As I sit here 3 weeks or so into the new year and having had the time to reflect upon the past year which was a relative success for me albeit a bit up and down,  I have to admit it did have its positives as it saw me grab the bull by the horns and start this blog it also gave me the chance to finish off 5 models over the course of the year (well the last 4  months at least), a definite year to remember and my best in living memory the trick now I suppose is try and emulate last years offering by getting back to the bench and do some modelling, however that will have to wait for now for 2 reasons, one I have decided to refurbish my mish mash of a workroom and secondly I need to finish this blog post, the workroom refurb is for anther time although I have started it and if you are interested on how I am getting on you can follow it on my Average Modeller Facebook page (Jason theaveragemodeller) just look me up.

Having got myself a little bit more involved in the hobby last year away from the workbench and the building of models for fun and myself it has enlightened me as to how we have changed as modellers and although that is not a bad thing yet it is not all positive. We see new kits books and painting/finishing products being released on almost a weekly basis, we see the model manufacturers sharing pre release CAD and sprue shots, and for the most part all I read are moans and complaints, why I do not know we have never had it so  good. I watched with interest a week or so ago as Airfix, that great British modelling institution announce their new releases for the coming year, to be honest I do not know why they bothered with the amount of moaning that I read on social media, it was off the scale, all I was reading was why they releasing that, I’m not going to buy it, it’s in the wrong scale, why are they giving us those decal options, who wants it in that scale, where are all the this, where are all the that, to be honest some of the remarks were just embarrassing to read, sometimes I think we need to take a good long, hard look at ourselves, this is a golden age of modelling and although I am not against the voicing of opinions some of it was just moaning for the sake of moaning  and was a tad embarrassing.

I will be honest what Airfix release each year does  not have a great bearing on what I choose to buy and build as they are mainly an aircraft manufacturer and I build armour (although I do have some aircraft kits in the stash) however since Hornby took over and they started releasing new tooled kits I have watched with interest what they have been coming out with ever since plus as most modellers from my generation started off building Airfix kits there is a bit of nostalgia added too, throw in the fact they are British and have a bit of the underdog attached to their chequered history and my interest is most definitely piqued. At Scale model world 2015 they had a 1/72 Phantom FG1 displayed on their stand which caught my attention and although I may not part with my hard earned cash for one I do look forward to seeing them on club stands and on the competition tables during the coming year. Fast forward to this year and the announcement of a Hawker Hunter in 1/48 and my interest has been grabbed firmly with both hands, I love the Hunter it is such a great looking aircraft and I will be adding one to my build list when it is released later in the year.

Once Christmas is over and we are rooted firmly in the new year I view with interest the lists of kits many of us modellers pray and dream are released that year, the plethora of different vehicles and aircraft that grace social media blog and forum posts is great to see and although many will not see the light of day this year a great many will and I look forward to these being announced, I also look forward to the Nuremberg toy fair at the end of this month and the shows that follow throughout the year and I still find  myself getting excited as these new kits are announced and I feel that is how it should be. Myself, I do not have long wish lists and I suppose that is why I do not feel the disappointment that others feel when my particular holy grail kit is not released I am just satisfied with what the manufacturers choose to send our way and after all if I do not want to buy or build what they choose to release I will not be disappointed as there is more enough kits out in the  market place and in my stash to keep me busy this year and beyond. What would I like to see this year? I would like to see a little less moaning about what the manufacturers decide to release for us in the coming year and the RAF museum London to turn their Buccaneer around so I can get a decent snap of it, however I guess some things are out of my control and human nature being what it is, it is our prerogative to vent our frustrations and in the modern age of the internet it gives everyone a voice even if it is just for the sake of it so I guess some things will always remain the same.

The Average Modeller.

As  I sit here with just under 2 weeks to go until the big day, in fact in 2 weeks time I will hopefully be sitting somewhere reflecting on a wonderful weekend spent in great company at the biggest and best model show in the world. Two weeks is probably a long time to some however in my case it may as well be minutes as the panic of the fast approaching trip to the midlands sets in and my frantic behaviour ridden modelling time reaches fever pitch and I get really really close to completely losing my mind. As this last week approached I was looking forward to finally adding the finishing touches to my collection of models that yours truly had planned to be ready for the club stand, I had a whole weekend to finish the building and prepare myself for the inevitable bouts of pulling my hair out as I painted them and got them ready to be boxed up for our trip to Telford. Saturday arrived and I cracked on finishing off my mid production Tiger 1 with some etch brass Zimmerit and getting a good solid coat of red primer on so that I could make a start on painting it either Sunday or the modelling evening I had planned for later that week, the airbrushes were gotten ready with a nice clean in preparation for the next days spraying. Now I do not know about you but I have a great trust in how I feel about something and as the cleaning of the airbrushes commenced I had a feeling that something was not quite right however I put it down to tiredness as I put the 2 brushes away ready for the morning and indulged in some relaxing TV viewing.

