Category: Miniature Philosophy
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The Medium Is The Message
As Marshal McLuhan said, and was misquoted ever after. He had a right to be mad – he’d ordered a large, instead of a medium. And he was too Canadian to complain. In the hobby world, and especially in the hobby shop, there are lots of mediums – paint mediums, medium brushes, and medium tank…
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The PREMIER Club…
I listened to a chap tell me that one of the scale modelling clubs that he belonged to was the PREMIER club in Western Australia. There was a touch of gas and o’erweening pride in the announcement, but it set me to wondering about club rankings. What constitutes supremacy? Is it member numbers, models turned…
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The Scale Sketch
Versus the final model painting. Which is better? Which is more authentic? Which is likely to get you a medallion on a ribbon at the Big Local Scale Model Exhibition? I think we all know the answer to that one… But not every model is destined to be under the eye of the Judgemental Committee.…
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Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone
For the most part…don’t. Spend a good deal of your modelling time trying to locate it and when you find an entry point, crawl right in and close the hatch after yourself. Your ancestors lived largely outside comfort zones, as it happened, and spent a lot of time trying to locate them. They worked and…
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SE5A – Part One – Is There A Model In There?
A good question – this old Esci baggie was sitting forlorn and unbuilt – and likely to be touched for many a year until the Kit Whisperer found it. I will be frank – I deliberately seek out the most modest of kits to build. The $ 500 aircraft carrier is not for me –…
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Give Us A Sign!
Or at least a good line drawing. The quality of instruction manuals for our kits is one thing that we often overlook – until we get to the stage of constructing the landing gear or rigging the sails. Then we can look them over as much as we like without being any wiser. Often the…
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Do Not Sell Your Models
Build them. Whether you build them SOOTB, or tricked out with a dozen packets of after-market…build them. Build them painted or plain, weathered or fresh, well or otherwise…but build them. That is why they were made. That is why the designers sat at the drafting board or computer screen until their eyes turned red. That…
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Hurry Up.
Hurry Up! Hurry Up! Hurry Up! This is a hobby, you know. No time to sit there enjoying yourself. if you don’t speed up you’ll fall behind the others – the other modellers who are speeding up. Then where will you be? You’ll be sitting there with a half-completed model while they are out buying…
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Squadron Leader Blimp
Ah Haw, Ah Haw, Ah Haw…what? I am not sure if he is a Squadron Leader, Wing Commander, or Air Marshall…but Blimp is alive and well. He has lost the walrus moustache and rarely reeks of gin, but he’s still haunting the clubs. It is cruel to bait him…but fun nevertheless. And so tempting –…
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The Determined Modeller
I admire determined and steadfast people. As I write this there is a Mort Kunstler print of Ulysses S Grant on the wall facing me. He is raising his hat to celebrate his victory at Vicksburg. The accounts of his trials and his character have always been an inspiration, though I would not follow his…
The Little World 