom in the garage, though, so of necessity they're a bit more about the model in itself.

Werd.

Oh yeah. Trumpeter's set themselves up for a lot of grief, particularly in many of their earlier releases. And they've generally responded to the goad, shifting focus from over-engineering and overwrought surface detail to greater overall accuracy. Their Ford Falcon kits reflected a similar evolution on the over-engineering front; too bad they didn't follow through with the accuracy component. I know we've given the whole "mechanical fastener enumerator" (very nice ) thing a good thrashing here, me most particularly - but that's not as if to say those guys don't exist. All I'm saying is that it's silly to equate that mentality with those pointing out genuinely obvious mistakes. The little graphic in my signature comes from the HK Models 1/32 B-25, and if the model actually has 450,000 rivets, that's still something requires a serious level of OCD to be bothered by. Whereas the wrong type of front axle, missing engine breathers and absent external door hinges kinda clock a modeler paying any kind of attention over the head.

Exactly as you state it, Kevin, your premise is plenty reasonable. But with only a subtle tweak - it's a builder's responsibility to correct a manufacturer oversight, and the builder is somehow deficient if he points out the manufacturer's error - we're right back at that blog section I linked to earlier. I bent the focus a bit to proportioning problems, but if you check the original poster's comment, he also talks about detail. And high levels of detail rarely lead to easy kits. I'd also go so far as to say that a properly proportioned kit still leaves plenty of a canvas for bodywork, be it conversion to a different style or trim level, or especially to a custom. Elective craftsmanship is a very different proposition from corrective craftsmanship - to most, the former is far more stimulating and less annoying than the latter.

Funny, right about what the 1/32 17 is supposed to cost.

It's very difficult to put one genre up against the other and not come to that conclusion, and I'm not just talking the high-zoot big scale stuff either. 1/48 Eduard models, like the one Brett mentioned? The basic "Weekend Edition" kits approach the rough size and price of a US 1/25 auto kit - and the cars don't generally weather that context well.

The remake was good for one thing: a concurrent blu ray release of the original! Which I absolutely bothered with. Unlike the remake itself, which I kinda, uh, didn't.

Sounds about right.

HO! Hadn't heard about the Eduard Nine! As for the rest, ah, okay, I getcha now.

Those krispy kreme kartons hit a bit later than '95, but oh yes, were they a scourge. I seem to recall the low rider Impalas from that series of Monogram 1/25 classics having a disproportionate case of the flimsies.

That's essentially correct. The pace car was labeled Revell-Monogram, but the very first release in '95 - Coral and Gunmetal two-tone with a Continental kit - was branded Monogram.

Got no reason to doubt ya, Johnny, though I gotta say armor's still getting good stuff too. Warning: possibly off-topic continuation... HK Models, Bill. Here's a taste: Off-topic for car models, definitely ON-topic for "awesome".

I wonder if it's a shifting philosophy on the domestic (US) releases, then. From what I understood - even though staff-wise, the company generally is Monogram, and Revell cars have essentially been 1/25 Monogram cars from around '87 on - they led with the Revell brand after the merger because it had greater global penetration than Monogram did. Guess they're still toying with all that these two-plus decades on. Seems like assigning Revell all the 1/25 and Monogram all the 1/24 would be the simplest answer, but then what happens? Ya gotta make sure the Revell AG tooling is boxed domestically as Monogram? No wonder even they themselves seem confused...

I think you and I are making flip sides of the same point, though I gotta say, if the AFV guys are dyin' out, it ain't quick enough yet to stop manufacturers from sinking cubic dollars into new military tooling. We got a 1/32 B-17 with forty inches of wing on the horizon, which would indicate that the 1/32 B-25 that preceded it found a sufficient audience - to say nothing of manufacturers like Tamiya being rather more ambitious lately with all-new military tooling than it is with autos, or the scads of smaller Cyber-Hobby, AFV-Club, Zveda, ICM, Eduard and Meng- type manufacturers that treat street cars on a very limited basis if they bother with them at all. On the other hand, Revell's latest Facebook posting has a general observation that "New technology, however, may soon make pattern models a thing of the past" and a staff comment specifically on digital scanning. And I hold that if Revell adapts its process to 3D scans of the prototype, that step alone will raise them to a much more consistent level of "awesomeness" even if they don't change a single other aspect of their current design m.o.

Yup. Wheel and tire mastering work has me shaking my head... Duuude. I madly MADLY love this series! My absolute favorite of the late '60s and possibly all time, and yes, it takes a powerhouse to knock Star Trek from that perch for me. I don't think there's ever been a single episode of network TV as intense as "Once Upon A Time", before or since.

It's got a fair bit of the Glickenhaus P4 mixed in for good measure, and that ain't no bad thing imho. Checked out the official release video yet? Hoo boy... We're moving to a different paradigm in surface development these days; for some it works, and for others, not so much. Count me in the first group.