What Do We Build ...and Why?

[Thomas_M]

...
To find a summary for all those confusing thoughts: Modeling touches a lot of aspects of my life along with my inerests in science, history, engineering and design. I find so much inspiration in so many different ways, I could start another build every second day. And yes, there will be a Spitfire landing on the top of my stash very soon. Waiting eagerly for Eduard's September offerings.

Couldn´t have found better words to explain my way how kits make it on my bench. Thanks for those words, Torben!
While not waiting for an Eduard Spitfire (I recently got Revell´s new Mk.IXc in 1/32), my bench these days is cluttered with parts of so many started kits that I am amazed I so far (hopefully!) haven´t lost anything...

Oh, have got a fantastic book on our solar systems planets, but I doubt I will start building one soon. Just another page in my book of interests...

[speedgraflex]

Hi.

My name is Bruce.

And I build models.

I read the thread a few times, and I stepped away and thought a bit, because I am grateful to be here amongst you. You are outstanding people. I learn a lot every time I visit here. So, I am a little choked up because that 's who I am. You are an impressive group. I do not write this lightly. You are good people. You articulate as well, and you do this often. So. Thank you.

I asked Torben the above question because I struggle with "why" in most of what I do. Usually my answer is "I don't know why, but I am going to do it." My grandfather used to call this "Playing to the devil's gallery," and when he said that, he usually had a sly little smile on his face.

I fell in love with Science Fiction early and very hard. So, when I started building models last year I started with science fiction. I love spaceships, and I wanted to build all of the ships from 2001: A Space Odyssey and I wanted to build them really well. There are two classic kits available (currently) for this subject, so I did an online search and beseeched Lord Google to find me more kits to build, and he did. Google located a garage kit maker named Scott Alexander who is a former visual effects artist turned master builder of spaceships. He has more than a few kits available—ships as well as figures. Possibly the crown jewel is his Discovery. It's used for the Stanley Kubrick museum exhibit. He also has an incredible version of the Orion Space Clipper.

Adam Johnson is also a designer and builder of 2001: A Space Odyssey kits. Scott Spicer masters his versions of the Aries 1B, and all of the orbiting bomb platforms which are glimpsed briefly at the start of the film. Possibly the crown jewel is his Aries 1B. I own two of these kits, but I have not the stones to build them properly yet.

I have a list of spaceships I want to build that is rather long and I am afraid to bore you with this, but quickly: Jan De Boer's Enterprise Refit and Reliant, the Nostromo from Alien (I am not sure who made a kit for this, my brain is not cooperating), the Polar Lights Enterprise, every Ban Dai kit past and future by the looks of it, even figures, as well—

Okay. Relax. Breathe.

However, along the way to find these kits, something happened I did not expect: the Horten.



Right from the start this one kit, that little weekend build of a kit, turned into months of learning—with a lot of input from members here on the boards (is that singular or plural?). I am learning so much!

Plus: the history. And it's here that I am learning the most. I am learning how to research.

And I am learning how to paint.

You have been the best teachers.

I did not answer why I chose the Ta 152 H-1 or the Dora, but I think Kurt Tank has something to do with it.

[Mikey]

Oh man. What a topic.

I would say I'm mostly an armor guy. My dad was an Army tanker so armor builds have been a part of my life since I was born. Lately I've been on more of a nostalgic kick with building aircraft.

How do I choose my subjects? Is it on a shelf for sale? Do I like the subject? Do I already have one?

Just all depends on my feelings at the time I suppose. There's not much more to it for me. Unless I have to hunt for it. Then the game is totally on! There are no more hobby shops around here so hunting for models is a fun challenge that ranges from easy to nearly impossible. Sometimes I think of it as a Pokemon type game, the rare ones are hard to find and hunting down the best locations is actually work lol.

[Duke Maddog]

Hmmm, what do I build and why..... My apologies; this is a long story here, feel free to pass it up.

Hello, I am the Duke and I have a royal case of plasticholism.....

What do I build:

I primarily build all my aircraft and armor in 1/72 scale. This is because of a couple reasons: one is that my mother 'dropped' me down to that scale after building a 1/48 scale aircraft with me and saw that it was a bit complicated for a 6-year-old boy. 1/72 scale was more simplistic and easy for a boy my age to build on his own. The that I stayed with that scale is that a few years later, a new kid moved in and he had a ton of 1/72 scale aircraft. His reason for only building in 1/72 scale: consistency in scale and the ability to size comparison. I had to admit in my influential youth that seeing the consistency in his collection appealed to my sense of order and, well... consistency. Therefore, all my aircraft remained in 1/72 scale. I tried to do the same with ships in 1/600 scale but the ship model manufacturers didn't cooperate. If I wanted a decent Navy then I had to adjust my requirements. Thus, all my battleships and carriers (with the exception of the smaller British and Russian carriers and French and Italian battleships) are in 1/500 to 1/600 scale while all my cruisers, destroyers, frigates and other smaller vessels are all in 1/700 scale. My civilian cargo ships are in whatever scale I can get them in; but still mostly conform to these 'guidelines'.

