The Little World

There is a rule in motion picture production when using scale models in action scenes; fire and water won’t work.

Not that it isn’t done…but it is very rarely done well. The physics of fluids mean that scale ships never sail as well as real ones. A miniature explosion always gives itself away.

Note that AI and CGI can make up for a lot of the unreality…while introducing it in other ways. And the initial acceptance of these technologies has given way to boredom very quickly. We can pick out the fakery as soon as the vast clone armies begin to move.

Physics are also little help in the workshop as we try to spray camouflage patterns freehand. Airbrushes do not do the same as paint guns and the margins of the patterns are always a dead giveaway. They disappear under weathering for some modellers, but the rest of us struggle to see the result as real.

Is there any way to make a semi-hard edge to a sprayed pattern without using putty worms and masking? It is time for Stupid Science Theatre to start experimenting. It will be out with the old useless kits and on with the ugly paint. If the full-size repair shops can do it, why not us?