The Little World

And another become a classic?

I’m not talking about 1/35 scale armour here. I mean why is one model kit a success and just keeps on selling, and another ends up in the auction house for unsold kits within the first six months?

a. Is it a bad model? Badly conceived, badly moulded, poorly packaged. A dud from the factory. There are a few seen on shelves in any hobby shop, though if the proprietors are smart they will whip them off as soon as they prove unsalable and devote the space to profitable kits. It’s a business loss but unprofitable space is as well.

b. Is it unseen? No advertising, no promotion, no coverage in modelling magazines. If no-one knows it exists, can it really be said to exist?

c. Is it overpriced? People are canny about their hobby money – until they see the thing they simply must have and spend wildly on it. But if the thing is $ 450 the gulp and sweat factor comes in and it sits on the shelf. I can remember any number of exceedingly expensive plastic kits that sat on the shelves of hardware and drug stores in the Canada of my childhood simply because no-one would pay the high price – bet it was the same in Australia.

d. Is it so arcane as to have no appeal? this is hard to say, because the small-run industry seems to have decided to kit everything they can find plans for short of Göring’s chamberpot and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that one day. But you can still fail to sell something that is so obscure as to pass all interest.

e. Is it so common that the ” Yet Another Syndrome ” sets in and no-one wants to build it? No names, no pack drill, but when was the last time you saw a hobby shop without a Focke Wulfe 190 somewhere – if only in the loo.

f. Is it too hard to build? The kit full of wisps of brittle resin and a vac-formed tail skid may delight the WW1 geek but the rest of the builders can see it breaking under their fingers in the first two minutes.

g. Is it too easy to build, and advertises itself as such? Snap-together may be a good thing but not if you make it look like an escapee from the Fisher Price factory. I like Hobby Boss quick kits as mules for paint schemes and readily accept that they will go together in an afternoon, but others decry them as too simple.

h. Is it just ugly? Or worse…fugly. You can actually get some enthusiasm up for ugly models if they have a sterling history but it is hard to see spending money for something that starts out looking sad and ends up looking worse. Planes, trains, and cars that have been saddled with awful paint jobs or graphics in the prototype do not really get better when they are shrunk.

i. Is it unfashionable? Has everyone done one and the trendy thing has moved well on.? Is the kit just a tired remake of something that was tired a decade ago? It’s entirely possible if the moulds have been sold on to new makers.

j. Is the box horrible? Have they employed all the wrong artistic techniques in the picture and graphics? Is it dull, flimsy, and repulsive? Are the sprues loose inside and rattling and scratching whenever you pick it up?

K. Finally, are the decals bad – really bad? Are they yellowed, faded, cracked, thick, out of register, and out of hue? And all these things together? Is it the kind of decal sheet that makes you reach for the aftermarket catalogue before you even cut a part off the sprue?