My armor was also restricted to 1/72 scale (or 1/76 scale when a 1/72 scale version was not available, they were 'close enough' in my young mind) simply because of the same reasoning I had with my aircraft. It was even more appealing when I got to place any of my vehicles next to any of my aircraft to see the size differences; especially when I sat a jeep or small truck next to my C-130 for instance. That just cemented my determination to remain in my chosen scale for these two subjects. Finally, having everything in the same scale made storage and display easier since most of my stuff fit into a small area that gave me plenty of room for new subjects. Except for the larger aircraft; they got hung from the ceiling out of the way of everything except the stray pillow from an occasional pillow fight. Amazingly enough, I didn't lose a single aircraft irreparably damaged from such hazards. And I was right about having the space; it wasn't until I surpassed 1100+ completed models that I started to run out of room to display anything new that completed.

Now: Why I build what I build.....

I started with aircraft because my first model was an aircraft that I built with my mother. Also, my father was an officer in the United States Air Force and so I got to see dozens of aircraft every time we went on base. They were the coolest things I had ever seen, especially when I got to watch them fly overhead!!

As for why I only build in 1/72 scale; when I was building my models side by side with my childhood friend Emmanuel (and learning how to paint and detail my models from him) I would choose subjects that would (hopefully) be better than what he was working on in a 'fight'. You see, during our first joint build sessions at his desk; we started out talking smack about whether this (insert name of aircraft or ship here) could beat that (insert name of aircraft or ship here). So after a couple models, we decided to see who's collection was stronger and who was the better 'commander'. We started a war game with our own rules to try and balance WWII and modern equipment, and so our build sessions became a sort of 'arms race'. When a second kid moved in down the road with a larger collection than our two combined, which included 1/72 scale armor (he'd gotten most of them from his older brother when the older brother stopped building models) that got me hooked on armor and vehicles just so I could challenge him on the battlefield when he joined our wargames. I also started building helicopters then (still in 1/72 scale) since I was reading about how they were employed in Vietnam at the time; as well as their intended purpose as an anti-tank weapon. I had fun utilizing my helicopters against Jason's armor in our games!

Nowadays when choosing a new subject to build; I am still slightly influenced by that old wargame mentality of trying to build something that would give my 'army', 'navy' and 'air force' an edge against another imagined opponent. Now, however, it is also influenced by finding something that I haven't already built, or something unique to my collection that almost nobody else has. (re: Dora rail gun for example) I am also interested in finding and building as many variants of a subject; or examples of the same vehicle used in different countries' armies, particularly when it comes to ground vehicles. (re: T-72 tanks, Shermans and M-113's for example) Finally, I am also interested in finding models of vehicles that have long and steady service in various militaries that I saw while I was growing up. Not to mention those vehicles and aircraft that were seeing in news footage and books covering the various wars and battles that have happened from Korea to the present. (SCUD B's, Abrams and Bradleys for example), along with other modern vehicles and aircraft. Recently I've been interested in doing many WWI vehicles due to the interesting way they were built back in the day; as well as the uniqueness of many of them. In particular, I love the potential civilian vehicles like the Vauxhall D staff car I'm building now along with the trucks and other vehicles used (e.g. FWD 3-ton truck). In relation to that, I always enjoy doing buildings and bunkers in anything close to the scale of my vehicles so I have something to put on a diorama, layout or photo base.

I also have started building real space (still in 1/72 scale; again for comparison and consistency purposes) and even Sci-Fi because of the influence of Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Firefly. Those shows in their own ways made Sci-Fi fun and believable for me.

I have dabbled in cars; but what makes me choose them are their uniqueness such as the Police Paddy Wagon; Red Baron, 1911 Christie Fire Truck etc. I may do a 'regular' car someday too, but again; it has to be something that appeals to me given the difficulty I have getting a smooth, even coat on the model. Finally, large figures have to appeal to me greatly as well, such as the Polar Light's Headless Horseman and Frazetti's Death Dealer. Otherwise, I don't do them.


Well, now that I have bored you all with my lowly life story I'll leave you all to enjoy everyone else's stories here. Again, my apologies for the long ramble; this was a tough question to answer.

[RexCag]

hey, no apology needed for that.

I enjoyed reading much more from a guy, than the cryptic way I typed mine out.

You did raise a question in my mind though.

How many of us used to wargame with HO/OO, 1/72, 1/76, etc models before GHQ Micros came out?

That was a thing I did for a number of years, because it gave me something to do with models with other people,,,,,even though I was still churning away at Aircraft. (my first love)

Venture Hobbies, just a bit from the gate at NAS Glenview, got a lotttt of my money back then, especially when they got the Esci Red Box armor models in stock.