As Sunday morning arrived I set out my day priming a few things for the long suffering partner in crime and added the finishing touches to the priming of the Tiger, before that I decided to check the airbrush that had bothered me the night before and low and behold that nagging feeling I had was a bent needle tip, see you should always trust your instincts, not too much of an issue as I have 2 other brushes I can use 3 at a push. The rest of the day was littered with stop start use of the airbrush and problems with air pressure, nozzle blockages and the like and I found myself spending more time cleaning the damn things than actually using them. Now I am not going to lie my issues with my airbrushes are a constant irritant, it is not some errant issue with them but it is me, they are used sporadically and as my modelling mojo fluctuates so does their use. Over the years I had definitely been going with the school of thought that anybody can pick up and use an airbrush to a decent standard however recently it has come quite evident to me that this is not the case and you do need to practice practice and practice some more, I do not see myself as an artist or with any kind of eye for art in fact it was never a strong point of mine in school even though many members of my family are very artistic yet that particular gene pool seems to have skipped me by. As my weekend slowly dragged itself to a frustrating close I found myself with one less airbrush to use and no closer to getting anything remotely finished.

After having the issue with airbrush 1 and the weekends frustrations I decided to put the 2 nozzles I possess for airbrush 2 in a bottle of airbrush cleaner and leave them soaking over night no disaster there I thought to myself and I was right, that in itself was not the disaster, what I did next was where the disaster manifested itself, I shook them in the jar not once but many times trying to clean out the stubborn remnants of paint in the nozzle tips, bad idea the tips do not like being shook and low and behold when I removed them from the jar I had bent the tips on both of them, if ever there was a time when my level of stupidness astounded me, it was now, how could I have been so stupid shaking the 2 nozzles around like I was shaking a pair of maracas, after bending the needle of airbrush 1, bending the nozzle ends of airbrush 2, what other calamities could befall my ever failing collection of airbrushes, have no fear more was to come. Speeding ahead just 24 hours and with just 1 airbrush left, my new Iwata HP-CH what else could go wrong?…..

For Telford I have numerous kits in varying forms of completion which includes the mid production Tiger 1 that was mentioned earlier and a 1/48 scale T34, so with the little tank, paint, and airbrush in hand I went off to the shed to commence my evenings painting, after a few minutes the choice of colour for my highlights seemed a bit too bright so I decided to put that aside and move on to painting the Tiger, so off I went to clean the green paint out the airbrush and get ready for some nice coats of desert yellow or dunkelgelb to those who care. Whilst cleaning my airbrush I decided to run a small  cleaning brush through the nozzle cap which although it cleared out some paint remnants it had also put a slight burr on the edge of the hole and a slight split near the top which of course was unbeknown to me, so back off to the shed it was with a bottle of  Mig Dunkelgelb and my airbrush to spray the first coats of paint over my lovely red primer what could possibly go wrong? as I sprayed the first line of paint the airbrush did not sound right, it was spluttering, thinking it may be a bit clogged I sprayed some away from the model and then had another go, nope still spluttering I also noticed the paint was just sitting on the primer and not really covering it, not to be put off I went and picked up my very little used Iwata TR2, now this is an airbrush that I have never really got to grips with but now was it’s moment of glory. Sadly it was to be a false dawn as the paint I sprayed from it just sat on the model and looked awful, so after laying the airbrush down I ran the 3 parts of my Tiger under the tap and washed the remnants of the paint off now this is one of the many good points of using acrylic paints, it is water based, so with paint removed I put the parts in the airing cupboard to dry off until it’s next date with paint.

After cleaning my airbrushes, putting them away and calming my nerves with a pizza I bit the bullet and spent rather a large amount of money with the Airbrush Company replacing all the parts I had managed to bend break or damage over the last couple of days and sat down for a bout of detail painting which oddly I found quite calming and very therapeutic. Is there a moral to this story?, possibly however we are not finished yet. Not only had I had suffered self inflicted airbrush disasters there was also the fact that there were issues with the Mig paint that had been used and that is where the internet and specifically You tube comes in handy and one video later I was fully  understanding as to why it did not take, you have to use the Mig paint differently than say Tamiya Vallejo AK or Gunze Sangyo and that is for another time, so I ordered some Vallejo and AK interactive paint to speed up that particular job.

