The Little World

Steel yourself – there will be some serious soul-searching in this post. You are going to have to confront your own failures.

As for me, I’m going to hide mine by pretending that I never make mistakes. Anything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault – even if there is no-one within 500 yds of the Little Workshop when it happens. I’ve learned this from watching broadcasts from Parliament. If it works for them, it’ll work for me.

Error One: On the part of the makers – when they choose the wrong material for a product. I am gingerly assembling a model airplane that is made of soft and crumbling plastic. I’m succeeding, but I don’t know why, because all logic says I shouldn’t be.

The maker of the kit has chosen a material that is marginal. It may be because of cheapness or it may be because his machinery is inadequate to handle better plastic. It impacts severely in the next category…

Error two: Again with the makers. If they choose to mould sprues that are fragmented and need assembly to get a decent part, they must make them precisely. Otherwise it is just a shit-shoot whether you are going to finish up with a canopy or a blob. I’ve got a blob, but also have a cunning plan to make the blob work.

Error Three: This is one of mine – shooting a paint or surface coating over inadequate prep. If you never notice that you have done it, you can continue reading with a clear conscience. If you notice, then you are going to have to correct it or forever glare at your own inadequacies. It is cheaper in the long run to correct it.

Error Four: Shooting a paint or surface or covering that you are not familiar with – or shooting it in a manner that you have not practiced beforehand. You’ll get what you get, and in most cases what you’ll get is sad. Trial and error is a fine way of doing things, but make the error on scrap plastic or other paint mules.

Error Five: Not looking carefully enough at the picture/diagram/specification. The makers of many kits do a remarkably fine job of detailing the original and showing you what it looked like. Part of that may be in flamboyant box art…and you can take that with a grain of salt – and part in painting and decaling diagrams. Read the plans.

Read the books and internet too…and look sideways at what you read as well. I nearly came a cropper recently while researching the Convair 440. A wonderful website of colour illustration drawings had it in a very attractive scheme for an RCAF squadron with a complete service history as well. I was all set to break out the paint pots when I happened to scroll on down the pages to discover Soviet Sukhoi fighters in RCAF markings with a complete squadron history as well…and then any number of improbable and implausible additions to Canada’s air power all detailed in colour profiles.

The artist is prolific and talented, but I nearly missed the fact that the whole thing is a fantasy.

Error Six: ” I Could Never Make That “. Every time you say this to yourself you are right. Then you remove the word ” never ” and you are also right. But you are right with a new skill and a new model.

Error Seven: The retailer who never advertises. Okay, advertisement is expensive – it takes time and effort – it takes talent. It can be a long time between shouting out a message and hearing the echo in sales. But if you never call out – if people never know what you’ve got in stock – if all you are is a sign on a post – you will never get people in through the doors to purchase.

Error Eight: The kit maker who does one thing again and again and again – varying only the decals and box art.  People will build one, maybe two. And then go further down the aisle to a new maker with a new model.

They also have a brother criminal in the kit maker who brings out a fantastically detailed super kit of a subject so mundane that you cannot imagine anyone ever wishing to build it. You’ll recognise these kits as they make their way up the shelves in the shop to the highest level. It is not because they are the pinnacle of the art – it is because by putting them up there the shopkeeper doesn’t have to keep dusting them year after year.