The Little World

Here he comes – the club anorak. Down the line of modellers at the bench, with his characteristic cry: ” I think you’ll find…”

Don’t reach for a revolver, unless you like making those 1:1 plastic replicas. Reach for the print-out from the net that shows the tank you are working on.

When the anorak stops at your chair and draws breath to tell you how wrong your colour choice will be once you get to the paint stage, whip out the set of pictures. Tell him that you’ve decided to model the ex-Soviet tank that is now a monument in Brno – and is painted pink. Bright, solid, uncompromisingly cynical Czech pink. With spare fuel tanks on the back and all.

When the first shock has passed, and before he can start to bluster, point out that it is a ACTUAL tank that is being modelled, in an actual place, right now. It can be seen, touched, and presumably licked by anyone who wishes to pass by. Ignore his defensively smarmy comments – know that you have proved your point.

And you can do the same thing – with less startling colours – for ever so many tanks and vehicles – as well as aircraft – that are preserved in museums all over the world. Some are indoors, some outside. Some are well-kept and others left to rot. If you’re a neat freak, do the clean ones – if you are a dust-bowl yourself, do the weathered ones. But do what exists now, and you cannot do wrong.

The museum staff who preserve, paint, and present these relics may be making either a scientifically accurate representation or a sad hash of the whole thing. Paints may have been sourced from the Ministry vaults or from the Bunnings DIY shop down the road. Not your concern. Just match what you see and you have made a winner.

You have also made an anorak very unhappy, but that’s life. You can win ’em all…

Note: Facebook recently placed a day’s ban on a friend of mine for using the word ” anorak ” in a post. Be careful how you go…walls have ears.