But, having to completely "re-arm" my divisions with GHQ 1/285 scale chased me out of that segment of the hobby for a bit,,,,,,,,,until I started using my Armor and Truck modeling past to build Ground Support Vehicles, that is.

[Stikpusher]

Mark and Rex, I used to War game in 1/72 with my neighbor friend also. Although I had a definite advantage as I was a few years older than him and had more disposable income due to mowing the lawn, paper route, etc. But yes I had that 1/72 Force as well and back then I was like Mark, buying kits that would give my forces the adavantge. My 1/48 and 1/35 builds were cool things I wanted. My 1/72 builds were for the arms race. I did the same as Mark with ships as well, but went mostly for 1/700 & 1/720 since those were so similar and covered the majority of ship types available. And then some 1/600 Airfix and Aurora kits.

Rex I never did buy into the Micro Armor for gaming, although I did partake occasionally with our battalion's Scout Platoon when they had their weekend marathon sessions. They would give me a company or Battalion of whatever to command until I got wiped out, then went back to my room to continue whatever 1/35 project I was working on that weekend.

[Medicman71]

Very simple answer.

I build jets cause I like them!

[Stuart]

Very simple answer.

I build jets cause I like them!

lol - short and to the point - BUT... A B-25's not a jet?

Good read Duke - not boring at all.

As for wargaming?

Well I dabbled in the past. I used to play a bit of Warhammer 40,000 and had a couple of 3000pt armies. I’ve always liked the games workshop stuff, even if I don’t buy any of it now - I’ve read White Dwarf most of my life.
But my real love has always been the mechanics of wargaming, or put more simply – writing the rules. When I was about 11 my uncle gave me a box of his old 1/35 Tamiya armor builds and being a regular white dwarf reader and knowing a bit about wargaming (I didn’t know anything about historic wargames then), I wrote some rules based around them so I could play battles with them (M3 Bradley’s taking out T-33 with TOW’s anyone?) – it took me a while to get a balanced game using speed, protection and hitting power to level the field.
After that I did a few others. I had a copy of the ‘Space Crusade’ and ‘Heroquest Games’ when I was young. I expanded the rule sets on both of these games to make them more playable – certainly my friends seemed to think so.
When my Brother got into games workshop I ‘adjusted’ some of the rules in Warhammer to make it a bit easier for him to play, and also I bought him a simple GW boxed set game called ‘Bomberz over da Sulphur River’ (or something) and it was crap – the play was very one dimensional and after a few games he stopped playing it. I sat down after work for about a week and completely re-wrote the rules and the game mechanics. After that him and his mates spent hours playing it – so I could consider that an accolade.
I’ve always loved games – I play a lot of older medieval games these days (Nine Men’s Morris, Chess etc.) but I have been working on a wargame here and there over the past few years – it’s a simple squad level skirmish game, but uses a Chess board to keep it quick and tight.

Sorry – I’ll shut up now.

[Stikpusher]

Funny that you dabbled in 1/35 wargaming Stuart. I had plans to do the same. When I was in the Army I found and picked up a gaming set called "Armored Command" or something like that. This was long before "Flames of War" came along to do the same thing. It was a set of rules, organization charts, and marker counters for use with 1/72 wargaming. It used small element of three tanks or so to represent companies, stands of Infantry to do the same for those, etc. Well in my mind I figured that I could double the distances used on that rules set and go about trying to game in 1/35. That in turn lead to buying multiples of certain vehicle types (another thread on here), although I never got around to actually trying to making it happen for the gaming part. But in the late 80's/early 90's I was building up my Sherman's and Panzers where it was almost plausible to happen... and then of course I was trying to figure out how to do the WWIII NATO vs. Warsaw Pact when those kits started coming out at that time. Especially after reading "Red Storm Rising" and "Team Yankee".

[Duke Maddog]

No need to shut up Stuart, that is cool. I have been primarily playing a rule set that has not been published .... and that is a long and convoluted story in itself. It is called "Fire and Maneuver" and is one of the best systems I've ever played.

Back in the day though, we 'scavenged' for our rules/charts for our games. Since we both had modern and WWII equipment, we tried to balance it it as much as possible. We would modify hit and damage charts from Dungeons and Dragons to indicate hit chances and damage to our equipment; when Twilight 2000 came out, we added that to our ground combat techniques. We also used some of those ideas for our air and naval combat as well. It was definitely interesting and fun. Our war games came about because we just wanted to see who's collection was the best and who was the most able commander of said collection.

Carlos I do want to pay a WWIII scenario. I'm gonna try Team Yankee at the Game Convention in September/October if I can. I've been also trying to figure out how to modify "Fire and Maneuver" to do modern WWIII-type warfare.




So, anyone wanna take me on?