The Little World

Go to a fancy restaurant. Order an expensive meal – prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. Ask for tomato sauce; see what happens…

To their great credit and lasting fame, the people who organise our Big Local Scale Model Exhibition always leave a section of the entry form for people who wish to build their model kit straight out of the box. This is a very sensible recognition of the fact that a modern scale model kit is the production of as much scholarship as of engineering…and should be rewarded as such.

Note: if reward be needed. Some of us feel the doing of the deed is the reward…

Well, pass by that philosophical midden and let’s open the box. Finely-moulded sprue trees. Impossibly-precise photo etch. Clear styrene parts just waiting for you to smudge them up. And a decal sheet that has taken the best part of someone’s year to research and design. A colour call-out that attempts to make sense out of three different paint maker’s chromatic opinions…

And this you want to throw away? Are you nuts? That’s reality in front of you. It’s realler than you are!

If the model that the makers have captured is just not your taste – there are always research sites and after-market decals. Use them if you wish, but give the person who liked the kit some credit if they just decided to build it as presented. I’ve been guilty of going off on tangents at times, but occasionally I recognise that what the makers have provided is better than what I could imagine.

It’s no sin to follow the directions.