So here we are less than 2 weeks until we pack up and make the longish trek to Shropshire with me being maybe a little closer to being ready than I was a week ago but not as far forward as I would have hoped and definitely would liked to have been. I have now got less time to get those projects over the line yet it is doable however I am now up against it and under more pressure than ever, last year I was still matt varnishing my Tamiya MKIV on the Thursday night and drying it with a hair dryer, I do not plan to be doing that this year, a Thursday night of a take away and relaxation would be wonderful so the countdown is on. Now the moral to this particular tail is this, my mum used to say to me as a child you should not put anything in your ear sharper than your elbow wise words indeed yet the same can be said about airbrushes, they are precision tools with delicate easily damaged parts and they need to be handled and cleaned with care (please take note Jason), I am now going to change how I clean my collection of airbrushes thanks to my friend and club mate Keith Forsyth and we will see how I get on with that, the clock for Telford is definitely ticking and I have so so so much to do…..

The Average Modeller

After getting over my shock of actually finishing some models ready for the Farnborough model show back in mid September modelling had sadly taken a back seat as life, work and other responsibilities had unfortunately gotten in the way. Last Tuesday I managed to return to the bench and look forward to the ominous spectre that is scale model world lurking somewhere in the very near future, whilst sitting in my chair I happened to notice my IPMS membership card hanging on the back of my work room door and as I picked it up to take a look you can imagine my horror when I discovered that somehow over the period since Farnborough it had somehow gotten wet and the usual clear information on it’s front had become a touch obscured, however after a quick email to Cliff Bassett IPMS UK membership secretary polarity was returned as he put my mind at rest as he told me that all should be ok as the relevant info was still legible, it never hurts to check these things especially with little over a month to go I did not fancy the indignation and disappointment of being told,  sorry you cannot come in.

I am not going to lie I have felt a little under pressure of late with that fast approaching trip to Telford and the need to get some things over the finish line, this weekend for me was a great opportunity to get my reluctant backside to the bench and try and sneak some things ever closer to that most sort after place, the finish line and with no football to ruin my day it was off to the workroom. To set the scene, I have been working on a Tamiya Tiger 1 mid production for a Tiger build challenge within the members of my model club with the idea of them being ready for our club stand at Telford, now for reasons only known to me instead of going for a simple out of the box build with maybe a Tamiya early or initial production Tiger I opted for a Mid production variant with the addition of some resin Zimmerit, some etch brass grills, a turned aluminium barrel and some metal tracks. Now being one that usually shy’s away from etch brass and resin it will come as no surprise that I was avoiding starting the project like the plague, unfortunately with time not really being on my side I had to bite the bullet and just get on with it. I thought with this build my approach would be slightly different as I was having to deal with some after market products and get it over the finish line and reasonably quickly, so I decided to actually follow the instructions and add the aftermarket as I went along, all was going ok until it came to the adding of the etch grills and of course the need to use super glue, now me and super glue have a sketchy past, occasionally everything goes according to plan, and other times everything goes to hell and back again and this tends to escalate quite quickly. Now I tend to avoid etch brass as it bends far too easily and some of the pieces of etch are so small they are very easily lost, pinging off into the atmosphere never ever to be found again plus there is the need to attach it with super glue. Surprisingly I only encountered a few issues attaching the four etch grills with only one needing an extra blob of glue to convince it to stay where I put it.

With the upper hull looking the part it was now time to turn my attention to the resin zimmerit, I have never used resin zimmerit before successfully, I had dabbled with an old Verlinden set some years ago this set from Atak was a lot different and I have to say this is very very thin resin, after deciding to tackle the lower chassis first I cut out the thin resin and glued it on, I am not going to lie it went on ok however I was having trouble with the glue drying too quick, I persevered though, the second part went on ok although I was still having trouble with the glue going off too quickly. Now if I had known then what was to happen later I would have stopped there and sourced myself some slower curing super glue, now as is the norm I changed tact, I went from using super glue to using some Gorilla white glue, sadly this did not quite go to plan and once again I  reached for the super glue. Feeling really pleased with how the lower hull was looking I moved onto the upper sides and once again the earlier issues were rearing there ugly head however I managed to get the complete lower hull finished within a couple of hours and sat back feeling really pleased with my work, not something I can honestly say I do very often.

