The Little World

And sometimes it feels like months…

Any Rodin kit is complex. That is the mindset of the Ukrainian designers, if not of the entire modern plastic model industry. I see it at my scale model club as other members start to assemble plastic tank tracks from individual links with individual guide horns and pinned couplings. Some seem to have separate bolt heads.

It is hard to hear grown men sobbing…

At least with my 1:72 scale models they can be viewed somewhat as sketches. I can make the details they demand, but if they are a little less precise than the diagrams I can say it impressionism. Manet got away with it using a pond of weeds.

It also pays to remember the experience of some modellers who assembled the old Wingnuts Wings kits – in a much larger scale. They found that the thickness of a paint layer was enough to put off all the moulding precision in the kit. I have made sure that fitting surfaces are carefully trued and clean before making the sub-assemblies.

The roll-round beaching frame is particularly nice, though the instructions are unclear about the assembly and you need to be sure you’re finding the right mating surfaces as you cement things.

The engine blocks are just harbingers of things to come…