Tag: model building

I had already saved a draft to write about perfectionism, and yesterday it finally struck..

I am a perfectionist, and a relative noob at model building. I am also pretty ambitious when it comes to this hobby, although I don’t take trying a new thing lightely. Unfortunatly being a noob means you will also trying new things is inevitable, and so is not executing them flawlessly no matter how much YouTuber vids you check out.

To be absolutely clear: I am not even sure I did something irreparable. But that’s not all that perfectionism is about really.. it’s about the insecurity when trying something new: will this make things better or will I destroy the end result?

Let me go through my progress of yesterday and today:

Really there was no reason the be in a hurry here.. but making an unforced error like that makes you feel like you need to restore something quickly I guess.

I guess what is really gnawing at me at this point is the sanding.. It’s so easy to ruin details with it, and I sometimes find it so hard to know if you’re still on track or if you’re going to far with it. The wings are perhaps a bit flat on the front and I will have to do some very light sanding to hopefully restore that. What also has me worried (You might be able to see that in the last picture) is the scratches the sanding makes.

But from what I understand this is the reason people use primer! Another thing I haven’t done yet, and I keep thinking my shopping spree will be at an end at some point. What I likely will need at this point:

• Primer (what colour? White? Gray? Silver? Can I use acryilic primer when using acrylic paint?)
• A little tool to get some of the line detail back since I surfaced some of it off

I did get something else in the mail though that I will first try on the Spit-wreck:

I didn’t sleep too good the last 2 days, and ofcourse this does not help. I make more mistakes and moving on after a mistake becomes much harder.

But I am still having a lot of fun with all this.. for every perfectionist there comes a time that feeling of a perfect streak will come to an end and the insecurity will drip in about the end result.. But I have to let that go and have fun like I was doing. This model will not be perfect, and neither will the next one be.

And is there ever such thing as perfect anyway?

 

This morning I was watching CharleyGnarley’s YouTube channel. I was especially interested his experience with the Focke Wulf FW190 F8, since I recently started building the A8 version of that kit.

After the Revell Plasta debacle of my first kit I started looking for my next one. I considered buying the exact same kit, but since at this point I was still aiming to create a very ugly and scratched version of the clipped wings Spitfire I wanted to buy something else. I had already seen IBM do the F8 and really liked that it has an engine subcomponent unlike the Spit.

I was happy to find out that in the short period I was working on the Spitfire Revell released the A8 version. To be clear I don’t have a real preference between the F or the A type, but I know this is basically the same as the F8 and is thus a pretty solid kit for the price. What tips me over to the A8 is the shiny new manual which is in colour which make it slightly easier to follow (in most places) and shows the sprue that the part can be found on.

I decide to go for the R11 version that is displayed on the box, mainly because I like the extra antenna’s sticking out. When I picked up this box at hobbycar I made a sort of semi-impulse purchase of a cheap airbrush on which I will definitly make a seperate blog because I love it! I decided to bring forward the purchase because of the camo on the FW190 which seems (for me) impossible to create with a brush.

Once I had finished spraying the cockpit I checked out some videos on preshading the cockpit.. well, I am not sure if I would have wanted to try it on this kit anyway since I have no experience with it yet. Not shown in above picture is that I did highlight some of the details on the sidepanels. Mainly because the alternative..

Really lacks in detail even for my noob level. Besides that I couldn’t figure out how they should be applied on the sidepanels.. it’s like they didn’t look at an actual FW190 cockpit when they created these. I was really happy to see that Brett had come to the same conclusion when he was at that stage of the build.

The other cockpit decals were fine though, even if I had to cut some of them to get them properly aligned.. the above section I had already cut in half because of the little glass part sticking out. The lower I didn’t get right, although the picture is not the end result which was marginally better.. I do need to look closer at how the decal should be placed and if I need to make smaller parts of it to make it easier to place them correctly. Anyway, it’s a very small detail and I am not too bothered about it since it’s my second kit. Better luck next time!

Something I picked up from my last build: I’m a klutz and everytime I move the model I hear that awful scraping sound.. I don’t know if this gives much protection but I feel better about it!

A thing at this point was that the upper winghalf didn’t fit too well on the portside. I think I know why..

The landing gear bay is not properly placed and much more light showed through on this side compaired to the starboard side.. So I carefully ‘unhinged’ this part and scraped the glue of the area as best as I could..

And did another attempt at first properly glueing the part that the landing gear bay goes onto. Hopefully I can get the room I need to properly get it in place once this has dried up.

A big thing I could take away from Brett’s build is how much more I need to take care of the seams I leave, and how to actually get better at glueing.. at this point it has become slightly better, but there still is room for improvement.

Especially here..

I already applied some thin cement to the area to the left of the tape, and hopefully I can get this right with sanding if it’s not too late.

I am happier with the upper half, if only just.

Since I had to be in the city anyway this afternoon, I did some more shopping for some essentials.. especially the clamps might be a big improvement when it comes to properly drying glued-together parts.. not want to give Brett too much credit here but yeah you’re absolutely right: he prefers clamps over large amounts of tape and well..

I admit, I am not sure what I was trying to achieve with the tape on the gun parts.

Well, that’s all for now! Special thanks to Brett for some inspiration on where the big improvements probably lie for me. I see Spencer Pollard has a new beginners video about glueing which also comes at the perfect time!