With the lower hull complete I reluctantly moved my attention to the turret, now I perhaps should have started with the turret but being notoriously adept at avoiding things I do not want to do, I left it to last. They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and if it was possible to turn the clock back I would however without the benefit of either of these I turned my attention back to the turret and oh how I wish I had not, after carefully cleaning up the 2 thin resin turret sides I decided to apply my super glue, and this is where I went from complete success to an absolute disaster in one fell swoop. I had been using a micro brush to apply my super glue and my common sense was telling me that I should stick with this (no pun intended) however I did not follow the common sense route and decided to apply the glue straight from the pot and this is where my self made disaster manifested itself, now had the resin sheet gone on straight the issue of a bit too much glue could have been dealt with however it was not to be. The resin went on at a peculiar angle prompting a quick panicked response from me and within seconds I had a chunk of split and broken resin sheet stuck to the fingers of my left hand and super glue everywhere, luckily I keep a tidy and orderly bench otherwise the carnage would have been a whole lot worse. After a not so careful assessment of the carnage and a rant at my long suffering partner in crime Kerry I decided that the best and only course of action was to cut my losses and throw it in the bin, once carefully put in the bin I cleaned myself, the bathroom and my workbench up and after a short burst of exasperated huffing and puffing I retrieved it from the bin, setting aside the lower hull, upper hull gun mantlet and the spare unused resin parts I did my best to clean up the turret and the overglued zimmerit however it was becoming quite clear to me that I needed a new turret and some other kind of zimmerit to complete the project. As luck would have it I had a Tiger 1 turret that was going spare as part of an old project that I had long abandoned, all I needed to do is source some replacement  Zimmerit which I did via ebay and voila the day was saved.

The moral of this particular tale?, practice practice and more practice, I could not of envisaged the disaster that was going to unfold Saturday afternoon and as it was my first time using resin zimmerit coupled with my dodgy past with super glue the chances of it going wrong were probably high anyway, would I use resin zim again, probably yes after all if you never step out of your comfort zone, or never give anything new a try how are you ever going to know if you can do it or not, it is good to step out of it once in a while and after all we should have high aspirations and try and be better than our last project even though this is not always the case, we should at least try.

The Average Modeller

Normally the opportunity to spend a whole weekend in the company of good friends and models occurs just once a year however this year is a bit different. In an advancement on the very fast approaching annual trip to Telford for Scale Model World this coming weekend will see myself and my ever suffering partner in crime Kerry attending the Farnborough model show and the new Euro Miniature Expo in sunny Folkestone, this last week or so has seen us extremely busy at the bench adding the finishing touches to a few models to fill the club stand with, or in my case completely weathering 3 tanks that look very much the same, there is not much variation on a green tank yet I have been slaving away doing my best to ruin the paint work I have been striving for who knows how long to look right. Now with just one day left to go until the 2 shows are upon us and it is just a case of adding the finishing touches, packing them all up for the journey, ironing the club attire charging the camera batteries and getting ourselves there.

It is not very often I say this however it has been quite a revelation the last 7/8 weeks as I found my way through 2 complete builds even though these have only been primed and base coated it is a far cry from my struggles in the early part of the year when the mere thought of opening a box full of plastic filled me with dread self doubt and highlighted a severe lack of drive and motivation, yet I have not only built 2 complete kits another 4 kits found there way to the shed to be airbrushed and 3 out of that 4 have made it to the final steps of my very disjointed and direction lacking weathering sequence. What I have learnt as I sat with a blank look on my face on where to start my weathering sequence is that finding a way that makes me happy and comfortable when applying weathering to my chosen project is something that needs to be found. Over the years I have read many an article on how I should be weathering my tank none of which have worked for me, maybe a different approach is needed by myself to find a suitable way of reaching the level and the finish I desire.

With the hotel booked and paid for and club members touched bass with our attention can now turn to getting through tomorrow, packing the car up and having that final sleep and then getting up at silly o’clock on a saturday to take the final hour or so drive over to Camberley for what is one of my favourite shows of the year, IPMS Farnboroughs  Modelfest, however before we do there is just the small fact of getting those 3 little green tanks finished, matt coated boxed and ready to display. Modelling for me at the moment is a journey, a journey of being motivated enough to make a start on something and the drive to see it through until the thing is built, it is then a case of taking a deep breath, spraying on some primer and trying different approaches until I manage to find a system that works for me, it may be an idea for me to make some notes so that each one that does not work for me can be crossed of until I find that winning formula, and then practice practice practice because after all practice does make perfect, well as perfect as I am ever gonna get. So until the next time I am journeying out into the shed for a little painting session I will just enjoy what I have done, what I am doing and enjoy that weekend full of models….

