The Little World

Not what you don’t.

This doesn’t mean you have to restrict your building to domestic objects or your own trade. Scale models of insurance policies are probably exquisite but few people bother to read them in 1:72 scale.

You can do anything you like, of course, but you’ll be happier doing something that you understand and that you have information about. Here you can look to kit makers, paint makers, accessory makers, and troublemakers. The last-named will be able to undo all the good that they others do.

Get ahead of them. Whatever your interest, get enough magazines, books, and internet articles to give yourself a good idea of what to build. Find out if there are photos or illustrations. Beware the former a little and the latter a lot – some ghastly floaters have been made on the basis of imaginative artist’s boxtops.

If you wish to ask and listen, pick people with real knowledge of a subject – preferably first-hand. You may think this would preclude survivors of Waterloo, but you may be surprised how many of us there are. We can tell tales and some of them are true.

If you have firsthand knowledge yourself that cannot be bettered by someone else, go with your own experience. This can include modelling a subject that is preserved in its present colour and form – not the historic records or imaginative drawings. It may not be what it looked like then, but it is what it looks like now, and that is just as authentic.