Friday, February 26, 2010

Even a Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut Every Once in a While

Scootin' Right Along

Which is another way of saying that we've made a great deal of progress on the Scooter. It's a good kit, and an easy one to work with, but karma has not been with us, at least over here. This A-4 has fought back and has, at times, come close to winning, primarily due to silly mistakes on my part. We all do that sort of thing from time to time so don't try to get all uppity and say it's never happened to you, because we know better!

So where exactly are we, or am I, as the case may be? Most of the bodywork is now complete, although the application of paint (and it doesn't matter what color; black was the weapon of choice in this instance) has shown a few areas that need a little touch-up and sanding prior to the addition of all those extra little bits of detail and a trip to the paint shop (where some few of those extra little details will probably vanish into thin air, given the general state of progress up to this point). We're moving right along, even if that movement has been in fits and starts.

One thing I'm going to try, and it'll be a Seriously Good Thing if it works, is to paint the area around the intakes in 36440 (which was, in point of fact, done just a few minutes ago) in preparation for the attachment of the intake lips. Those lips fit just fine in a dry run a couple of days ago; with any luck they'll still fit up snugly when the time to install them in earnest comes around, thus negating the use of putty on the seams. It may be the Ultimate Masking Trick. If it isn't, it'll be an unmitigated disaster. Stay tuned!

There's another thing that may prove of interest today, although it has nothing whatsoever to do with Skyhawks. There are a couple of different variations of the software that's used to produce this effort, and one of them allows you to put photographs in places other than the top of the page, which means you can also caption the photos. That's another seriously good thing, and the switch was flipped a few minutes ago. Your forebearance is still required, because there's still a learning curve going on, but we're getting closer to making this a more useful exercise for all concerned. Stay tuned, and stay patient.



That Old Dog Thing One More Time

Every once in a while I post pictures of things on one of the more popular scale modeling sites. The last time I did it one of the folks who follows the boards over there complimented the model and said that it was old school, which he liked. That's high praise to my ears, and if truth be known I'm still pretty excited that he said it. In some respects time may well have passed me (and probably more than a few of you, too) right on by; I rarely pre-shade, do limited post-shading, and do my best to make my models appear like the real airplanes that I worked around for the past 28+ years. It's a personal preference, if you will.

Truth be known, a lot of things that modelers do to make their work stand out makes for beautiful models (of a standard I doubt I'll ever achieve) but some of those models are a little too well-done for my tastes, at least in the paint and finishing department. I'm a big proponent of Less is More, and you'll see that in my work here. Subtlety is a Very Good Thing in my world.

That said, it's a big world and a lot of people are doing some seriously neat things with model airplanes these days. Couple that with the amazing variety of kits we have at our disposal, along with all the aftermarket and reference publications, and we can honestly say that we've never had it so good! It's truly a New Golden Age. There's no way I'd ever try to change anybody's style because that's what makes each and every model unique unto itself, and there's room for all of it. I'm Old School. You may not be. When it's all said and done it should be a Fun Thing no matter what you call it, and we should all strive to make our current project better than the one that came before it.

So why have you just endured this ramble? Well folks, it's Friday afternoon and I'm waiting for My Far Better Half to get here so we can go grab some Thai food. It is not, in other words, a particularly serious day! Thanks for visiting this week, and we'll see you again soon.

Be good to your neighbor,
phil 

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