The Average Modeller

I was flicking through social media the other lunchtime and specifically Facebook and was reading with not too much enthusiasm the news that Takom, or it could have been Meng or perhaps both announce the release of the Panther A family in 1/35 scale, please do not get me wrong I love a Panther it is a great looking tank, although I do prefer the G variant, I am digressing, of course it is just another model of just another tank that has been released before by someone else, now I am no real judge of the decisions made by model manufacturers as to what they should or should not release but please why do they need to recycle what has been done before when there are numerous subjects that have yet to see the light of day in plastic, and why oh why does one manufacturer announce a kit and low and behold someone else announces the same kit a week or so later, it smells of a lack of imagination from my point of view. During the same visit to the said social media platform I also noticed that Tamiya had announced a 1/35 British Archer SPG which raised a few social media eyebrows however from my point of view it is a far better choice than yet another model of yet another tank that has been released before, now I am aware that the Archer was released by Bronco a few years back however you can’t beat a new release from the big T.

I am playing devils advocate of course, when I started modelling in the early 90’s and back then when you visited the local model shop, we had no internet in those days you had very few choices to what you could see on those model shop shelves, Tamiya italeri Airfix Hasegawa and very early Dragon kits were all that you could spend your hard earned cash on and new kits were few and far between jump forward 25 years and the plethora of kits available is mind blowing in comparison we have never had it so good, so why is it when another new kit is announced we all groan with a lack of enthusiasm and excitement, we then start seeing the CAD rendered drawings being picked apart by the so called social media and forum dwelling ‘experts’, I have a theory on this we have become spoilt, spoilt by the amount of subjects being released, spoilt by the openness of kit manufacturers who are willing to share with us theses early rendered drawings and sprue shots and spoilt by our willingness to take to the internet and have a moan about yet another panzer Messerschmitt or Spitfire that will soon be hitting the model shop shelves.

Since the advent of mass internet access in the mid to late 90’s it has become quite normal to see a new kit announced and then see it being picked apart and the manufacturer criticized by forum and armchair experts as to their subject choice, we are not being made to buy what is being released, nobody is visiting your house in the middle of the night dragging you out of bed holding a gun to your head until you buy it, we all have a choice as to whether we buy this newly released kit or not. From a personal point of view when I see a new kit announced or released it either excites me or it doesn’t, I will either buy it or not, I do not see the point in criticizing it just for the sake of it, yet sadly there are those out there that do, those who just like to moan just for the sake of moaning picking new kits apart like they are some kind of rotting carcass by the modelling definition of vultures who are just waiting to do so.

Modelling in 2017 is a great place to be we are seeing kits being announced on a nearly weekly basis, and the subjects that are seeing the light of day are ones we could have only dreamed about 10/15 years ago, I can remember drooling over Accurate Armours selection of Scammel’s wishing that they would be available in plastic and low and behold this year we have seen them being released by Thunder and IBG models respectively, a definite golden age of modelling. Earlier this year Kittyhawk released the Sukhoi Fitter in 1/48 scale a kit that took quite a bit of negative press when it was released, now I will be honest it isn’t a kit that I am ever likely to build although when I saw a pair flying at RIAT in 2015 I may have been tempted however I have a huge amount of kits to build and I do not really need to add to them. There have been many negative comments littering the many internet forums about it’s alleged flaws and fit issues however I have also seen many positive comments and have seen one or two built up on the internet, I think this is a prime example of trial by internet and the way I see it is it is all opinion based. Now there is nothing wrong with voicing your opinion and after all we all like to do it however it does not help when all this opinion is not based on actual fact, I can’t say that the Kittyhawk Fitter is accurate easy to build and goes together like a dream as I do not have one and have not built it, what I do know is that there are those that are in a better position than I who have seen one, built it and these are the people who in my mind are the ones whose opinion we should be listening to and not those keyboard moaners who like nothing better than to moan, it also has a negative effect and puts off the newcomers to the hobby, there is nothing worse than seeing a kit of something you would love to build only to visit a forum to court opinion and all you see is negative comments and opinions, it’s not helpful one bit, although I believe the kitthawk Fitter is quite a complex kit and not an ideal kit for a beginner to cut there teeth on there are plenty of kits out there that are perfectly suited to this task, I personally would never reach for anything complex if I was to say change my area of modelling to say aircraft, I would love to build a wingnut wings aircraft they just look so beautiful built up and painted however I am well aware of my shortcomings and they are just to complex for my skills set for now, maybe soon but not just yet.

In this golden age of modelling with the large range of kits and accessories available to us, the huge amount of specialist tools paints and finishing products, the vast amount of specialist books and magazines, access to the internet and the many forums and meeting places to share information and research yet we still have the nerve to moan about this and moan about that like petulant spoilt children throwing a virtual tantrum every time a new kit is announced that is not to our liking. I can come to only one conclusion when I read internet threads bemoaning the fact that the next big release will be yet another non descript paper panzer and not something that we want personally and that is we have become very spoilt and very very very hard to please.

The Average Modeller.